PUJYASRI MATHIOLI SARASWATHY
One does not decide to go to a Guru. The Guru and one's destiny decide when the Guru enters one's life. That Pujyasri 'Mathioli' Saraswathy fills my fills my life is my good fortune. She has many persona (more than most people and that is why she is larger than life) but foremost she is 'Akka' - the elder sister to many of us - a beloved, revered member of each family the way the child Krishna was the only lover of each and every Gopi in Vrindavan!
ARTICLE BY SMT Karpagavalli Gopalakrishnan (Mother and Guru)
My music lessons started quite early at the age of 7 or 8. But unfortunately or (luckily) it was discontinued twice due to my ill health. A week after I started I fell ill with a severe bout of typhoid. After I was a little better I started once again and this time also the lessons had to be discontinues because I had a relapse. We had bought a new veena and to keep it safe mother had a box made and it was shown to me and I believe I said
it looks like a coffin.
I really don’t remember what was taught to me the first two times. Anyway, as I said I was lucky it was for a short time as I did not have to unlearn that to get into the groove of the new technique. I need not have 
worried on that count as the teaching practices of music teachers were very different. They started with scales and the pupils would have to play all the variations of the scales in the three tempos. This would take two years after which the master started geetham. Even this would be absolutely plain without any embellishment- the poor child would be bored with music and lose even the little interest she started with. Ayyangar’s method was revolutionary. He did not believe in the scales and geethams. He bought me a new veena from Tanjore which I have with me still.
I play on this veena now; it is 67 years old (KGV).
He would apply a dot of sandal paste for the madyamam,panchamam and the upper shadjam. The old veena was there if ever a demonstration was needed. I first had to get familiar with the placement of the swaras. After two days of this I had to get the names of the swaras correctly Sudha Rishabam, Chatursruti Rishabam, Suddha Gandharam Antara Gandharam, then Madyamam, and Prati Madyamam , and so on for the Daivatan and Nishadam. After this he started the janta swarams. In this technique, the forefinger on the middle finger had to be used.
She explained saying that the janta could be played in two ways either as a strike by the middle finger or a swift replacement of the index finger of the middle finger (after the plucking) with just one plucking.
There was quite a lot of work for the middle finger.
My middle finger is a testament to that- it is longer than its counter part on the right hand and crooked to boot- KGV.
There were two, three ways of playing janta swaram and that was the only time he would take up the other veena and show me how to play. After I became familiar with this he started teaching me to play brigas and embellishments using both the fingers separately. When starting a new song, he would sing the sahithyam and I had to play the swaram for it. If I did not get it correctly he would sing it again and again and sing the swaras with the tala beats. If it was just playing the swaras it was plain sailing. But even in that one line there would be so many embellishments that he would have to teach me how to get that correct. But that was only for the first two songs. After that no swaram singing, I had to reproduce the sahityam with the extra embellishments. One song to be completed would take a week- only then I could play it the way he wanted with the correct taalam. After every music session he would take up a special notebook purchased for this purpose and write down the notation with the saahityam and he had a red ink pen with which he used to mark the taalaas.
When he was teaching my sisters (to play the violin) he used to mark time to indicate the taalam. But with me he never did it and he used to get irritated if mytaalam was wrong. But I used to tell him, “when you teach my sisters you help them by marking time to indicate the taalam. You should do that for me also so that the taalam would be fully internalized”. But he didn’t agree. “ I have noted the taalam in your notebook; why don’t you see that and play correctly?” My answer was that he never encouraged me to play with the book open- he would sarcastically comment that this wasn’t Wetsern music and that I should first sing the line with the taalam and then play it on the veena. And the taalam on the veena was not like what the other vainikas played.
Veena Dhanam, I believe, used to insist that the taalam should not be loud or strident but a mellow background sruti which meant that for aadi taalam with double kalais- the taalam would be for every beat on the hand and for single kalai the taalam would be for every other beat. So it took a lot of time and effort. With this point in mind when teaching my niece and son I always used to accompany with the taalam- so that very soon they could keep time. Like my teacher I was also very particular about the details. I would always be there when they were playing so that every session was a teaching session. This is how in the two years I taught them, they had learnt about 80 songs with three varnams and every one of them was perfect in every aspect!