The Mridangam maestro who awakened a century's rhythm

Mavelikkara K Velukkutty Nair stands among the most revered gurus Kerala has known in the art of mridangam. As his birth centenary is observed on October 2, we recall a golden chapter in the history of South Indian percussion, the life of one of those rare mridangam maestros who became, at once, a peerless performer and a great teacher.

Childhood and training
Velukkutty Nair was born in 1926 at Chettikulangara, near Mavelikkara, to Muthukulam S Kumarapillai and Karthyayani Amma. He lost his mother while still a child, and it was his father, himself a celebrated mridangam exponent, who became his first guru. Under his father's guidance, young Velukkutty Nair mastered the fundamentals of the art, and soon began accompanying the harikatha recitals and Carnatic concerts of leading musicians of the era, including Harippad Ramankutty Bhagavathar and Malabar Gopalan Nair.

Tragedy struck again in his boyhood when he lost his father as well, and he was thereafter raised under the care of his eldest sister. It was during this period that the Ambalappuzha Brothers, themselves accomplished Nagaswaram artists, introduced him to the legend Palakkad Mani Iyer, an encounter that would prove to be a turning point in his life. Training further under the traditional gurukula system with Palakkad Mani Iyer, he lived with his guru in Thanjavur, travelling back to Kerala during the concert season. In time, he blossomed into a celebrated artist in his own right.

In 1959, when the mridangam department was established at Swathi Thirunal College of Music, Thiruvananthapuram, under the principalship of Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, Velukkutty Nair joined the institution as Professor of Mridangam. He retired from the same college in 1982 as Head of the Department of Mridangam. Together with his colleagues Chennithala Krishnankutty Nair and C S Krishnamurthy, he helped develop the mridangam curriculum that remains in use across every music college in the state to this day, a lasting testament to his contribution to the field.

A rare talent
Velukkutty Nair belonged to that small circle of mridangam exponents who excelled equally as performers and as teachers. He provided percussion accompaniment for an extraordinary roster of eminent musicians, among them Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, the Alathur Brothers, G N Balasubramaniam, Emani Shankara Sastry, Madurai Mani Iyer, Nedunuri Krishnamurthy, K V Narayanaswamy, M D Ramanathan, S Ramanathan, Voleti Venkateswarulu, M L Vasanthakumari, D K Pattammal, D K Jayaraman, M Balamuralikrishna, Neyyattinkara Vasudevan, and K J Yesudas, performing for both his contemporaries and the generation that followed with equal distinction. He was also an accomplished vocalist in his own right.

A lineage of disciples
His disciples include B Harikumar, G Chandrasekharan Nair, M Balasubramaniam, Thiruvananthapuram Surendran, Parassala Ravi, and R Vaidyanathan, among many others. Beyond this, a large body of students he taught at Swathi Thirunal College of Music carries his legacy forward, many of them now senior and celebrated figures in Kerala's music scene.

Mavelikkara Velukkutty Nair passed away on July 24, 2012. Yet the flame of rhythm that he lit continues to illuminate Kerala's musical gatherings today.

(The author is a multilingual writer, columnist and an A-grade Mridangam vidwan of All India Radio, is among Mavelikkara Velukkutty Nair's principal disciples and serves as Assistant Professor in the Department of Mridangam at Kerala Kalamandalam)