G.S. Raghuveeran - Raghuveeran was born in Tirumangalam near Madurai. Born in a family with no musical traditions, His father was a 'paramparya vaidyar'. it was by chance some one identified his talent. Although not confirmed, his first guru is supposed to be a disciple of Sabha Shaastrikal. It is not clear how he reached Vizianagaram and met with Drwaram Venkita Swamy Naidu and became a disciple in the Gurukula tradition. He acquired a friend Chandrasekharan, another person from Tamil Nadu who was a vainika with whom he lost contact with after he left Vizianagaram. He stayed with Dwaram for an appreciable amount of time before leaving for Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) to join Radio Ceylon. He had a brother who accompanied him to Sri Lanka and settled there as a businessman. G S Raghuuveeran later moved to India and joined All India Radio. In between, he had spent some time in Kabul, Afghanistan too though the context is not known. He picked up Urdu during his stay in Afghanistan. Most of his service was at AIR, Trivandrum. He very rarely went for stage performance. Some very rare recordings of his are available (one accompanying Chemabai and another accompanying M Balamurali Krishna) Somehow, he disliked accompanying anyone and preferred to be a soloist. There were very few opportunities for solo performances for a violinist in those times and ghe sort of withdrew to a shell. He used to play his violin actively and some recordings of those are available. He is used to have good friendships both at persobnal and professional levels with reputed musicians. His knowledge impressed many. I have heard that M S Subbulakshmi once took him to Madras Music Academy for making a detailed presentation of various aspects of South Indian Classical music. T R Mahalingam was a regular contact of G S Raghuveeran and used to visit him at his house near Valia Salai, whenever Mahalingam reached Trivandrum. (I had the good fortune to meet T R Mahalingam twice at the residence of G S Raghuveeran). He used to tell me that violin and similar instruments are the best (along with human 'throat') for music since they do not have restrictions in the frequency of notes to be used. Post retirement, he met his old pal, Veena Chandrasekharan at Trichy and they had performed a lot of 'jugalbandhis' at the residence of Dr. Hariharan, a staff of BHEL, Trichy. This Chandrasekharan used to hold the veena like a tampura and play. He was featured in some Tamil Magazine/weekly once. Raghuveeran had another pal, a well known musician Trichy Ganesan who settled in Madurai. and used to play his violin at his residence. It is assumed that some of the recordings available were actually private performances in Trichy Ganesan's house in Madurai. Like his ancestors, Raghuveeran's children too were not inclined to music. There was an exception, R Ilango who became a guitar player. I am aware of the elsest son only. He is Dr. Vasanthan , formerly the Chief Physician of Brunei Sultan.

Written by Anand Ganesa Iyer. Photo, songs, and bio provided by Anand Ganesa Iyer.

Compositions:

1. aDiyan emakkisai koDuttAn - nATTai
   
2. akappuRa chUzhnilkkeRpa - saraswati
   
3. aLavaillAda pAsa - kalyANa vasantam
   
4. Anandam paramAnandam - hamsAnandi
   
5. ArarivuDaiyAr - behAg
   
6. aRintavar yAruLar - bhairavi
   
7. aRivoLitaru vArevaro - nIlAmbari
   
8. aRiyAdetSatyum - aThANA
   
9. Asai viduIr Anandam - hindOLam
   
10. avviyam pIDitOrAdu - ranjani
    
11. isaiyOgam tanakku - kalyANI