M(indful) S(inger) Subbulakshmi & her lessons for excellence

One hundred years ago we were blessed to have a priceless treasure take birth in our country. Anyone who has heard her sing is mesmerised. I heard this song for the first time when I was 5 & was hooked to the voice & the rendition.

A leader in her art there are a lot of qualities she has shown that we can imbibe in our journey of life. When we consciously make an attempt to make that difference in ourselves it is possible to walk on that path of excellence. She embodies the quote, " Excellence is never an accident; it is the result of high intention, Sincere effort, Intelligent direction, skillful execution & the vision to see obstacles as opportunities." A few qualities that we can strive to work on are:

Completely immersed while singing M.S was a Perfectionist. A point shared by her daughter Radha who accompanied her in most of her concerts. In one of her interviews Radha shares how countless hours of practice & polish more than a 100 times of the final stage performance made her singing flawless. She further goes on to say that diction & meaning were very important to Amma who respected her audience that all her concerts would also start on dot as she did not want to be disrespectful to them.

Detached: The list of awards are endless. The prominent being Sangeetha Kalanidhi, Padma Vibhushan, Ramon Magsaysay & the Bharat Ratna. All she said when she said when it was announced she would Bharat Ratna “Why all this for me?” This sentence holds the key to the charisma of M.S.Amma. She never realised the spell she cast on her audiences. She was passionate & completely into the art & not on the fruits it bore. She attributed it as a blessing & nurtured it as service of God. She was completely immersed in the divinity of Carnatic music.

Humble: On the other hand, she was full of apprehension before every performance. “I lack confidence in myself,” she once stated in an interview to a newspaper.‘Hari Tum Haro Jana Ki Peer’ is her favourite bhajan. She once narrated, what turned out to be a gem of an anecdote from her life. In the 1940s, she had been invited to a function which the Mahatma was to attend, and his favourite bhajan, ‘Hari Tum Haro Janan Ki Peer’ was to be sung there. She was asked to sing it. However, she was diffident as she had not sung in Hindi till then, and thought that someone else could do it better. Gandhiji, however, insisted, saying that even if she read it out, it would be better than anyone else’s singing. She was overwhelmed by the words of the great man and sang the bhajan. The rest we know is history , But MS Amma was untouched by the glory.

Selfless: Her motto was to earn to give.As a musician, she could move her audiences to tears. As a human being, she touched many. Her fans would wait for hours to catch a glimpse of this icon. She has donated a lifetime’s earnings to charities while retaining the barest material comforts for herself, She was an artist who did not demand five-star luxuries nor expect VIP preferences. She was a saint in the journey of life who chose carnatic music as her mode of meditation.

Faith & Calmness: The UN concert in 1966 was an honour because she was the first singer from India to be given that opportunity. An anecdote here is proof of her ability to stay calm. A day before the concert she had a severe throat infection. For the dress rehearsal the previous day , she made her daughter Radha sing . She only meditated having full faith that she will be fine & stayed calm. When the concert began she sang flawlessly & like always gave the audience an experience to cherish.

If in our journey of life we strive for the path of excellence with these qualities of perfection, detachment, humility, selflessness, faith & calmness we can definitely create an IMPACT!