Prof. S. R. Janakiraman Is No More – Music Called Him Home
Updated: Sep 8
The revered, nearly centenarian icon of Karnatak music, Prof. S. R. Janakiraman, popularly known as SRJ Sir, passed away on 4 September 2026. He now belongs to the celestial galaxy of the greats whose lives and music have enlightened the Karnatak music fraternity.
I once took some of my students to receive his blessings. They played the two formidable varnams, Viribhoni in Bhairavi and Vanajaksi in Kalyani. As they played, I watched SRJ Sir inwardly contemplate the architecture of these two varnams with a child-like innocence: the consummate models their composers had created for Bhairavi and Kalyani; their characteristic oscillations; and their handling of gamakas to bring out the fullness of raga-bhava. His listening was embodied, with his whole body responding to every twist and turn in the inner flow of rhythm and gamaka – to what one might call pidigal, characteristic phrases through which the features of a raga unfold within a particular style. His gestures offered a silent commentary – an unspoken conversation between the music and his innermost being. Towards the end, he makes a remark about the lesser-known cittasvara of the Vanajaksi varnam, mentioned in Subbarama Dikshitar’s Saṅgīta Sampradāya Pradarśini. This reveals his innate power to listen to music with his body, mind and heart – with wholeness and vitality. This is what I would like to call “The SRJ Listening”.
SRJ Sir occupied a place in the Karnatak music world like no other. In him, scholarship and tradition, theory and practice existed in a symbiotic relationship, charged with rare emotional involvement and excitement. It was intriguing and awe-inspiring to anyone fortunate enough to hear him sing and teach. He was an inimitable presence. He lived tradition and scholarship with a depth and intensity that were uniquely his own.
Now, he leaves behind a trail that no one else can tread.
The following lines came to me as I lingered in the memory of this inimitable icon.
When Music Called Him Home
A tribute to Prof. S. R. Janakiraman
On the fourth, as dawn lay listening,
a thunderous voice fell still -
a voice that spoke and sang the ancient ragas,
carrying them beyond the reach of time.
Ninety-eight years had touched him,
yet music kept his heart forever young.
Before the mystery of each raga,
he stood again as a child -
wondering, searching, smiling, rejoicing,
his innocence undimmed.
The masters of an earlier age
were never merely names remembered.
They lived, heart to heart, within him -
in a phrase recalled with tenderness,
a subtle gamaka lovingly revealed,
a story told with shining eyes.
Scholarship in him was never a burden
of books, dates, and measured words.
It breathed; it sang; it smiled;
it whispered long-forgotten secrets.
Musicology became music... and much more...
whenever SRJ spoke.
And now, where has that child gone?
That radiant child of ragas and remembrance?
Perhaps the masters whom he cherished
have gathered close once more.
Perhaps an unseen tambura sounds,
and they have called him home.
We grieve not only for a man,
but for a way of listening that has vanished;
a memory filled with living voices,
a lamp that illumined
countless minds and hearts.
Yet listen...
Through the silence,
his great lexicon of ragas stirs:
Ahiri, Amritavahini, Amritavarshini...
Varali, Jalavarali, Jingla, Jayamanohari...
Something of him lingers still -
a tender phrase,
an old musician's name,
a raga opening like moonlight...
and SRJ, smiling,
becoming music
once again.
Comments