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When Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer was asked to list the great geniuses of Carnatic Music, he thought of only three names; 'Flute' Mali, T N Rajarathinam Pillai and Palghat Mani Iyer. That Mali and or T R Mahalingam though the youngest of the three, had come first to the mind of the ageing grandsire of music spoke eloquently of his unquestioned virtuosity on the flute. He was, in many ways, the flute quivalent of Rajarathinam Pillai on the Nageswaram. When Mali was in the mood he played some of the finest melodies on his flute, enchanting his listers and taking them on the path to musical nirvana. He did not just please his listeners, he would also move their hearts. But like Rajarathinam, Mali also was also associated with the strangest of eccentricities.
Such was his music and his unparalleled divine genius and together with his eccentricity, he stormed the world of music and left behind an eternal legacy of music that should be presented the way it should always be presented. His respect, concern and gratitude for those who respected him for he was as a person mattered more to him than the numerous awards and felicitations that he outrightly ignored. His deprived childhood, a corollary of his own success made many misunderstand his eccentric behaviour for his search and calling was beyond the material realm. This tribute would hope to do some real justice to the maestro or rather the wizard who has seen it all through a life of glistening fame and the darkness of loneliness.
Birthplace & Childhood Life
Mahalingam or Mali was born on November 6, 1926, to Ramaswamy Iyer and Brahadambal of Talainayar village of Tanjore District. The family was then residing at the nearby Tiruvidaimarudur town and was named after Mahalingaswami, the presiding deity of the temple. Mali was one among six siblings and his father was involved in agriculture besides the running of a small time business. As a three-year-old, the boy developed a boil on his right hand, that necessitated immediate treatment and he was therefore sent to his grandfather's house in Trichy. Shortly afterwards. Shortly afterwards, his parents too moved to the same town.
Gopala Iyer, a kinsman of Ramaswamy Iyer, had a good knowledge of music with the ability to play on the violin, the harmonium and the flute, besides being a good vocalist. He was eking out his livelihood as a music teacher, and very soon the entire Ramaswamy Iyer brood was enrolled for music lesson with him. Mali's eldest brother Gautaman learnt the lute while sister Devaki was taught vocal music. Mali himself, considered to be too frail of body to learn the flute, was taught vocal music. But it was the flute that really attracted him. He began to practice on it secretly, and rapidly acquired mastery over it.
Gopala Iyer, who soon discovered this interest was fasicinated by what he heard and tried to get Mali's father to let his son switch from vocal music to the flute. But the father would not agree. Nevertheless, when Mali learnt by himself the complicated Viribhoni varnam (Bhairavi, Pachaimiriyam Adiyappaiyaah) and even played it in three speeds, his father had to concede that there was something unusual about his son. He permitted him to enroll for formal lessons and within two years, Mali, aided by his guru to some extent, had taught himself all that could be known bout the flute. Possess of a strange faculty that enabled him to play any song he heard once, he rapidly advanced into the realms of alapanas, pallavis, neravals and svarams. His family came to recognise that in Mali they had a child prodigy.
Meeting with Palladam Sanjeeva Rao
Ramaswamy Iyer decided that Mali ought to perform before senior artistes and get their blessings. He took the boy to meet the then numero uno of the flute, Palladam Sanjeeva Rao, who had come to Trichy for a concert performance. Violinist Marungapuri Gopalakrishna Iyer and mirdangist Tanjore Vaidyanatha Iyer too were present and Mali took up the Bhairvai varnam followed by a song of Tyagaraja in Todi. Sanjeeva Rao got up abruptly and left even as Mali began the second piece. On being pressed by the boy's father for an opinion he replied curtly 'that the boy was not playing any flute'. In may ways this was true. Mali, had even at that age managed to perform in the vocal style, reproducing several of the gamakas that were hitherto considered impossible on the flute! Sanjeeva Rao, recognising the talent in the lad, had actually withheld his approval out of sheer jealousy. The accompanists, both senior musicians, were however most effusive in their praise.
Seeking Early College Education
Mali's father then took him to the Music College in Chidambaram and got him to perform in the presence of T S Sabhesa Iyer, the veteran guru, then serving there as the Principal. For some reason Sabhesa Iyer offered to enroll the young boy in a course for Nagaswaram playing. It has since been said in explanation that Sabhesa Iyer did so as there was no course then in the University for teaching the flute. But it was wa period when it was unheard of for a Brahmin boy to take to the Nagaswaram. Mali's father, taking this offer to be a calculated insult, gave vent to his ire in no uncertain terms resulting in a big argument with Sabhesa Iyer.
In the beginning, finding suitable accompaniments was a major headache and nobody wanted to be seen accompanying a mere stripling (even if he was actually capable of teaching them a trick or two in music). Soon however, Marungapuri Gopalakrishna Iyer came forward to accompany him on the violin. Mali's father then took the lad to Vizag where the Music College had Dwaram Venkataswami Naidu as its Principal. While Mali could not enroll at the college being under-aged, he came under the influence of the benign Dwaramgaru, who accompanied him of ten on the violin and kanjira during practice sessions at home. Despite being many years Mali's senior and a front ranking violinist, Dwaram had no hesitation in accompanying Mali during a few public concerts as well, thereby helping him establish himself.
Debut Concert in Madras
Mali's debut in Madras city was in 1933, when his father presented him under the auspices of the Tyagaraja Festival organised by the Rasika Ranjana Sabha, Mylapore. Accompanied by Rajamani on the vilin and Triplicane Srinivasa Rao on the mridangam, he gave a stupendous performance at the end which veterans Parur Sundaram Iyer and Musiri Subramania Iyer presented him with a silk shawl. His career took off after this and he was much in demand. The family's financial circumstances improved and they were able to move from the one room tenement they were occupying beside a mosque in Triplicate to a larger house on Triplicane High Road.
Concert to Stardom
Soon senior accompanists began to accept concert opportunities with him. Among the violinists, Chowdiah, Papa K S Venkataramaiah and Kumbhakonam Rajamanikkam Pillai were all to accompany him frequently. Pudukottai Dakshinamurthy Pillai, Kumbhakonam Azhagianambi Pillai and Tanjore Vaidyanatha Iyer were the early percussionts who accompanied him, thereby indicating the kind of stature that Mali was to enjoy even at that young age. Later maverick stalwarts like Palghat Mani Iyer and Palani Subramania Pilai shared the stage with him.
This was the period when Mali was the blue-eyes boy of the Carnatic fraternity. A boy of slight build with extraordinarily bright eyes, often hidden by a thick mop of hair that fell over his forehead, he was all innocence even as he respectfully carried out his father's bidding, many times to the very limits of his endurance. The father even went many times to the very limits of his endurance. The father even went to the extent of releasing advertisements on his son's great abilities in various magazines trying to attract more performance opportunities. These came in thick and fast, with crowds becoming unmanageable at most of his performances. At one particular concert, Mali had to be hoisted on to the shoulders of the hefty Kumbhakonam Rajamanikkam Pillai to negotiate the crowds. During this stage, Mali's music was fast and brilliant with rapid-fire bhrigas and quick glides. To the audience, which was used to hearing mainly staccato notes from his predecessors on the flute, Mali's usage of the gamakas was a great novelty. It brought the flute closer to the human voice.
As the years progressed, Mali's music continued to flower. An introduction to the Dhanammal family in the early 1940s by Papa Venkataramaiah exposed Mali to the joys of the slow moving padams and frisky javalis. Many a day he sat at the feet of Dhanammal's third daughter Jayammal and imbibed the finer nuances of Carnatic music. Adopting a more sedate style, his music became exploratory taking his audiences on a long and lovely trek and transporting to a world they had experience till then on only in the company of Rajarathinam Pillai. Mali acquired an enormous repertoire of songs, though in later years, he was in the habit of repeating a small selection over and over again.
Redesigning the Flute
He later went on to redesign the flute as well, making its reed thicker and its bore smaller to produce a strong and rich tone. Mali also altered the lipping and fingering techniques. His left hand held the flute in a peculiar way that came to be called the 'parrot clutch', which helped him in controlling the instrument. Unlike his predecessors he used flutes with eight holes in them. According to Professor Sambamoorthy, the musicologist, it was the eighth and extra hole that provided Mali with the extraordinary control he had on the instrument.
Reigning Supreme in Manodharma
In raga alapanas, Mali was at his best. He would not develop the raga note by note as GNB has perfected. On the other hand, he would select a few notes that were characteristic of the raga and continuously hover around them. In the hand of a lesser artiste this would have appeared monotonous, but Mali could demonstrate infinite shades in each note and together with various note combinations he could coax out the ragas's essence itself. Often, it appeared that he came to concerts with certain notes in mind. He would select ragas that had similar combinations and perform them demonstrating the subtle differences that each one had to bring about their individuality. His alapanas were long drawn creative affairs and he would take his time on each note, exploring its myriad beauties before going on to the next. He had tremendous breath control and could dwell on each note for over forty seconds, thereby lending full power to his blowing technique. Unlike most other flautists, Mali, through his amazing control over the instrument managed to infuse greater power volume in the lowest octave than in the higher ones. This made his meandering alapanas in this octave resonant and rich, very much like a bass singer. His essays of ragas like Bhairavi, Khamboji, Kalyani apart, Mali's brand of Athana, Sahana, Yadukulakhamboji, Bilahari, Kannada and etc., were very special.
In svaras, Mali was unparalleled. Here too he would select a set of notes and dwell on them, but what set apart his svara rendition was the usage of pauses. These could be in the beginning, middle or the end of a svara passage. His unerring sense of beat would guide him to the end of the tala cycles even if he paused in between. But all this meant that his accompanists had to be extra careful. The pauses also increased the sense of anticipation among the audience, each member trying to guess the next svara combination that would emerge from the flute.
The Brilliant Violinist
Mali was also a brilliant violinist. His violin, a battered instrument that was thrown about his lodgings often with a string or two short produced an unparalleled kind of music. However, there were only two occasions he had performed in public on the violin. Some records mentioned that he had accompanied the vocal stalwart Chembai Vaidhyanatha Bhagavathar on the violin. Mali himself felt that he was better as a violinist than as a flautist.
Later Years I: Eccentrics & Paranormal Claims
By 1939 Mali had begun what was to be a long line of eccentric acts. That year he cancelled a concert performance at the Ramakrishna Mission in Mylapore claiming that he was too distressed by the memories of his elder sister Devaki who had passed away some years earlier. In the 1950s, in a widely publicised event, the R R Sabha officials who managed to persuade him to perform a violin recital for the event was left dumbfounded when he did not turn up.
Later Years II: Psychosomatic Moods
In his sixteenth year, he claimed that had a strange experience, that a dazzling white light appeared to enter his head and an excruciating headache followed which remained with him for the rest of life. The headache which occurs on sporadic bursts and he would suffer in silence and solitude without telling anyone about it. The fear of this attack drove him to the bottle and he began to imbibe large quantities of alcohol which he would even consume on stage or during a live broadcast at AIR (where on one occasion the AIR station director had to remove him from a live broadcast). On two other occasions, the radio station played a recording of his without his live performance and got Tirupamburam Swaminatha Pillai to perform instead. There were times when he would be too drunk to perform and either not turn up at all or even land up and take the entire audience for a ride leading to several ugly scenes. He also put up on several occasions with also another close drinking friend, another legend, the inimitable Nagaswaram genius T N Rajarathinam Pillai discussing about music and life over a bottle of alcohol.
Many believed that the headaches was psychosomatic and was a result of his denied childhood and the economic pressures his father has unwaveringly exerted on him.
Later Years III: Withdrawal Moods
When his family was 'settled', he gradually stopped playing for the audiences and would play for himself and on his own terms. Very much a lone, he shifted to bachelor's digs at Bazaar Street, Mylapore when most of his first students learnt from him albeit rather sporadically as they picked up his techniques only when he performed. According to B M Sundar Rao, one of his first batch of students, Flute Mali brought him to a cemetery to sleep on the graves and more than that conversed on important lessons of life. In another occasion, when his concert was billed to start after the D K Pattammal's performance, he absconded after publicly praising her concert offered his goodbyes and vanished. In another occasion, he called off his concert at the last minute at the Ramakrishna Mission Home in Mylapore, disguised himself and went back to the notice board laughing to himself after listening to the audience cursing him. On another major event, he absconded from a recital with the violin maestro M S Gopalakrishnan in the Presidential Palace with the latter giving a violin solo recital instead.
Later Years IV: Helping Those In Need
There were however numerous occasions when he helped those in need despite his strange behaviour. When M K Thyagaraja Bhagavathar, the first superstar of Tamil Cinema had to call off a concert in 1952 due to ill health (due to the litigation of the Lakshmikanten Murder Case), Mali stood in for him at the last minute. He would perform regularly at a temple in Madras run by an old lady who was never in awe of his greatness but genuinely fond of his music. He never failed in his promises to her, often calling on her in advance to ascertain the dates.
There were occasions when Mali would be so pleased with his accompanists that he would give them the entire concert free including his own. He did this once to Vellore Ramabhadran and discovering the next day he himself had no money, sent a note to Ramabhadran asking id he could please lend Rs 10.
Later Years V: Standing Taller Than His Giants
Such was the calibre of the flute wizard that some of the top most monarchs of Carnatic vocal music accompanied him in his performances. On one famous instance at the Thyagaraja Vidwat Samajam, Chembai played the violin for Mali while Viswanatha Iyer (the guru of Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer) played on the mridangam that awed everyone. Musiri Subramania Iyer was so moved by Mali's rendition of Matada Baradeno that he requested him to play it again. GNB and Semmangudi the regining emperors of Carnatic vocal music even mockingly told each other that they should quit music after listening to a recital of Flute Mali in complete disguise in a packed concert of Mali.
Though he respected the music of his seniors, he was not in awe of them and never hesitated in putting them in their place if he felt that they overstepped limits. When, during a performance at the R R Sabha, he was disturbed by T L Venkatarama Iyer and Mudicondan Venatarama Iyer chatting loudly in the front row, he publicly admonished them over the mike. And when they did not stop, ended his own performance by playing the mangalam (the concluding piece) at once. He had also publicly challenged the superiority of his music with Palladam Sanjeeva Rao for the early insult he received as a boy in the midst of a Music Academy performance. He later left to the US in 1980 after marrying Ellen, an American disciple of his and stayed there for the next five years accepting concert engagements of at least $2000 per concert.
Later Years VI: Premonition of his Death
In 1986, he returned to India and what appears to be a strong premonition of death, Mali sent out photographs of himself to various magazines and dailies stating that 'they may need the visuals when there was news about him'. The end came after a cerebral haemorrhage on 30th May that year. By strange coincidence, he died on the same day that his admirer and accompanist Palghat Mani Iyer had departed five years earlier.
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