Sukkanya Ramgopal is sitting on the dais, surrounded by six ghatams. Accompanying her on stage are fellow artistes Ranjini Venkatesh on the mridangam, Yogavandana on the veena, Bhagyalakshmi M. Krishna on the morsing (a percussion instrument placed between the teeth and held firmly by the hand) and Soumya Ramachandran on the violin.
With a quick sweep of her hand, Ramgopal strikes on each ghatam in succession to a definite rhythm. The camaraderie shared by the women on stage is reflected in their smiles as they blend beats and notes harmoniously. Slowly, the beats rise higher and the notes peak. Ramgopal tosses a ghatam up in the air, catching it in time but not before she draws another beat from it. Enthralled, the crowd at the park claps hard. The silver Moon gliding in the sky watches mutely.
Ramgopal is India's only female ghatam artiste and most likely the only one in the world. Her revolutionary concept, Ghata Tharang, where she plays on six ghatams with different shrutis, has drawn the humble pot to centre stage from the sidelines.
An A-grade artiste of All India Radio, she formed Stree Thaal Tharang, an all-woman music group in 1999, which has regaled audiences with its "Laya Raaga Sangamam", the fusion music of several instruments.
Ramgopal grew up in Thiruvelikeni, Chennai. Her enduring memories are of the time when, as an 8-year-old, she would run out to buy a damaru (a toy percussion instrument) sold during Pongal, the harvest festival. While her older sister Bhanumathy sang, she played on the damaru.
Hailing from a family of musicians, Ramgopal was sent for violin classes under T.H. Gurumurthy. However, she was often distracted by the mridangam beats from the class next door conducted by music vidwan Harihara Sharma, brother of Gurumurthy.
One day, enchanted by its beats, 9-year-old Ramgopal walked into the class. She wished to learn the mridangam, she told an amused Sharma. He asked her to join the class right away, since it was an auspicious day, and Ramgopal embarked on a new musical journey.
Sharma was a strict teacher. Under him she mastered the art of playing the ghatam with all ten fingers. After three years, she gave her maiden performance at the Hanuman temple in her neighbourhood, where she accompanied a veena artiste.
She wanted to try her hand at the ghatam next. Treading into male territory, she approached her guru's son, ghatam maestro and Grammy award winner Vinayakaram. He had apprehensions about teaching a woman. Besides, playing the ghatam called for physical exertion. How could she do it?
But Sharma put his doubts to rest. "Sukkanya is a hard-working girl. She can learn the ghatam. After all, a ghatam does not distinguish a man from a woman," he said.
Under Vinayakaram, she mastered the strokes of the ghatam. "The years I was under the tutelage of Vikku sir [as he is fondly known] made up the golden period of my career," Ramgopal recalls.
In 1975, she had her first ghatam concert at the prestigious Music Academy of Chennai. Ramgopal was 18 then.
Over the next few years, she performed with stalwarts such as Dr Balamurali Krishna, T.V. Gopalakrishnan, Kalanidhi Smt Vedavalli, Thavil Vidwan Haridwaramangalam and A.K. Palanivel.
In 1993, Ramgopal performed in London, her first overseas show. Her performance at another London concert with Anuradha Pal, India's only female tabla player, was interesting — a jugalbandi where Carnatic strains merged with Hindusthani music. Also memorable were her performances in Switzerland, the United States, Canada and France.
Last year, Stree Thaal Tharang performed in China at a musical conference. Ramgopal remembers how the audience there watched in disbelief as she played on the ghatam.
"When I played on six ghatams, their eyes widened. We received a standing ovation," the artiste says.
As for the Ghata Tharang, the idea was inspired from her learning days with Vinayakaram. "Sir would play on his ghatam and we students would join him on ours," she says. "Each ghatam carried a different shruti. Vikku sir called it ghatamala."
Years later, she attempted something similar with other artistes for a radio concert in Bengaluru. "But synchronising with them was difficult. So I decided to do it myself for a concert in 1992."
No journey to success is a bed of roses. For Ramgopal, the stumbling blocks were a few senior artistes who did not like the idea of sharing the stage with a female ghatam player. "This included female artistes too," Ramgopal says.
Talking about the entourage of ghatams that follow her to every concert, Ramgopal says: "To play a raga, you need at least six ghatams. Sometimes during a concert, another raga may be called for. Then we need more ghatams with different shrutis. I always carry at least ten ghatams." The musician has more than 50 ghatams at home.
We laugh as she talks about her visit to Canada. On arriving at the Toronto airport, she was asked to open her hand baggage. The officers were intrigued when she told them it was a clay pot to produce music.
"So they asked me to play," she says.
Sitting amid bags and trolleys, Ramgopal raised an unusual din on her ghatam, which attracted the stares of curious onlookers.
If her sister Bhanumathy, mother Ranganayaki and father K. Subramanian encouraged her before marriage, it was her husband, V. Ramgopal, who supported her after.
"I would not be here without his support," states this mother of two and now a proud grandmother.
Letting me in on a little story, she continues: "Ours was an arranged match. I played the ghatam on our first meeting. Prior to the wedding, he attended my concert. Seeing the applause my husband understood my passion. When my children were young and I was away on tours, he and my mother-in-law managed home."
Although she has received several awards, eluding her still is the Tamil Nadu Kalaimamani award. But Ramgopal continues her musical journey of ensuring a place of pride for the humble clay pot.
The instrument
The ghatam, one of the oldest percussion instruments used in Carnatic music, resembles an earthenware pot. Different tones are produced by striking the instrument in different areas with the hands and the fingers. The pitch is raised or lowered by opening or closing the mouth of the pot. Ghatams are made of a mixture of clay and brass shards. Manamadurai in Tamil Nadu is a place renowned for making ghatams.
Sukkanya Ramgopal says: "I purchase my ghatams from Manamadurai. It takes an entire day to select a ghatam by testing its shruti. By the end of the day, my head is reverberating with beats of different shrutis. This is more exhausting than playing on the ghatam."
Mythily Ramachandran is an independent writer based in Chennai, India.
