Meeting Vishwanath Parsuram- one of the master-minds of the audio-book phenomenon- Karadi Tales and one of the celebrated musicians from the pop-group ‘Three brothers and a violin’, is a pleasant experience. This outwardly easy-going man with his classic Tamil looks becomes an animated speaker while speaking about his creative ventures and I just have to ask an occasional question here and there to keep his conversation flowing. Here are the excerpts of an interview.

We grew up in a small 350 sq. feet flat in Chembur- a Mumbai suburb. At home the atmosphere was very musical and we listened to all kinds of music- Carnatic, Hindustani and Western. My father was just a stenographer but he spent half his modest salary on providing musical education to all his children. We all owe it to his dedication and determination to make us musicians. Amongst the three brothers, I learnt to play mridangam, younger Sriram learnt violin and the youngest Narayan- ghatam and mridangam. Plus all of us learnt Carnatic vocal music, too. Even as children we used to perform publicly during our vacations.

As we completed our education, life took all the brothers in different directions. For many years, we pursued our careers in different parts of the world but somehow that musical bond finally brought us back together. We decided to create our own music- group. Those were the heydays of Indipop and we decided to enter the fray. When we came up with an idea to launch Saavariya- our first album in 1999, that time we decided on the name ‘Three brothers and a violin’- since we were three brothers and Sriram’s violin was an integral part of our compositions. It was a spur- of- the moment kind of a decision but somehow people liked it.

All of us enjoyed the success and the fame that came after Saavariya. Being the pop artists also brings in obligations to be in public eye, to perform in various concerts, to play to the gallery. That part didn’t really suit our ideas and temperaments. We think of ourselves as serious musicians and we thought that we were not doing justice to our music by creating this ‘pop’ image.

The English- Hindi fusion lyrics in Saavariya was one similarity to Colonial Cousins and perhaps, as Hariharan- the lead composer of that group is also trained in Carnatic classical music like us, the music might have shown some similarities. I would say whatever influence they might have had over us, was at the subconscious level. Consciously we have never tried to imitate anybody and personally I feel our tunes in Saavariya were quite different. About the Hindi- English lyrics, I would say that as Tamilians born and brought up in Mumbai, we automatically think and speak in a mixed lingo that is a combo of Hindi, English and Tamil. So it was just an extension of that natural thought- process.

We recently composed music for the children’s film Jjantaram Mmantaram and are doing another children’s film’s music for director Sai Paranjape. We are not too keen on doing run-of-the-mill Bollywood films. In fact, recently we even refused a major offer as we felt that there was too much interference stifling any attempt to be creative. Plus, we are now extremely busy with our new projects for Karadi Tales.