Thursday, May 15, 2008

MS

Recently on my holiday to India, I chanced upon a book in my father's library, which i had contemplated on buying earlier but hadn't for some strange reason. It was a biography on the Life of MS. Though I am very curious to read about the lifes of famous people especially in the field of Music and dance, I am some what sceptical about Biographies, in the sense that they have always changed my opinion about a lot of people, simply because it has been written by someone else. Maybe this is my mind block. I actually prefer autobiographies.

Nevertheless, I did read the book. It gave me many insights on her life and threw light on a lot of the lesser known facts about her and her famously dictative husband, Sadasivam.

What struck me was that rebels of a certain generation, no matter how massively the have deviated from what was perceived to be conventional among their contemporaries, invariably become an icon of tradition for the next generation. Isn't that amazing.

MS had a very adventurous early life, because of everything that she chose for herself and associated herself with. Having been looked at as a total modernist of her times, she turned herself into the ultimate manifestation of a middle class brahmin housewife, no matter all her racy and stormy past. Her talent famously harnessed and orchestrated by her husband supplemented her submission to control and restrictions.

Yet she had an aura of a true Diva. A timeless beauty, voice and all, a life, determination, dedication, total submission and gut truely inspiring.