Song of the Clay Pot

About This Book

Who was the first ghatam player in the universe? Was it Lord Ganesh, who drummed out a rhythm on his potbelly? Or Shiva, whose love for the clay pot was so great that he decided to manifest on earth as one, becoming Kumbheswara, a form in which he is still worshipped in Tamil Nadu? Or was it Gundayya, the potter, who played and played on the pots he made, until the ‘whole world danced to the sound of the pot’? Or was it the village women who, since time immemorial, have walked home every evening with their pots on their heads, playing on them with their rings and bangles? In this fascinating book, Sumana Chandrashekar describes her love affair with the ghatam from the time when it called to her in her dreams, leading her to Sukanya Ramgopal, contemporary India’s first woman ghatam player, and to Sukanya’s own guru, Vikku Vinayakram, who, in 1966, had played the ghatam in New York, as an accompanist for the legendary M.S. Subbulakshmi, bringing this humble instrument onto the world....