Of Carnatic music, devotion and tech
Ominous thunderclouds are gathering as we wend our way through the verdant campus of IIT Madras, slowing to let the occasional deer pass. The skies will come crashing down soon but before that we have to make it to the Bose Einstein guest house for a luncheon meeting with V. Kamakoti, Director.
He’s the first academic we are featuring in the Table Talk series but then Kamakoti is no ordinary academic. A PhD in computer science, 54-year-old Kamakoti’s life has been governed by music and religion. His father N Veezhinathan, a renowned Sanskrit scholar of Madras University, is an ardent devotee of the Kanchi Periyava, Sri Chandrasekhara Saraswathi Swamigal, the erstwhile Sankaracharya of the Kanchi Mutt, and it was he who directed that Kamakoti study CS at the Kanchi Mutt-incubated Venkateswara Engineering college and also said that he should not go abroad but study in India only.
A trained Carnatic violinist, Kamakoti’s passion is evident as our conversation, in a free mix of Tamil and English , segues often into music and musicians.
Violin love
As we settle for lunch, we ask Kamakoti how much time he spends for IIT, considering that he doesn’t stay on the campus. “7 am to 10 pm; the institute demands that much time,” he says, with his trademark grin. His father, he says, has a large library, and shifting to the Director’s house on campus would take two years, so he prefers to continue in the house his father built years ago.
Lunch is sumptuous: chapattis with channa, arbi fry, a mixed vegetable poriyal, steamed broccoli, slices of tandoori paneer. For Kamakoti, it’s no onions or garlic so he gets separate portions of each. The conversation veers to Carnatic music and his violin playing.
The violin came into his life, Kamakoti says, because of cricket. Veezhinathan was never happy with his only child’s obsession with (street) cricket, but once Kamakoti broke his glasses in a match, the elder threw the cricket bat into a well, and practically thrust a violin into the boy’s hands. Very well, said Kamakoti, who was equally charmed by Carnatic music. Favourite raga? …
