Hitting The High Notes

For Carnatic Music Vocalist T.M. Krishna, Mountains, Like His Art, Teach Him to Shift Boundaries

- Akhila Krishnamurthy

“ The next morning, my brother, a group of friends, and I trekked to the glacier, and it was sheer magic. I felt something so deep; it was as if I could breathe in a way that we don’t normally do. It was my moment of epiphany. I knew I had to keep coming back to the mountains.

That was in 2010. Strangely, when I think about it, that year also coincided with a perceptible shift in many aspects of my music—the way I sang, my relationship with aesthetics, the socio-politics of music, everything found a newer meaning and expression.

And then, exactly a year later, I met Badri Vijayaraghavan, a seasoned mountain climber based in Chennai. I told him I was keen to climb and since then, we’ve become climbing buddies, making that experience an annual ritual, allowing the mountains to move us in a way that only they can.

That’s the thing about mountains; they allow you to quietly and deliberately look at everything that is going on, within and outside, enabling almost an outsider’s perspective of who you are, what you are doing and how you live your life.

My journey in climbing—I had only trekked until then—began with Ladakh when we summited Stok Kangri, the highest mountain in the Stok range of the Himalayas, at 20,187 feet. For a first-timer, I think I did well, and since then I’ve been hooked.

Climbing is addictive; and it’s not because it’s a quick-fix solution to all your problems. I think the mountains provide me the space to return to my life with a sense of calm, breathe better and let things flow.

It’s not easy, mind you. Climbing instilled in me the need and importance of physical and mental discipline. I train religiously, almost rigorously, through the year to prepare for a climb that is almost always a life-changing experience.