A day with S P Balu

One afternoon, three years ago, I got a call from ETV, asking me if I'd like to be a judge on a popular music show hosted by S P Balasubramanyam.

I wasn't sure how I'd do it, but I was flattered, and agreed. A programme executive called me up and asked me for my profile. I dabble in many things, so I mumbled about this and that, unsure what I should say. I was vaguely familiar with the format of the show, but had never got around to watching it in full, and was very nervous.

S P turned out a very gentle host. He calmed my nerves and made me feel important. The sets were huge and glitzy, and they had cameras swinging from tall cranes. I was suddenly in the middle of all this showbiz action, sitting next to a legend who'd sung some 39,000 movie songs in five languages. I was also sharing the jury honours with Vidyabhushana, the swamiji who had returned from sanyas to marry and become a fulltime singer.

The singers were confident and sang well, but what was most impressive was the way S P conducted the show. His mother tongue is Telugu, and he hardly gets to speak Kannada when he's not on this show, yet he handled the language with aplomb. And his charisma was unbelievable: he knew how to point to the contestants' flaws without hurting them, how to highlight their strong points and encourage them to do better, how to talk to the live audience and get them to cheer the singers…

And his knowledge of songs, composers and lyricists was enyclopaedic. He referred to songs in other languages that came to his mind when he heard something, he spoke about the ragas they were based on, he discussed diction. Overall, here was one host who knew everything there was to know about the subject of his show, and he was superbly articulate. Caleb, the bass guitarist who accompanies S P everywhere, later told me he runs similar shows in Telugu and Tamil, and switches from one language to another without a glitch.

Being a hack with a hobbyist interest in music, I was a complete disaster on screen in contrast to the two luminaries with whom I sat, but I was tongue-tied for a different reason on a more recent FM radio show. The occasion was the release of an album for which I'd made the tunes, and the host, a girl who spoke incredibly fluent Kannada, asked me questions that had me stuttering for answers. I just wasn't able to quickly think up words for what I wanted to say. But she neither played the album nor did she want me and the other musicians on the show to speak particularly about the music.

She asked, "What qualities would you look for in a cow that comes to a beauty show?" It was Sankranti time, and of course the question was timely, but I am a city type, and just gaped for an answer. She spoke with high energy each time she went on air between the latest movie songs, and I shook her hand in genuine admiration at the end of it all.

You can't fake it if you are talking physics or astronomy or politics. But music? Ah, you can be a professional RJ and talk music day in and day out, and yet not say a thing about it!