Driving his destiny with music

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The drone of an autorickshaw has hardly anything musical about it. But then, the sound envelopes Bobban’s world at daytime. He lets the whining and warbling of the vehicle flood his ears as he manoeuvers it through the city’s traffic. The nights, are for music. His voice blends with the accompanying orchestra and fills his senses, shutting out the drone of daily grind.  Suresh T, called Bobban by friends and family, was singing for professional music troupes even before finishing college. The temple near his parents’ home at Vazhuthacaud gave the young and untutored singer one of his first stages and the unmistakable strain of talent in his singing ensured that there was no dearth for more.  “I was hardly done with college when I started singing for the city-based troupe ‘Voice of Youth.’ And then, I fell in love. When I married Sindhu, I was just 21 years old and soon we realised that there was the music of life to face. And before I knew, I was driving an autorickshaw for daily wages. My elder sister took sympathy on us and bought me an auto after a few years. It earned my family, which had grown by then with the arrival of son Praveen and daughter Parvathy, a reliable means of livelihood,” Bobban sums up his story.  The singing continued despite the hardships and the diabetes that affected his health awhile in his late thirties. He would sing for ‘ganamela’ programmes in the nights and was ready to give up a day’s earning from auto driving if the programme happened to be at daytime. “I even took lessons under Carnatic vocalist Alappuzha Sreekumar when my daughter started learning music,” remembers the 48-year-old.  One of his friends had a job singing for the night karaoke in a city bar. He offered to trade the assignment to Bobban for a more lucrative job. “I was more than willing to take it up. It ensured a steady income as long as the contract existed,” he says. Bobban is also a regular singer at the evening buffet of a premium hotel on the Statue-General Hospital Road. He is noted for the effortless rendering of old Hindi hit songs, including ‘Roop tera mastana...’ and ‘Kabhi Kabhi mere dil mein...’  Though he let his children take lessons in music, Bobban would not want them to take it up as a profession. “It is better to have a stable job. Music is so enticing that you might lose your way before you know,” says the singer, who has never bothered to follow up the promises of a beseeched audience who assured him of chances in playback singing. The same repose helped him stay calm when his autorickshaw, his companion for more than two decades, was stolen from his near his house in Mannamoola seven months ago. “I drive a rented auto now, like 30 years ago. But I cannot sing like that anymore,” he smiles.