A portrait in rhythm
This Dalit History Month, meet Chennai-based percussionist R Sarath Kumar, who has taken the satti melam, a stigmatised percussion instrument, to the world stage
he graveyard near his home in Otteri, Chennai, was a playground for R Sarath Kumar during his boyhood. It was there that he first heard the satti melam. The beats of the percussion instrument that is played during funerary rites, became a constant in his life. “The sound stirred something in me,” recalls the 30yearold. “It made me dance and forget all else.” Sarath learnt to play the instrument, which eventually won him acclaim. He has played for several Tamil films, at events organised by director Pa Ranjith’s Neelam Cultural Centre, and is also the percussionist in rapper and lyricist Arivu’s band The
TAmbassa. The journey however, has not been easy.
Learning to play an instrument associated with death came with challenges. “My guru R Rajendran who worked at the Otteri crematorium, refused to teach me since he felt my family wouldn’t approve of it,” he says. Sarath, whose father is a banner artist, was 13 then. “But I crafted my own instrument with metal plates and jigna paper that was used to decorate the dead, and played at burial sites,” he says.
Rajendran, who noticed that the boy just would not give up, took him in. Satti melam, unlike the more popular and welldocumented instruments, does not have notations. To play it, Sarath had to keenly observe his teacher. Lessons took place at the crematorium, and this meant skipping school, for which Sarath’s parents severely
YSarath Kumar can play 67 percussion instruments. censured him. “But to me, nothing else mattered more than music,” he says.
It took him a year to master the instrument and after around six years of playing it, he joined a local band that performed at weddings. Sarath was also drawn to the dholak, another percussion instrument which he learned to play from ‘Dholak’ Jagan, a popular musician in Chennai.
Sarath accompanied Jagan to funerals at which he would play from 10pm to 4am. Surrounded by heightened emotions, rituals, and people, Sarath, who was then in his teens, gradually learned to focus on the instrument. He enjoyed the process, but not the experiences that came with it.
“An instrument associated with death is considered taboo, and this reflects on the artistes playing it,” he says, recalling instances of people asking him to remove his instrument from their doorstep if he placed it there while he waited. “Castebased discrimination is a given,” he adds, “People have refused to offer me water after a performance, and on one occasion, a person offered me water in their bathroom mug.”
But Sarath stuck to his art. “There is a certain power in the tone of the melam, that I keep going back to,” he says. Sarath also wanted to prove that in music, there is no disparity between one instrument and another. “The satti melam is no different from the tavil, mridangam, and tabla. It too has animal hide, like the mridangam,” he points out. “But the people who play it are stigmatised.” He has taught himself to play 67 percussion instruments.
One morning in 2015, Sarath received a call from a film company. “I was offered the chance to play rhythms for the song ‘Moda Moda’ from Kanchana 2,” he says, adding that more such opportunities followed. Sarath has performed for songs in films such as Pa Ranjith’s Madras, Sarpatta Parambarai, Bigil, and Blue Star. He has also performed for Coke Studio Tamil’s songs ‘Sagavaasi’ featuring Arivu and Khatija Rahman and ‘Roraa Yethu’ featuring Vijay Sethupathi, Sean Roldan and Arunraja Kamaraj.
Sarath continues to perform at events, and is now busy playing for election campaigns. He knows people look at him differently now. “I was angry for the longest time but did not show it. My work is the answer to what I went through.”
An instrument associated with death is considered taboo, and this reflects on the artistes playing it