The Hindu Business Line : She followed her own beat

So sang country western singer Chet Atkins decades ago. Even today, there are fingers that make music. They are sought after, yes, but uncelebrated... especially if they belong to a woman who has forayed into an uncharted, male-dominated music territory.

Sukanya Ramgopal is one such musician, a percussionist who chose to follow her own lively rhythm and beat with the ghatam — a pot-like instrument. For the great granddaughter of U.V. Swaminatha Iyer (better known as Thamizh Thatha) and niece of the renowned Ganam Krishna Iyer, music was quite in her genes. While her father sang Thevaram (Tamil devotional hymns) at temples, her sister was a vocalist too. It was no surprise therefore that Sukanya started taking lessons in violin from T.H. Gurumurthy, brother of the renowned percussionist Vikku Vinayakram. But even as a child, it was the percussive instrument that caught her attention. While her sister would sing, she would tap on surfaces to bring on the beats. She would tune into radio concerts, chiefly to listen to the thaniyavarthanams (solo pieces by the percussionists towards the end of a recital), very unusual for a child.

"I used to sit with the violin teacher, but all my concentration would be on the percussion classes next door," Sukanya laughs. One evening, she just walked into the mridangam class and started learning the instrument that very day. Within three years, she was playing the mridangam on stage.

But her mind was set on the ghatam. It was then that she approached Vinayakram. He was initially reluctant to teach her. Even at the risk of discouraging her, he told Sukanya that it would be very difficult for a girl to play the ghatam. "It is a very rough instrument. Your hands will develop sores; they will even bleed," he told the young girl. But, at the same time, he discussed her request with his father, who urged him to teach someone who was really interested in learning.

Thus began Sukanya's tryst with the ghatam, only to be interrupted when Vinayakram had to go abroad after a year. However, the lessons were resumed after he returned. How tough was it to play the ghatam? "Quite tough. And yes, hands did and do bleed at times. After all, the ghatam is made of clay." But she carried on relentlessly and learnt the finer aspects of the ghatam; and today she is one of the most sought-after accompanists, that too playing a much heavier ghatam — of the Manamadurai variety.

But that does not necessarily translate into fame or fortune. "Percussionists are always last priority," she says. While she has received standing ovations abroad, back home, she has had to take the backseat. "Male co-performers can't take it if a woman percussionist draws applause," she rues.

But she is quick to point out that the ghatam had a pride of place in the music tradition of yore. Paintings from an earlier era show ghatam artistes seated in the very front, on par with the vocalist and the veena player. The earliest references to the instrument are found in Valmiki Ramayana, she says, as also narrations of the Krishna Rasa Leela.

The ghatam looks no different from a pot. Can she then make music with pots and pans too? "Why not? It is just that they insert some fine metallic powder in the ghatam to get the right timbre," she says, proceeding to demonstrate the subtler nuances of the mind-boggling range of ghatams that line her living room.

She has put together the Stri Taal Tarang — India's first women instrumental ensemble — in an effort to get women instrumentalists the recognition they deserve. "I want to take my group places," says Sukanya with visible pride.

"In 1992, I put forth Ghata Tarang, akin to the Jal Tarang. It is basically a series of ghatams arranged on a scale of swaras to produce a particular raaga," she adds.

This apart, Sukanya's long-cherished desire is to write a book on the ghatam. "There is not a single book exclusively on ghatam," she says. Well, for someone who has broken quite a few rules in the book to get where she is, that shouldn't be too difficult!

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She followed her own beat