The Hills are Alive with Amma’s Music

MS Amma’s presence could turn ordinary occasions into something lasting. Whether her voice rose inside the temple before the deity or filled a packed auditorium, it carried the same quality of devotion that the Tirumala landscape itself seems to hold.

VJM Divakar :

The hills of Tirumala climb in long, uneven green ridges, their thick forest cover catching the early sun in muted gold. At dawn, thin mist settles in the valleys and drifts through the trees, carrying the sharp scent of wet earth and wild jasmine on the cool air. Birds call clearly across the slopes as the trail switches back and rises toward the temple perched high above the plains. In that quiet stretch of forest, the sense of something larger than the landscape itself feels close at hand.

It was in this very landscape, during the late 1980s, that I found myself approaching the temple for darshan. I carried a strong letter from the office of Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, supported by a personal phone call to the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams Executive Officer from CMPRO Dr. S. Vijaykumar, and aided by the large-hearted help of Dollar Sheshadri Garu. 

Those arrangements made the VIP path smoother. As I moved forward with folded hands toward the main deity, the usual TTD volunteers pressed the queue along with their familiar call of “dayachayandi.” Suddenly the line stopped for a short while. A few paces in front of me stood Sadasivam Sir, and ahead of him was MS Amma herself. For a couple of fortunate minutes she remained there and began to sing. The notes of “Venkatachala Nilayamu Vaikunta...” rose in the sanctum with a purity that seemed to match the quiet beauty of the surrounding hills. I stood awestruck.

Instead of lingering in heartfelt darshan of Lord Venkateswara, I finished my salutations in a hurry, took my young son and daughter by the hand, and brought them out of the sanctum to place them directly before MS Amma and Sadasivan Sir.Both Amma and Sadasivan Sir blessed the children. Sadasivam Sir asked a few questions. When he learned I worked with the Indian Express, he told me he knew Seth-Ji—Ramnath Goenka—and Master-Ji. The exchange carried a quiet warmth. That brief meeting remains a divine moment for me, and especially for my children, who only in later years came to understand fully the stature of the two people who had blessed them that day. 

On September 16, her birthday, I remember MS Amma and Sadasivam Sir with warm regards.An earlier experience from the same period returns to me as well. In the late 1980s my colleague Chaganti Kapaleeswara Rao, known to all of us as CK, the cultural correspondent of the Indian Express, managed an extra pass so I could join him at one of MS Amma’s concerts at Rabindra Bharathi. In the front row sat Sadasivam Sir, Sarod maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, and his wife. On stage MS Amma held the entire audience under her spell. Her voice carried the same depth and clarity that had defined her art for decades. The evening should have been one of pure listening. 

Instead, CK kept whispering in my ear throughout the performance. He pointed out her diamond nose ring and repeated stories about an alleged relationship with GNB. Those constant asides pulled my attention away from the music. After the concert ended I gave him a strong piece of my mind for spoiling what had been a divine evening. These two memories sit side by side in my mind. One took place amid the green stillness of the Tirumala hills, where a spontaneous song and quiet blessing arrived without warning.

The other unfolded in a concert hall, where the power of live performance had to contend with idle talk. Together they show how MS Amma’s presence could turn ordinary occasions into something lasting. Whether her voice rose inside the temple before the deity or filled a packed auditorium, it carried the same quality of devotion that the Tirumala landscape itself seems to hold.On this birthday anniversary the recollection feels especially clear. The hills still rise in green silence. 

The temple continues its steady rhythm of worship. And the memory of that brief song in the queue, of my children receiving a blessing, and of a concert nearly lost to distraction stays vivid. MS Amma and Sadasivan Sir left their mark not through grand statements but through simple, unplanned grace—moments that continue to stay with me long after the mist lifts from the Tirumala slopes and the final notes fade