Looking for one Dubash and discovering Another

This being the 250th 12 months of delivery of the composer Muthuswami Dikshitar, I spend a number of time pondering over, researching, and writing on his life. Not that there’s any contemporary floor on supply however when learn within the context of his period, there’s a lot to look into. And what I discover, I write for Sruti, the journal devoted to the humanities.

My newest needed to do with Dikshitar’s keep in Madras, roughly between 1792 and 1795. His father had moved right here en famille owing to an invite from Manali Muthukrishna Mudali, Dubash to Governor George Pigot. It was this Dubash will probably be recalled, who constructed the Chenna Kesava Perumal Temple within the 1770s at its current location and added a Chenna Malleeswarasawami Temple by its facet. Just because the article went to press, Sukanya Shankar, who runs Sruti referred to as to ask if I had any photos of Muthukrishna Mudali. Enquiries with the Manali household too drew a clean after which I recalled that there are a number of spectacular figures carved onto the pillars of the Chenna Kesava Perumal Temple with their names inscribed above or beneath, some in Telugu and others in Tamil. Could one in every of these be him?

A photographer was despatched to the shrine, and due to whatsapp, the photographs quickly started coming in. Manali Muthukrishna Mudali proved sadly elusive, as did his son Venkatakrishna Mudali aka Chinnayyan. There have been others of the Manali household although that didn’t assist. What was intriguing nevertheless was the religious determine of one other Dubash — Rettala Venkatachalam aka Abboyi Chetty. His significance on the shrine is made manifest by the truth that there are two depictions — one in stone in a bracket on the base of a pillar and different in plaster, in superb multicolour.

As to what was Rettala Abboyi’s declare to fame in any other case is one thing of a thriller however what he did to benefit inclusion within the temple could be very clearly documented. I first got here throughout this narration round 30 years in the past, whereas studying a biography of the nagaswaram maestro TN Rajarathinam Pillai. In that, the creator and veteran journalist Tumilan had written that an endowment made by ‘Rota’ Abboyi Chetty to the temple within the 18th century made it doable for the holding of an annual nagaswaram efficiency collection in the course of the time of the Peyazhwar competition, held right here in July/August. Right as much as the twentieth century, this was the town’s most prestigious nagaswaram collection to carry out in and each artiste on that instrument aspired for a chance. Rajarathinam Pillai by the way gave his first Madras efficiency beneath the auspices of this endowment.

These days the worth of the principal and its interest-bearing functionality having each eroded, the competition isn’t held. And then, George Town is not an space the place Carnatic Music is heard, with the only exception of the Raja Annamalai Manram after all. And so, Rettala Abboyi’s needs should not fulfilled although he did have his fill of nagaswaram for 2 centuries.

I assume Rota in Tumilan’s guide is an error for Rettala. But what’s intriguing is that Prof P Sambamurthy, in his article Madras As A Seat Of Music (Madras Tercentenary Volume, 1939) has it that the nagaswaram endowment was by a Juttur Subramania Chetty! Now that could be a title of which there isn’t any document in any respect within the public area. And so, Rettala Abboyi Chetty stays the more than likely endower.

Taken all in all, the Dubashes of Madras, as in particular person biographies and never broad historic tendencies, stays a most under-researched matter.