Carnatic Music-1 - Curtain Raiser

 

BELIEVE me, despite the impressionable first 20 years of upbringing in Mylapore in the proximity of Music Academy, Rasika Ranjani Sabha, Mylapore Fine Arts Club, and other popular (or is it elite?) cultural hangouts in the pre-Doordarshan era, my Carnatic music taste was non-existent. 

More focus was on light music by Uma Venkatraman-A V Ramanan, Abhaswaram troupes. 

Of course, I regularly sat at Venus Colony kathakalakshebam (discourses on Indian epics), accompanying my maternal grandmother. 

However, Carnatic music was not alien because my mother, grandmother, and families of friends in the neighborhood sang devotional songs. Daily almost.

Navaratri meant not only sundal but also mamis in colorful silk sarees, and Pretty Young Things in pavadai-thavani exercising their vocal cords in front of the stair-cased golu bommais. 

Carnatic music, for me, is nothing but bhakti rasa outpouring in various languages or through instruments. Heard less of Hindi devotional but more of Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada. Vidwans/Professional singers offered the same songs with lengthy alapana, swara, and other sangathis. 

Away from Singara Chennai for 45 years has not robbed me of that cultural link. Courtesy Youtube, I consume kutcheries (concerts): vocal, instrumental (veena, violin, mandolin, flute, saxophone, clarinet) regularly. 

Of late, I devised a pattern: identify a particular Carnatic song and consume it performed by various artists - vocal and instrumental. 

The recent experiment was Saint Tyagaraja's classic Bantu Reethi Koluvu - a short song in Telugu. But the duration of this song's performance depends on the player. Some did it 20 plus minutes. Some in less than 4 minutes. Male. Female. Young. Old. Amazing. Mesmerizing. Hindus. Christians. Muslims. 

Heard/Watched performed by 30-odd renowned and lesser-known sadhaks. Youtube, where else? More about it soon. 

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