Midnight’s Children Turn 75

Like many others born in 1947, these five prominent Indians have given much to the nation. This month, as the country celebrates another historic anniversary, we ask what has India given them

- Shreevatsa Nevatia

THE WORLD ON HIS STRING

L. Subramaniam, Violinist Born: 23 July 1947

When L. Subramaniam first took the stage with his father, the great violin maestro V. Lakshminarayana Iyer, he was only six years old. “I was scared because there were hundreds of people, sitting in an open space. But there was great applause at the end.” The organizers later told Iyer that his son seemed possessed by a divine energy while he played. Not only did the 75-year-old Subramaniam inherit from his father an abiding love for the violin, he was also bequeathed something more essential—ambition.

“In the days my father played, the violin was thought of as an accompanist’s instrument, something you played alongside a singer or a veena,” says Subramaniam. Iyer hoped his violin would one day be known as a solo instrument. “We should not be treated as ethnic or folk musicians, he’d say. ‘People should realize this is one of the most sophisticated and advanced classical systems of music. We should be in the mainstream. We should spread this’.” After Independence, Iyer wanted freedom for India’s music.