Thank you Sri Srinivasan for FB share..
Place : Kalki Gardens – Madras
Date : 1970’s
“Kalki Gardens” was the palatial residence of my Grandparents Bharat Ratna M.S.Subbulakshmi and Kalki Sri T Sadasivam almost 30 years from 1947 to 1977.
Apart from the huge music room, there was another room which even today evokes beautiful memories and that was the spacious Pooja Room with pictures of various Gods arranged so immaculately.
This room had a truly Divine Aura and the aroma of Sambrani fragrance wafting through the air invoked an ethereal feeling of Bhakthi.
There was also a huge potrait of Mahaperiaval of Kanchi in the Eastern Corner of the room, before which my Grandmother used to pray and sing each & every new song which she had learnt before presenting the same in a concert.
Here is a picture of Ammu Patti,hands folded in prayer in front of Mahaperiaval.
Categories: Devotee Experiences
Hi am looking for a HD quality or good quality version of this picture of Mahaperiyava in this color itself (Not the one with same posture but reddish vastram that is available online). Can anybody please share if you have? Thank you very much.
I wd like to add my unimaginable admiration for Sadasivam Sir as (1)His devotion for duty(2)Helping MS against all Odds(3)Taking care of Rajaji in Kalki Gardens..all well brought out by George’s book on MS:https://wp.me/pv4Sy-1qk..After Reading this I simply admired a Karmayogi beyond all words!Selling such a property to settle Dues for the staff is unimaginable devotion for duty and acceptance of Karma Theory to the extreme!Sathyameva Jayathe!
Namaskaram Nanjundasarma Sir.
Thanks for the above information.
Happy to know that MS Amma had connection with Shri Ramakrishna Mutt also.
“Kalki Gardens”, Kilpauk, Madras- this was a name known to numerous readers of the old Kalki magazine from the early 50s, even if most had not visited the address, which housed the Sadasivams and also their magazine offices and press. It was a famous place in old Madras visited by many VIPs of those days. It was through this Kalki magazine that many people came to know of Mahaperiyava in the 60s- when the magazine used to carry a page of his talks, with a small photo, in each issue.. (Later it was reduced to just one column.)
It was widely known that T.Sadasivam and MS were devoted to Mahaperiyava. MS sang the Sanskrit hymn, “Maitrim Bhajata” composed by Dr.V.Raghavan and approved by Mahaperiyava at the UN in 1966. Later, they became devotees of Satya Sai Baba too.
Kalki magazine ran into huge losses in the late 70s for various reasons, and the Sadasivams sold the property and reportedly moved to rented premises. I have heard that Swami Ranganathananda of Sri Ramakrishna Math helped them in some way in getting their new residence . In gratitude MS is reported to have dedicated one of her LP records to Sri Ramakrishna with the famous invocation:
“Stapakaya cha dharmasya sarva dharma swarupiney
Avatara varishtaya Sri Ramakrishnaya te nama: ”
Though MS used to support many charitable causes with her concerts, from the late 70s she sang only for charity.
Kalki Gardens surely deserves the compliment “heritage” structure. MS is one of the great trinity of Carnatic vocal artists of the last century, besides being unique in singing for charity. Kalki magazine served the triple causes of nationalism, asthikam and culturally oriented literary endeavour. Alas, all three causes fell from grace in Tamil Nadu due to the rise of Dravidian politics. That is all the more reason why Kalki Gardens should have been converted into a cultural monument. But people in Tamil Nadu do not seem to care for such things- even the house which was occupied by the greatest of modern Tamil Scholars , Dr.U.Ve. Swaminatha Iyer, who rescued Sangam literature from obscurity, has been allowed to be demolished.