MEET THE MAESTRO - VIKKU VINAYAKARAM

I was employed as a permanent artiste at All India Radio, Chennai, and at the same time I was playing for kutcheris too. One day John McLaughlin called me and asked me if I was interested in joining him in his group called Shakti. I was indecisive for a while, but after a lot of thought I decided to give up my job at All India Radio and join him. I will never regret this decision as firstly, playing for Shakti made me famous, and secondly I was able to bring the Ghatam to the forefront and give it importance.

It was great. No, we never had any communication problems. Of course, he does not know Tamil and I do not know Hindi, but we got along very well. Music is universal, music was our medium of communication.

When I was playing for Shakti, the westerners found my name 'Vinayakram' difficult to pronounce so they told me 'Tell us some other name that we can use to call you'. Radha, Smt.M.S.Subbulakshmi's daughter, used to call me casually 'Vikku'. So I remembered that and I told them, 'You can call me Vikku'. From then on people began calling me 'Vikku'. My other name Vinayakram also has a story behind it. I was born as Ramamani, but when I was an infant I fell very seriously ill and my father being a staunch devotee of Lord Ganesha, added Vinayak to Ram and made it Vinayakram. He felt that this would cure me of my illness and it did!

In 1991, the Sangeet Natak Academy, for the first time decided to give an award to a Ghatam artiste. I was chosen for the award. In the same year, I participated in the recording of Planet Drum as a music composer and co-producer with the Grateful Dead's drummer, Mickey Hart. Planet Drum won the Grammy award for Best World Music Album. On the 31st December 2000, I received the UNESCO award for the best drummer. Recently, I was the first South Indian to receive the Hafiz Ali Khan (Ustad Amjad Ali Khan's father) award.

Yes, definitely. I have many youngsters wanting to learn the Ghatam. I will narrate one small incident that took place some time ago. I was playing in Mumbai with Ustad Zakir Hussain for a concert that took place at midnight. There was a two-year-old child who was so entranced by the Ghatam that his parents brought him to Chennai to see me. You will not believe it, he played on the Ghatam so beautifully. Of course the child was a prodigy, but this is proof enough that the Ghatam is catching the attention of young people.

I am busy with my school and I have passed on my baton to my son, Selva Ganesh, who plays the Ganjira, and is part of the 'Remember Shakthi' troupe.

Whenever I get some time, I go to Kancheepuram to seek the blessings of Shankaracharya.

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