MS Subbulakshmi

Carnatic vocalist, Bharat Ratna 1998

Born: 16th September 1916, Madurai

Died: 11th December 2004, Chennai

It was about 1984 and I was Std 9. I had found MS Subbulakshmi's postal address in an encyclopedia in the Baldwin School library, along with those of several other famous people. A few days later I wrote to MS Subbulakshmi at her Madras address and along with my letter I enclosed a self-addressed stamped envelope. (To increase the chances of a reply, I usually sent a self-addressed stamped envelope with my letters and most often I used the stamped covers from the postal department.)

A few weeks after I had written to MS, a gentleman came knocking at our house door early one morning looking for Arathi. I was getting ready to leave for school. He looked very familiar. It turned out that he worked at the ticket counter at Lido cinema, where we often went. He asked if I'd written to MS and then gave me a beautiful black and white photograph that was signed by both MS and her husband Thiagaraja Sadasivam (who himself was a singer, journalist and freedom fighter). He also returned my self-addressed stamped envelope. How he was connected to MS, and how my letter to Madras received a hand-delivered reply in Bangalore, I did not find out.

Circa 1984

Newspaper editorial and article after MS was awarded the Bharat Ratna