There are certain experiences from childhood that remain with us for a lifetime, not simply as memories that we can recall, but as impressions that become woven into the fabric of who we are. For me, one of those experiences began when I was hardly 10 years old, when the music of M.S. Subbulakshmi first moved me in a way that I could neither understand nor articulate. Even at that age, I sensed that what I was hearing was somehow different from ordinary music, because her voice seemed to reach beyond the ear and touch something much deeper within me.
I still remember going with my parents to hear her perform at Carnegie Hall when I was 11 years old. I could not possibly have understood the significance of that moment then, nor could I have imagined that decades later I would still carry the memory with me so vividly. There are very few experiences from the age of 10 or 11 that remain so completely alive in our consciousness, but occasionally we encounter something that leaves an imprint not merely on our memory but on our soul. Hearing M.S. Amma at Carnegie Hall was one of those experiences for me.
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What is it about her music that makes it so difficult to describe? We can speak about her extraordinary voice, her mastery of Carnatic music, her command of rhythm and melody, her ability to communicate emotion and devotion, and the remarkable reach of her performances across India and the world, but none of those descriptions really captures what her music does to the listener. Her music seems to exist in a space beyond words, where the distinction between music and prayer begins to disappear.
In Sanskrit, the Gandharvas are celestial beings associated with music, and whenever I think of M.S. Subbulakshmi, I think of that ancient idea of music as something that can come from a realm beyond the ordinary human experience. There was something almost otherworldly about her voice, but what made it even more extraordinary was the humility and devotion with which she used that gift. She did not seem to be singing merely to demonstrate what the human voice could accomplish; she seemed to be offering the voice itself as an instrument of devotion.
There is not a day that goes by when the first sounds of my morning do not begin with M.S. Amma chanting the “Venkateswara Suprabhatam” and the “Vishnu Sahasranamam.” Before the day fills with its responsibilities, its distractions, its anxieties and its noise, her voice creates a moment of stillness and remembrance. It is difficult to think of a more beautiful way to begin a day than with that voice, because the experience is not simply listening to music; it is being reminded, however briefly, that there is something larger than ourselves.
Perhaps that is why I have always felt that M.S. Subbulakshmi was beyond music. She was, in some sense, Goddess Saraswati incarnate, not simply because Saraswati represents music, knowledge and learning in the Hindu tradition, but because M.S. Amma seemed to embody the union of artistic excellence and spiritual surrender. Her greatness was not only in what she could sing, but in the feeling of devotion that seemed to flow through everything she sang.
Years later, I had the extraordinary privilege of visiting her at her home in Chennai after the passing of her beloved and respected husband, Sri T. Sadasivam. By then, my childhood memory of the woman whose voice had moved me at Carnegie Hall had become intertwined with an understanding of the extraordinary life she had lived and the spiritual tradition she had carried to generations of listeners. Yet what I remember most vividly from that visit was not a discussion about her career or her accomplishments, but a conversation about bhakti, about devotion, and about the poetry and music of Annamacharya.
As we spoke about Annamacharya, something remarkable happened that I will never forget. M.S. Amma reached for her books and, almost spontaneously, began to sing. There was no concert hall, no formal performance, no elaborate setting and no expectation that she needed to perform for anyone. She was simply sitting in her home, speaking about bhakti, and then allowing the music to emerge naturally from the conversation. For someone who had first heard that voice as an 11-year-old child sitting beside his parents at Carnegie Hall, to hear it again decades later in the intimacy of her home was an experience for which I will always be grateful.
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There can be few greater blessings in life than to encounter something that has moved you deeply as a child and then, many years later, to encounter it again in an entirely different context, with the perspective that comes from age and experience. As a child, I heard the beauty of her voice; as an adult, I began to understand the devotion behind it. Yet even then, I realized that there are certain things that cannot be completely understood through intellect, because they have to be experienced.
Perhaps the greatest measure of the divinity of a soul is not what that person accomplishes during a lifetime, but the quality of the echoes and ripples that continue long after the person is gone. We can measure achievements through awards, honors, recordings, performances and institutions, but those measurements tell only part of the story. The deeper measure of a human life is found in the lives that were touched, in the memories that remain, in the values that are carried forward and in the emotions that continue to awaken in people who may never even have had the privilege of meeting that person.
A stone dropped into a still body of water creates ripples that travel outward, and eventually the original point of impact disappears from sight even though the movement it created continues. I have often thought that great souls are much the same. Their physical presence is temporary, but the ripples they create can travel through generations, sometimes reaching people who were not even alive when they walked the earth.
We describe the almighty in Hindu scripture as infinite and eternal, concepts that the human mind can acknowledge but never fully comprehend. Perhaps, the closest we can come to understanding those ideas is through the rare human beings whose influence seems to transcend the boundaries of their own lifetime. Their presence becomes larger than their physical existence, and their gifts continue to move through the world in ways that cannot be measured.
For me, M.S. Subbulakshmi is one of those immeasurable souls.
She was not simply a great musician whose recordings have survived her lifetime. She was a bridge between music and devotion, between artistic expression and spiritual surrender, between the ancient traditions of India and a modern world that heard her voice in concert halls far beyond India. Her music could be understood by those who knew every word, but it could also move those who understood none of the language, because the emotion carried by her voice required no translation.
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That may be the ultimate power of music, and perhaps the ultimate reason that M.S. Amma remains so deeply present in my life. At 10 years old, I did not have the vocabulary to explain why her music moved me. At 11, sitting with my parents in Carnegie Hall, I could not have known that the experience would remain with me for the rest of my life. Decades later, sitting in her home in Chennai and listening to her spontaneously sing about bhakti and Annamacharya, I still could not fully explain what I was feeling.
Perhaps I was never meant to explain it.
Some experiences are too profound to be reduced to words, and some people give us gifts that cannot be adequately measured by the ordinary language we use to describe achievement. M.S. Subbulakshmi gave generations of us something that went far beyond music: she gave us a way to experience devotion through sound, to experience stillness through song, and perhaps, for a few moments, to experience something of the infinite through the human voice.
And perhaps that is what it means to be immeasurable: to leave this world, yet continue to touch the lives of people who hear your voice long after you are gone, so that somewhere, in a quiet home at the beginning of another day, the music begins again and for a brief moment, the distance between the human and the divine seems to disappear.