Sumana Chandrashekar’s ‘The Song of the Clay Pot’: The ghatam as crucible of history, politics

‘The Earth has its music for those who will listen’ — Reginald Holmes in ‘The Magic of Sound’

Her song segues into a symphony of many movements. Beginning with her grandmother’s playful ditty to ‘Kumbara Gundaya’, the much-loved protagonist of one of Kannada literature’s celebrated works (Regale of Potter Gundayy), Sumana Chandrashekar lays bare her soul as she embarks on chronicling the journey of the humble pot and its transition to becoming this majestic receptacle of history, memory and politics through the music of the millennium.

Interspersed within the primary story of the ghatam and its chequered consonance with Carnatic music through the ages, ‘The Story of the Clay Pot’ offers a generous sprinkling of information, lived experiences, mythology and a stellar cast of performers to bring alive a talavaddyam of emotions ranging from love, gratitude, devotion and empathy. Together, all of these make up the trials and tribulations essential to a musician’s journey into that state of bliss when the instrument and the player become one.

The clay pot is imagined as a receptacle of ideas, musical and otherwise. The manner in which it, weighing nearly 12 kg, sits on the thighs of its caregiver feels personal. From the very beginning of its life, from the potter’s wheel and the oven to being played on stage, the ghatam is a treasure trove of wisdom, all of which it holds within its rotund body. Magically, the myriad sounds it emanates echoes a way of life that is uniquely India.

Chandrashekar is a ghatam player, taking to it via recurrent dreams after being introduced to the nuances of Carnatic music as a vocalist. Her mentor is “madam” Sukanya Ramgopal and her grand-guru, the legendary Vikku Vinayakram, is “sir”. That she is a keen researcher is evident in the range of musical histories she has compiled in the book, referencing journals and essays by eminent musicologists. She devotes more than one chapter to dissect the various hierarchies that come into play in the life of a woman percussion player, especially when these get juxtaposed with the politics of labels bestowed on musical instruments down the ages, a practice often stemming from purposes other than purely musical.

If the violin and mridangam are the pakkavadya — melodic and percussion accompaniment — where does the ghatam or khanjira or morching stand in relation to the upa pakkavadya or secondary instrument? The mridangam is at the top of the pyramid, she says, but also analyses how these labels are so deeply entrenched that they have come to dictate order of seating on stage, often providing the justification for paying practitioners of secondary instruments less than those who play the mridangam. Bring to this equation a woman percussion player and the heavens come tumbling down, upsetting the hierarchical applecart further by prescribing compulsory stage attire.

Chandrashekar has faced this herself, as recently as in 2015, on the morning of Gandhiji’s birth anniversary. At a 24-hour bhajan session where she and her guru Sukanya were to play, she was disallowed. Get out, said a safari-suit clad gentleman at the entrance of the Odakatur Mutt in Bengaluru. Her full-sleeved khadi kurta and headgear, a cap/pagdi, weren’t feminine enough. A furious Sukanya walked out too, and together the guru-shishya bonded over tears and steaming dosas at home. It would be weeks before Chandrashekar would go back to playing, but not before Sukanya had written her a long mail that ended thus: “I want you to play… not give up… prove that you can win.” Over a year later, Chandrashekar was able to reply to the mail, voicing her resolve. “I will do well with my ghatam,” she wrote, promising her that come what may, she would “make her own road”.

Even Vikku Sir, Chandrashekar reveals, wasn’t immune to such narrow-minded viciousness. Once, while in performance, he had his hand pushed by an insecure co-artiste wanting to break his rhythm. And when Vikku decided to join Shakti alongside John McLaughlin and Zakir Hussain, patrons who dominated the Madras music circle weren’t happy, threatening him with no work once he returned. The threats meant nothing. For, Shakti took Indian classical music and the ghatam to foreign shores, foregrounding a fusion of ideas with the canons of western music.

Yet, what remains unsaid in Chandrashekar’s book is how the band went on to break the age-old hierarchy the clay pot had been subjected to. Just as McLaughlin’s guitar and L Shankar’s double violin would play off Zakir’s tabla and Vikku’s ghatam, so would the two percussion instrumentalists “duel” with each other. In these moments of heightened musicianship, the ghatam was no longer relegated to being a secondary accompaniment. In effect, Vikku and Shakti would, in full view of the world, seal the ghatam’s place as a legitimate, full-bodied percussion instrument, capable of holding its own in any musical setting.

The book reveals how the seeds of the ghatam’s flowering were sown way back in 1966 when Vinayakram, as a 24-year-old ghatam exponent, agreed to accompany MS Subbulakshmi on her world tour, a year-long engagement that included a concert at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. In addition to Vikku, MS would also have by her side VV Subramaniam on the violin and TK Murthy on the mridangam, the show prompting a Tamil newspaper to report how “Indian soil spoke at the UN Assembly”.

Chandrashekar’s love affair with the ghatam has gifted us a fascinating account of Carnatic music and its history, warts and all. She explains in excruciating detail the making of the ghatam and its unique characteristics. Unlike the vibrating skin membrane of the mridangam, the ghatam is plain hard earth. She will not respond easily. As one attempts to play, say the ta-ri-ka-ta roll, all fingers are in use. Unlike the mridangam, khanjira and the morching, where one hand is dominant, ghatam playing is based on “equal-ness”. Both hands mirror each other, essentially ensuring the player turns ambidextrous. It is also tuned to a single pitch, the creation of which is a milestone in pottery.

These are interesting revelations to any music lover. Yet, there is a surprising lack of detail about the ghatam’s contribution to the overall sonic landscape of, say, a musical piece in performance. Is it only meant to fill in the spaces left by the mridangam? Or is the sound of the clay meant to harmonise over and above the notes of the primary percussion instrument? What is its equation vis-à-vis a main instrument like, say, a violin? Consider this to be a minor quibble of this reviewer, a keen student of music otherwise totally enamoured with ‘The Song of the Clay Pot’.

Chandrashekar’s labour of love on music and rhythm is an intimate read. She grew up in Dandeli (north-west Karnataka), which in the 1990s was a quaint town encompassing all of 5km, and where Navratri, Eid and Christmas were everyone’s festivals. Going to school there meant giving vent to this joyous habit of sprinkling words from various languages and dialects in a single sentence while chatting up friends. Even today it’s a town whose foremost tabla mentor, a nonagenarian Muslim, often spends his evenings at a nearby temple accompanying singers during bhajan concerts. These signposts from her life flow seamlessly through the book.

Transcending its primary purpose of showcasing the ghatam, ‘The Song of the Clay Pot’ is also about the many Indias that continue to thrive within today’s India. It is for us to reclaim this India. Sumana Chandrashekar has been doing that with her ghatam.