“When i say Abhinaya, oh, I can't do the abhinaya like what the great man did here yesterday”
- Great Bharatanatyam dancer Balasaraswati next day after Chakyar's lecture-demonstration at Madras Music Academy in 1973.Mani Madhava Chakyar
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“No one is like the Emperor of Abhinaya- Mani Madhava Chakyar, and there won't be any” - Prof. Maria Christopher Byrski (first foreigner disciple of Guru and Kutiyattam), Department of Indology, Warsaw University, 1987
Mani Madhava Chakyar
“Mani Madhava Chakyar was performing sikhinisalabha... Butterflies fly all around. Some of them fell into the fire below. The anguish was reflected in the actor’s eyes. Ha! There they come out without a burn! What a relief! They came again. The actor continued the performance. Only his eyes move… The audience was spellbound. They did not know that an hour has passed!”
- About his world famous abhinaya of the shloka shikhinisalabha from Subhadradhananjayam.Mani Madhava Chakyar
“His eyes were the unrivaled wonder of Abhinaya”
- P.T. Narendra Menon (connoisseur of art), 1990Mani Madhava Chakyar
Asoka (264 to 227 B.C.), one of the great monarchs of history, whose dominions extended from Afghanistan to Madras... is the only military monarch on record who abandoned warfare after victory. He had invaded Kalinga (255 B.C.), a country along the east coast of Madras, perhaps with some intention of completing the conquest of the tip of the Indian peninsula. The expedition was successful, but he was disgusted by what be saw of the cruelties and horrors of war. He declared, in certain inscriptions that still exist, that he would no longer seek conquest by war, but by religion, and the rest of his life was devoted to the spreading of Buddhism throughout the world.
He seems to have ruled his vast empire in peace and with great ability. He was no mere religious fanatic.Ashoka the Great
I don't really go along with this sense that you sometimes pick up - that is, classical music is superior to everything else. I think classical music is a very great music form, but I can also think of other great music forms. And certainly within each field, you have absolute geniuses operating. Over the years, I've tried to bring together different people from different fields, and I do try to put Bach and Beethoven next to other types of musicians.
Joanna MacGregor
Chakyar, Mani Madhava
Chalabi, Ahmed
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