LIKE SANKARA AWARD FOR EVR PERIYAR?

IMAGINE Bhagwan Mahaveer Award for promoting vegetarianism is given to a butcher—a Jain by accident of birth who says the Bhagwan is a hoax. By a jury that has no reverence for the Bhagwan. And the apostate butcher proudly accepts the award in the name of the apostle. How humiliated his Jain devotees will be? Apologies to Jains for taking the Bhagwan's name for a fictional analogy. Similarly, devotees of Carnatic music to whom it is not just an art but divine and sacred, have been hurt and humiliated in Tamil Nadu. Here unfolds the sordid story.

- S GURUMURTHY

MS - "Greatest Hoax", "Barbie doll", "Sexy" to infatuated eyes?

"A young aspiring musician told me MS Subbulakshmi is the greatest hoax of the twentieth century".

Who declared, on an anonymous testimony, MS Subbulakshmi as the greatest hoax?

"We have never thought of her music as being worthy of any serious investigation. What is there to say? We treat her [MS Subbulakshmi] like a saintly Barbie doll. Yet we duped the outside world into thinking we revere her."

Who described MS as a saintly Barbie doll?

"Isn't it astounding that we will all agree that MS has been one of the most beautiful musicians in the Indian classical musical scene, but the word sexual has never been used in the context of describing her....Let me make it clear I am not referring to her inner beauty. She was what my daughter's generation would call sexy."

Who saw MS as sexy, not her inner beauty?

“Let any honest man besotted with her beauty deny that his fascination had to do with her looks as with her music and that Cupid played with her darts wherever she went. The Smarta Brahmin kattu [a specific style of wearing sari] has never looked more fetching, been more alluring than on the daughter of Madurai Shanmugavadivu. She was a diva, yet we are unable to openly celebrate her physicality, even in 2016.”

Who spoke about men besotted - meaning “blindly, utterly infatuated” - with MS' beauty? And said Cupid - Greek God of Erotic Love - played with MS wherever she went? Not so much her music. Who's this misogynist - to use the modern term liberals quite often use to brand other men who they think demeaned women?

TMK, who declared MS the greatest hoax, described her as a saintly Barbie doll and spoke of men besotted more with her looks than her music, is the proud recipient of the Sangita Kalanidhi MS Subbulakshmi Award for 2024.

MS award - for abusing, demeaning, hating her?