It is a pleasant evening in Dharwad and music lovers have gathered to honour Pandit Raghunath Nakod, the ace tabla player. Backstage at the event, organised by Sri Puttaraj Kavi Gawai Trust, is another celebrity, busy folding the shawls that will be presented to the guests.
“Someone has to do this work too, right?’’ says Pandit Venkatesh Kumar, a musician known across India. When the announcer says he is wanted on stage, he rushes to do the honours, only to come running backstage little later to run errands.
The maestro is the founder trustee of the Sri Puttaraj Kavi Gawai Trust. He used his savings as seed money to start the Trust in the name of his Guru. But he has never been its chairman.
Those who listen to his music and meet him tend to talk about three things - his character, voice and tayari or preparation. However, one begins to wonder if it is his modesty that really shapes his art. As he turns 70 on July 1, some of his students and admirers have arranged a concert in his honour at Dharwad.
Asked about how humility and politeness came to be his trademark, Venkatesh Kumar says his parents taught him those qualities. He asks the next question, “And where did they learn it?” and answers it himself with a laugh, “Poverty taught them!”
From a family of artistes
Venkatesh Kumar was born in Lakshmipura, a small village in Ballari district, in a family of folk artistes. His father Holeppa master was a bayalata and professional theatre actor and his uncle Belagallu Veeranna was a singer and actor. “It was my father who taught me the Puranas, Ramayana and Mahabharata, stories from Kannada classics, folk songs and bhajans. He asked me not to make faces while singing. I remember that everyday,’‘ he says. Veeranna went on to become of the finest Togalu Gombe artiste of the country, who revolutionalised the art by telling modern tales of Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi, Netaji Subhash Bose and others.
Venkatesh, the boy who went around towns and villages along with his father’s drama troupe, sang several songs. Those who enjoyed it, asked his parents to get him some classical training.
The story of how he entered Sri Veereshwar Punyashrama in Gadag is quite popular, but he never seems tired of repeating it.
His parents took him and his cousin Virupakshappa to Gadag, along with former students Naganagouda and Mariswami. The seer who ran the place, Puttaraj Gawai, was sitting at the resting place of his guru Sri Panchakshari Gawai. When the parents sought admission for the children, he asked them to sing. “I sang a Natyageet in Raag Hamir,’‘ recalls Venkatesh Kumar. He liked it. “This boy has a gift, but attention is not stable. He is fickle minded,’‘ Guruji said. The statement proved to be prophetic. Venkatesh Kumar skipped classes and ran away from the Ashram three times. Each time, the Guru would send a senior student to fetch him back, as he saw immense potential in him.
The Guru asked them to pay ₹ 101 per student. When the parents pleaded their inability, he asked them to pay ₹ 65 per head. Holeppa master pledged three acres of land for five years for ₹ 500 and paid ₹ 130 for the two students. “With just around ₹ 5.5 per year, I lived in the Ashram for 12 years. That is why I say it is all Guru Krupa,’‘ he says.
The hard life of a student
Life in the Ashram was hard due to the strict regimen and duties students had to perform, starting 4 a.m. They would learn and practice music up to seven hours a day. All the religious rituals were accompanied by classical singing, a practice that is still kept.
When he was 25 he left the Ashram to find work, which were hard to come by. He remembers pawning his bicycle to buy a set of utensils after he got married. He got a job in the government teachers training institute in Dharwad, and in 1985, joined the Karnataka University College of Music and Fine Arts. After serving nearly three decades, he retired in 2013.
The strict rules of a government institution bound him to Dharwad. It is only after retirement that he has been accepting offers to sing in national-level concerts.
“Venaktesh Kumar’s music is different because it is a blend of folk, classical and natya sangeet styles,’‘ describes Shashidhar Todkar, Kannada writer and music lover. “The greatness of Puttaraj Gawai was that though he taught in the Gwalior Gharana, he allowed his disciples to imbibe elements of other schools like the Kirana and Jaipur Atrauli Gharanas.”
Winner of many awards
Venkatesh Kumar is a Padmashree awardee and a winner of several national and state awards including Kalidas Samman and Sangeet Natak Akademi award.
Siddharaj Pujari, music critic who has served as a member of the All India Radio artists selection committee, says that Venkatesh Kumar is one of the most talented but underappreciated artistes.
Venkatesh Kumar’s tiny house in Vidyagiri, the hillock on Hubballi road, is frequented by music lovers and event organisers. Some of them have got together to organise a concert by his students to commemorate his 70th birthday on July 1. “People need not really worry about the dates. I am neither sure of the month or the date of my birth,’‘ he says in his characteristic self-effacing way.
