T. R. Mahalingam (1926-1986)
The one name that stands out when you mention flute is Mali. Flute music changed forever after the genius of Mali dominated the scene for several decades before his untimely demise.
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T R Mahalingam (Tiruvidaimardur Ramaswamy Mahalingam) was born on 6th November 1926 to Ramaswamy Iyer and Brihadambal in Tiruvidaimardur, Tamil Nadu. The local deity of that village was Shiva in the form of Mahalingaswamy and that’s how the child got his name.
Mali was one among six children. The family later settled in Trichy. Mali and his siblings began taking classes in Carnatic music from a very young age from a friend of the family a certain Gopala Iyer.
Gopala Iyer was fluent in vocal music, playing the flute and harmonium. His brother Gautam was learning the flute and a sister Devaki was training in vocal music. Mali was a frail boy with bad health and was sent to learn vocal music.
He got attracted to the flute and began practicing it by himself secretly. However Mali’s father disapproved of this because he was worried over the boy’s health.
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He had the power to grasp and reproduce any music through his flute if he heard it once. It was this quality in him that kept everyone wonder struck. Mali soon became a child prodigy to reckon with.
The father, who was by now convinced about his son’s talent decided he should take the boy to seek blessings of veterans.
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Mali was the founder of the popular style of flute playing followed today by the Carnatic flautists. Before Mali, the style of flute playing was called Sarabha Sastri style, popularised by Sarabha Sastri's disciple, Palladam Sanjiva Rao, and did not have any gamakas and involved playing the flute in discrete bursts. T.R. Mahalingam had breath control that enabled him to blow any single note over 40 seconds. This breath control let Mali give great volume to the lower octaves as well as the higher octaves. Mali introduced new fingering techniques, and a grip on the flute that came to be known as the "parrot clutch or the cross-fingering style ", allowing greater control. His style of continuous flute playing provided gamakas, and an ability to better imitate the human voice.
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In performance, Mali would sometimes leave off halfway through an idea, or play the same piece repeatedly, or simply breathe into the flute occasionally. On the other hand, he would sometimes play hours longer than the schedule, including playing for the Lord Muruga at Tiruttani for eight hours continuously. Due to this same eccentric nature, he developed a reputation for playing truant at concerts, often turning up late (or not at all). Yet, it was less out of a disregard for people, and more out of a sense of anti-idolization and self-effacement. In some cases, he caused the audience to wait several hours past the scheduled concert time, then would play for a few minutes, and abruptly leave. Although this sparked outrage and alienated Mali from many of his peers, the situation was quite different from what it may have seemed, according to one of his disciples:
"Mali says he sees god within five minutes of playing – he thinks it is meaningless to continue after that and stops."
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Mali mentioned many times that he did not care for any praise or awards for his music, ideals that he upheld to the very end. Shortly before his death, he was awarded India's highly prestigious Padma Bhushan for music in January 1986, which he flatly refused.
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After moving to Bangalore in 1955, he went to seclusion in 1958, playing very infrequently. From 1980 to 1985 he lived in the United States with his American wife, Ellen Chadwick. In 1985 T.R. Mahalingam decided to return to India, and after a short time in Bangalore, he died of a cerebral haemorrhage in 1986 at the age of 59, leaving behind him an indelible mark that changed the face of Carnatic music on the flute forever.
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