Thiruvavaduthurai, the small town that conjures up the image of nagaswaram wizard Rajarathinam Pillai, is also closely associated with seevali, a reed that is fitted with the instrument to produce the music.
If playing nagaswaram demands enormous lung power, making seevali is no less a demanding job. “The process of thirattuthal, shaping the reed into a fine piece, takes a toll on the back of the seevali maker. A rope is tied to a small bar erected on the floor and the other end is tied around the waist of the seevali maker. He has to constantly pull it to fine-tune the reed by tightening the yarn around it,” explained G. Muthuraman, a seevali maker, who won this year’s Fernandes Award instituted by Parivadini, an organisation promoting music, musicians and artisans involved in making musical instruments. Fernandes, known as Parlandu, was the mridhangam maker of Palghat Mani Iyer. “I suffered heavily and underwent a hip surgery to relieve the pain,” said Mr. Muthuraman, whose grandfather N. Natarajasundara Pillai and father N. Ganesan were also seevali makers. A special grass known as korukku thatti is used for making seevali. The bamboo-sized grass is transformed into reed. After being harvested from the river beds, it will be dried and kept aside for a year before being cut into small pieces for making seevali.
“We will flatten each piece by placing it in a press. Then we will tie them together and boil. We boil it with paddy as others may simply boil in water,” said Mr. Muturaman. Then comes drying them under the sun for a few days, followed by soaking them in ‘neerakaram’, made by further diluting the water drained after cooking rice and fermented for a day. “The soaking will improve the reed’s texture. After that we subject it to ‘thiratuthal’ and fix a small copper pipe so that it can be inserted into nagaswaram,” Mr. Muthuraman said. The seevalis would be made depending on the pitch of the nagaswaram player.
“The reed’s size will determine the pitch. Nagaswaram players from Andhra Pradesh and naiyandi melam artistes from Tirunelveli normally place orders for seevalis with high pitch.”
