Author: Sneha Bhattacharjee
Publication: The Times of India
Date: January 15, 2013

He was born Ganapathy Moorthi, but few know him by that name. In the music circles in Chennai and elsewhere, he is familiar as Tukaram Ganapathy. And he lives up to the name, having become the flag-bearer for Tukaram’s varkari tradition in Tamil Nadu. His concerts, where he sings abhangs, songs in Maratha that addresses Lord Vithoba, have become so popular that they are now a regular feature during the December music season in Chennai, where mainly Carnatic music in its purest form reigns.
  
So how did Ganapathy, who hails from Kadayanallur, a small town near Tirunelveli, discover Tukaram and other medieval-era Bhakti saints of Maharashtra? Ganapathy says he first heard abhangs when he was 12 from members of the Dakshina Varkari Sampradaya (varkari tradition of the south) had visited his village. His parents, Vaidhyanatha Iyer and Meenakshi Ammal, were followers of the sampradaya. “But my kulaguru Krishnapremi Maharaj always used to say that the varkari sampradaya was different from what we have in Tamil Nadu. He prompted me to go to Pandharpur and learn abhang,” says Ganapathy, 56. The way to Pandharpur was, however, via Ernakulam in Kerala, where he studied at the Varkari Sampradaya School for two years in the early 90s.
  
Thereafter, Ganapathy took the pilgrimage to Pandharpur, the sacred town of the Vithoba, in Maharashtra, where he met Baba Mara Satharkar. He purchased over a hundred cassettes of abhangs and returned. “I purchased a English-Marathi dictionary to learn more about the language. Vijay Venkatachalam, who had stayed in Maharashtra for over two decades and knew Marathi, translated the abhangs sung in the cassettes for me,” he says.
  
According to Ganapathy, Mardanallur Sadguru Swami introduced Marathi abhangs to Tamils three centuries ago. The expansion of Maratha power into southern India after Shivaji and the establishment of Maratha dynasties in Thanjavur and Madurai brought in cultural influences as well.
  
In Ernakulam, Ganapathy trained under bhajan singers Vithoba Naik and Venkateshwara Naik. “They taught me everything about the varkari tradition and singing for over two years,” he says. When he began to sing in public in his hometown in the ’90s, few people would turn up since the language of abhangs was unfamiliar to them. Moreover, Tamil Nadu has its own rich tradition of bhajan singing called nama sankeertana. Then the sessions started to attract the crowds, he says. “I compared the abhangs to some Tamil poems in order to make the listener understand the differences and nuances,” he says. In 2002, he was called by the Maharashtra Students Union of University of Pennsylvania for a concert. That was his first tour and he sang at 48 venues, in Florida, Los Angeles, Miami, New Jersey, etc. “Initially, it was a little hard for me to express my ‘bhava’, while performing before an audience which was different from that at home,” says Ganapathy. He has since performed in villages and cities across southern India, and, of course, in foreign venues.
  
Ganapathy, who has never lived in Maharashtra, learned Marathi through abhangs. “I had a translator with me who would sit beside me during the concerts and explain the abhang to the audience as I sung,” adds Ganapathy. He says it is important for the listener to know the meaning to imbibe the spiritual essence of abhangs. And, he creates a serene atmosphere where listeners can immerse in the depths of literature created by Jnaneswar, Tukaram, Namdev and others.
  
Vishwa Varkari Parivar established by Ganapathy in 2004 has branches in Chennai, Trichy, Coimbatore, Nagercoil, Kadayanallur, Bangalore and Mumbai and imparts training in abhang singing to over 1,500 students. “Abhangs are a centuries-old tradition. People have been listening to this traditional form of music for centuries. This definitely says something about the future of Abhang: it has life,” he adds.