Sri Murugan Sangeetha Bommalatta Sabha of Kumbakonam is keeping the ancient folk puppet theatre alive against all odds BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
A flair for the arts
T.
N. Sankaranathan was born in Kumbakonam, in 1926. Despite being visually impaired from birth, the young Sankaranathan had a flair for the arts. Sankarathan was interested in drama, and had acted in several religious and historical plays as part of Vani Vilasa Sabha (Kumbakonam) and Boys Company while being trained in Carnatic music by Violin Rajamanickam Pillai. While singing songs for Bommalattam
for his foster father Mani Iyer in the early 1930s, he started acting in plays on social activism, directed by lawyer, activist and arts lover E. Krishna Iyer, and toured widely outside Tamil Nadu. Born as Sankaran, he was given the title of ‘Nathan’ for the musicality of his voice and his talent in using a folk art like Bommallattam to explain social and religious ideas with the help of music, at the Agama Silpa Sadas in 1968, by Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati of the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham. The Bomalattam exponent received an ocular implant at the age of 40, and since then has had vision in one eye. Sankaranathan has stopped touring with us due to his advanced age.
