Rasa by RaGa

 Yesterday's Rasa by RaGa program at the Tata Theatre in Mumbai presented by Pancham Nishaad was really quite remarkable. Of course, it is a few months since I have been inside a concert and a few years since I have heard a live performance by the duo. That helps. As in much else, too much exposure to anything dulls our palate and gives us diminishing returns in terms of enjoyment.

The single thing that stood out was the sheer innovativeness in presentation. I think except for two compositions, Mariveregati( Shyama Shastri, Anandabhairavi) and Manasa Sanchara re( Sadashiva Brahmendra, Saama), not a single composition was a straight presentation. There were medleys in a particular raga, medleys in related ragas, griha bhedam demos etc. But more about that later.

And it was long. Today, we are getting used to a two hour or even a 90 minute presentation. Which makes one wonder if you want to spend three hours travelling and 30 minutes listening to the organiser's ramblings.

The concert started with Gambeeranattai. Two compositions, one in a straight forward Adi talam and the other Uthukaadu's Shri vignarajam bhaje in kanda chaapu

The second piece was a really slow and wonderful Marivere in Anandabhairavi..simply superb

However for me the most interesting was the next griha bhedam starting with Hamsanandi, a janya of the 53rd melakartha Gamanasramana( S R1 G3 M2 D2 N3 S) Using a thillana in Hamsanandi( or Purvi, Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar's nrnr gmgrs) as the base, the artists moved on to Hindolam by moving the shadjam to R1..Piece demonstrated here was Samajavara( Thyagaraja).. onto Durga by moving the Shadjam to G3.. piece demonstrated was a bandish on Durga. This was followed bySudha Dhanyasi by moving to M2( Dikshithar's Subramanyena Rakshitoham), followed by Mohanam ( Swagatham Krishna moving to the D) and lastly Madhyamavathi( Bagyadalakshmi) by moving to Nishadam. This was an extraordinary exercise because each of the compositions had some swarams or alapana or neraval, some manodharma component. And finally at the end a simple demo of singing the base flat notes to demo the shift. Was both thrilling and  enjoyable.

The next big segment which they dubbed as the main piece had four compositions, all in Deshadi talam and janyas of Kharaharapriya( 22nd in the melakartha scale). They were also all on Rama. They started with Bhuvini dasudani in Shriranjani, followed by Ikka Naina ( Pushpalatika, Tirupati Narayanaswamy) with neraval at akalanka neeve adharudani. This was followed by Kamalaptakula( Thyagaraja) in Brindavana Saranga and lastly Neekelana in Devamanohari of Poochi Srinivasa Iyengar. 

The last two segments were  medleys of popular songs derived from films,  folk or devotional in nature. The first segment had pieces by Subramanya Bharathi on Muthumaari, ram ratan Payoji and muddugare yashoda. The second was a medley of popular songs in Kapi in a variety of languages like Tamil Telugu Kannada, Hindi and Marathi beginning with a 1991 SP Balasubramanian song( lyrics by Vairamuthu, Composed by Ilayaraja) - Vannam Kondu Vennilave.

And one cannot end without mentioning the tani portion. Which was again different and innovative. Started with a segment consisting of konnakol by S Krishna, the ghatam artist and mridangam by Sai Giridar. And The konnakol portion, such incredible voice modulation ranging from soft as a whisper to a rising crescendo. Till I heard that, it never occurred to me that it was one of the tools available for a konnakol artist. This might seem laughable to many. But listening to him made me realise how that is a tool to differentiate too. Students need to hear stuff to get the myriad possibilities in various places. Followed by a tani segment in the usual format between a mridangam and a ghatam artist . But this was followed by a segment where Charumathi Raghuraman , the violinist started the simple takadhmi takajanu shol in chatusra , joined by the vocal artists and then the percussionists who went on to tisram and khandam etc . Given that we are used to seeing the tani portion of a concert as one where basically the percussionists perform with the others just keeping a talam, this collaborative exercise was a refreshing change.

The simple fact was that there was so much freshness and innovation in the entire presentation from a small thing like the vocalists alternating among themselves in taans once as swaras and once as aakar to the many ghatams and mridangams on stage for the griha bhedam segment.

And it showed. The Tata Theatre fully packed with not a soul moving out till the last note.