My 7 Idols - Composers

I am an amateur musician with no formal training.

That means all the musicians I enjoy compositions of, are my gurus. However, there are a handful from who I would learn the most, be it indoctrinated listening or a natural affinity to a style that is compatible with my character and ability.

I call these masters my "Idols". In this series I intend to talk about the 7 composing idols that I learn a lot from and have been influenced by in my simple musical exercises. Note that, this page is NOT a verdict on these composers but a sincere attempt to explain how they appeal to me, influence me and the aspects that I look to learn from them.

The 7 idols are:

1. M. S. Viswanathan (MSV)


2. Ilaiyaraja (IR)


3. Raveendran


4. Vidyasagar (VS)


5. A. R. Rehman (ARR)


6. Hrudayanath Mangeshkar (HM)


7. Sharath

Honorable Mentions : Madanmohan and Salil Choudhary

This article starts with Sharath. Please stay tuned for the series.

Meet with Sindhuja and Family - One of the ROS Friends quartet

It has been almost 7-8 years since I came across Sindhuja online through TFMpage where I was one of the keenest participants in the Raga of the Song thread. Sindhu, Ram, Sheela and I became very good friends over the net and countless discussions have happened between us over so many years.

Sheela, with her vast knowledge in carnatic, was our consultant for developing our knowledge in songs and her contribution to my understanding of music had been priceless. Sheela and I have been friends much before Ram and Sindhuja joined. Sheela, has now resigned happily to take a back seat from music to see her daughter grow up.

Sindhu was properly trained in carnatic and had a good swara nyaanam or the ability to recognize and codify notes in even the most complicated compositions. However, her rigorous submission to technique was commented upon and she started working on her expressiveness in renditions.




Ram and I started as connoisseurs and ended up learning a lot from all these discussions. It led to Ram becoming a critic of fine proportions, the epitome of whose efforts till now, is the book on G.N.Balasubramaniam or GNB for short.

I started dabbling with composing after I started believing I had some fundamental ideas about songs. Sheela had been the most encouraging and cutting when it came to composing. She helped me recognize that I should dabble more with melody and less with technique. Sindhu always endorsed Sheela's views and till date she keeps telling me that I should concentrate more on ghazal kind of compositions. Ram has always upheld that my singing and compositions tend to favor Bhaavam rich or emotive, expressive songs and that I should do them the most.

All these without I ever meeting any of the other 3.

And after so many years, I met the first of these 3. Sindhu with her family visited Melbourne and I met them in a quick non-musical evening for a chat. The photo here bears testimony to that. It is indeed an irony that off all places we should meet in Melbourne. We had all our discussions when I was in USA and she was in India. We could not meet either in USA or in India (she is moving to USA soon) and we had to meet in Australia as fate would have it. Well, it was a nice evening with her and her parents.

Post Doc at Lawrence Berkeley - CSIRO

I have been appointed as a joint postdoc at CSIRO (Melbourne) and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley). 2008 has opened promisingly with opportunities to work at the highest level in two different countries. I am going to need a lot of luck and loads of persisitence to end up successful.

I will be leaving for Melbourne on 9th of Jan 2008 and will be back in Berkeley in May 2008 for three months. Following that, I will once again be packing for Melbourne. It is a pain enduring the jet-lags, but why complain if opportunities are great ?!

I thank both my advisors to have kindly allowed to let me work this way to gain invaluable experience.