Had N.C. Vasanthakokilam lived longer, she might have been rated on par with M.S. Subbulakshmi. A profile of the short-lived Carnatic vocalist on her death anniversary today when acclaimed Hindustani musician Sulochana Brahaspati turns 80:
When Sulochana Brahaspati married an acclaimed musicologist and thus got the surname, it was like the Yamuna merging with the Ganga in her native Allahabad. Hindustani classical was guaranteed of an eminent vocalist with a scholarly husband who could enrich her talent and blend professional life with personal.
Around the time Sulochana was born in the Bundelkhandi pilgrim town (now a city in southwest Uttar Pradesh) in 1937, down the country the Carnatic stream had sensed the rise of a star performer. Teenaged N.C. Vasanthakokilam had taken the south Indian classical music world by storm, performing prolifically in prestigious venues across Tamil Nadu to where her family her moved in from Kerala when the artiste was a toddler.
Vasanthakokilam was a highly-rated contemporary of M.S. Subbulakshmi, just three years younger to the iconic musician who went on to win the Bharat Ratna. Like Sulochana, Subbulakshmi too had a life partner to complement as well as prop her immense talent. On the contrary, Vasanthakokilam had a disastrous marriage. Her husband, far from promoting her career, stood in its way, dictating that the promising vocalist gave up public concerts altogether. True, the artiste did salvage herself on marrying a second time, but that wasn’t far before she fell prey to tuberculosis—and died at just 32. That was in 1951.
Today (November 7) is Vasanthakokilam’s 66th death anniversary, coinciding with the 80th birthday of Vidushi Sulochana. One is the tale of a sadly short existence; the other is that of the celebration of a meaningful life that continues actively in music circuits and on concert platforms. A Padma Shri awardee who the Sangeet Natak Akademi honoured in 1994 for her contributions to the arts, Sulochana is an author with felicity in presenting almost all Hindustani genres: khayal, dhrupad, thumri, tappa and dadra.
Sulochana did find an ideal life partner in classical music scholar Kailash Chandra Dev Brahaspati, born in Rampur—which is also a Hindustani school that the female vocalist has mastered. For north Indian classical, Rampur is much beyond being a place in northwest Uttar Pradesh; it had given birth to a gharana with its origins in court musicians. Not surprising, thus, that Sulochana got intense music training from Ustad Mushtaq Hussain Khan. The 1878-born master (a disciple of legendary Inayat Hussain Khan who is considered the father of Sahaswan gharana to which Rampur later got affiliated) taught young Sulochana in the evening of his life. Besides the ustad (who died in 1964), her musical skills were moulded by Pandit Bholanath Bhat—a maestro with family roots in Fatehpur Sikri off Agra but had been living in Allahabad since 1937 (incidentally the year of Sulochana’s birth).
Once she married Brahaspati (19 years elder to her), Sulochana benefited even more musicially: the man taught him deeper and wider about both the theory and practice of raga, swara and tala. Gifted with a voice that is particularly robust at the lower registers (and thus reminiscent of legendary vocalist Gangubai Hangal), her style has huge following in younger generations as well. “This is addictive. Feels like voice coming from a deep source,” says Priyanka Tomar, a buff. Sulochana (an MA in English literature) has also made bids to bridge Hindustani music with that of the West. Having widely travelled in European countries on music collaborations, the winner of Madhya Pradesh government’s Tansen Puraskar has also penned books titled Khusro, Tansen Tatha Anya Kalakar and Raag Rahasya.
If Sulochana has stuck to classical music, southern nightingale Vasanthakokilam did have her trysts with Tamil cinema as well. That was for a decade—from 1940 to ’50—during which she sang a dozen numbers in seven films. While it was renowned classical musician Papanasam Sivan who was the composer in a couple of those movies, none among the others were any lesser figures: G. Govindarajulu Naidu, S.M. Subbaiah Naidu, G. Ramanathan and C.S. Jayaraman. She even acted in a few flicks, starting with Chandraguptha Chanakya (1940) in her role as Princess Chhaya.
Beyond sweetness that is essential to popular music, Vasanthakokilam’s rendition was so full of frills that simultaneously made her a serious vocalist to reckon with in a short time. Especially sharp and silken were her forays to the upper notes (in contrast, contextually, to Sulochana’s reposeful style that was bottom-heavy), lending Vasanthakokilam’s presentation very springy, with a feel of Harikatha, the stylised Purana story-telling discourse in which her guru Jalra Gopala Iyer was a specialist. This kind of a celebration was particularly pronounced in her delineation of flowery ragas like Mohanam, Kamboji and Kharaharapriya.
Octogenarian Venkatarama Krishnan notes that Vasanthakokilam “was an extraordinarily gifted singer better than MS (Subbulakshmi) in those times. She was our next door neighbour in Gopalapuram, Madras during 1947-48,” he winds back in a social-media comment below a bouquet of kritis sung by the vocalist. “We used to listen to everyday to her rehearsals flowing through the walls for more than a year. Gifted with a mellifluous voice rendering wonderful gamakas she was an absolute delight to hear.”
By the turn of Independence, Vasanthakokilam too had found freedom her first husband, by marrying lawyer-turned-filmmaker C.K. Sathasivam. That way she had found positivity at home—much like Subbulakshmi (1916-2004) enjoyed it from encouraging husband ‘Kalki’ Sadasivam, who was a journalist.
If Subbulakshmi’s was a more successful journey in life with her moving from Madurai to Madras, Vasanthakolikalam’s drew a shorter parallel after moving from Vellangallur village near Irinjalakuda in present-day Thrissur district of central Kerala to the Tamil land. Kamakshi was her original name, notes music buff-journalist Rama Chandran, a relative of the musician. “The family shifted from there to Nagapattinam,” he notes in a blog. Later, “they moved to Madras in 1936, encouraged by K. Subrahmanyam, film director. Her name was changed to Vasanthakokilam.”