Word: ponnudorai
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...This is how he may have continued, a jobbing musician in a seedy netherworld, were it not for an epiphanic injury in 1992. His friend fell asleep at the wheel of a car and ran off the road, sending Ponnudorai, a passenger, headfirst through the window. Initially, he appeared miraculously unscathed and was sent home with a head full of stitches. But days later, he was unable to fret guitar chords or walk a straight line. Fresh tests revealed a massive blood clot covering an entire side of his brain, just waiting to rupture, and he was rushed into surgery...
...coaxing the inner beauty out of moribund folk-song fodder like Five Hundred Miles or Fire and Rain, which he performs with spellbinding verve, Ponnudorai drew on the vast musical vocabulary amassed during his barroom years, and used it to execute the material with arresting freshness. His new solo act emerged in 2000; effortlessly spanning genres and periods, and quoting songs within songs, it is perfectly attuned to ears raised on unfettered sampling, but beneath the complexity is the sincerity of a man celebrating all that is musical and the simple fact of being alive. This is the combination that...
...talented and the house never silent. If it wasn't one of the children playing guitar or piano, it was classical Indian music or the Beatles on the turntable, and the Johnny Cash Show on TV. "I used to watch my brothers and sisters and pick things up," says Ponnudorai. "At 6, I was playing guitar...
...Ponnudorai was good enough to win a national TV talent contest, playing an instrumental rendition of Killing Me Softly. But despite this early success, he had no thoughts of becoming a professional musician until lack of money stymied his desire to read English literature at university. At a loose end, and with the family having moved to Kuala Lumpur, he persuaded his mother to let him earn a few ringgits by playing a couple of hours a night at a bar where one of the older Ponnudorai boys was a regular. "That was 1979," Ponnudorai says. "I walked into that...
...Ponnudorai's circle of friends and family members, the only person untroubled by his lack of fame is the man himself. Since his accident, he has been content simply to make a living. "It took me a while to figure it out," he says, "but as long as I can play, I'll be a happy man." And so it happens that this remarkable musician will perform at Harry's this weekend, while most of the drinkers have their backs to the stage. It doesn't matter if 10 people are listening or 10,000. His music ascends like...