Kazuo and me

I have been in bed the last few days with a bad back. This has resulted in desultory channel surfing lying on my day bed. Sometime today morning, I happened to chance on a movie called Never let me go. It had already started at least 20 to 30 minutes back. I thought it would be some mindlesss romcom and kept looking at the screen while working on something else. But hardly a few minutes into the movie, I was hooked. And as I watched it to the end, I knew I would have to read every single thing this Kazuo Ishiguro had ever written.

I cannot remember when last I was so so touched. The movie is tragic and stoic and utterly morbid all at the same time. And it is not just the nuanced performances of Carey Mulligan or the haunting background score. There are so many places in the movie where there is a stillness in the main cast which is so much more profoundly evocative than any amount of dialogue could have been.

Went out in the afternoon itself and got all the 3 books of his that were in the nearby Crossword. I really need to read them slowly, slowly tasting and savouring each sentence since he has written only six books.

But more than that it has been the palpable excitement and good cheer I have felt all day. It is always like this when I discover a new voice, somebody who resonates and I feel like " My God! how did I not know about this person before" And this book is more than 10 years old. The movie itself is more than 5 years old. It is not like he is unknown... so many awards, so many recognitions... but our paths never crossed. But now I have the chance to start a new affair. I have almost finished half of Never let me.. since afternoon.. but still. There is something so delicate in the way the most inhuman things are alluded to. It is like a sort of gentle unveiling. Of course, in my case I had seen the movie.. but still...

Rain on parched desert

I am a bloody ignoramus... what can I say.. there is so much i do not know.. my ignorance is so deep , abiding and profound that it still sometimes amazes me.

Today, I desultorily decided to try out this new classical music channel of AIR .. http://airbengaluru.com. There was somebody playing Bilahari on the violin and it was extraordinarily good. It was not just good but it was such a deep sound.. so satisfying ... and I thought to myself this channel the sound is so good and I kept listening. After that Bilahari, an announcer came on and said it was somebody called avaneeswaram sr vinu... and I wrote the name down. I had never heard this name before. This is what I mean. There is sound like this out there and I did not know it. After that he played Thaye Yashoda and I just knew I would be out there listening to every single thing this person has played and which is available on the net.

I was just in Chennai last month and attending various concerts and some were good and yet not one of them blew me away. I left the concerts of even the current reigning queens castigating myself and telling myself that I was getting jaded. If I was not able to be moved by the music then the fault was mine. But today that changed. Do you know that feeling when for the first time you hear somebody or chance on a new author or a new actor and for one nano second the world stops spinning.... that feeling that you have perchance stumbled on to something humungous.

There is a Ranjani( just 2.45 mts), a Brindavani( 4.something minutes).... they are all so superb. His violin weeps, it dances, the sound that he produces is exuberant( .45 mts of kathanakuthuhalam), it is plaintive, it is meditative.. it encapsulates every shade of emotion the human heart experiences.

Absolutely not to be missed. After a long time.. a cleansing energising shower on  my parched soul!!

Sikkil Gurucharan

Landed up in Chennai today for my husband's 40th IITM reunion. Forgotten how beautiful this campus is.. how peaceful.It is 40 years since I have lived on this campus. There used to be just one girls hostel.. apparently there are now 4!!!Of course IITM is especially significant to me since this is where I met Tabby almost 40 years back.. right around the Gajendra circle. I think I have a special affection for the campuses I have spent time on( even if it is just for a few weeks)...right from Delhi University to the beautiful bare brick buildings of IIMA, to the fern scented UCSC, to the arid BITS Pilani in the middle of the dessert.

Anyway, this is a blog on carnatic music so enough rambling.

Gurucharan started his concert in Parthasarathy Sabha with the Jalajakshi varnam with some nice variations on nee saati right at the end.

This was followed by a short alapana in Nattai followed by Thyagaraja's Ninne Bhajana. Nice. Only this was sung in 1 kalai instead of 2 kalai like I have learnt. So the first line ninne bhajana seyu vaadanu is covered in 2 avarthanas. His chittaswaram was also different. The version I have learnt has a p,np,n mp g,mg,mrs reminiscent of jagadananda in the later half. But this chittaswaram was different.

This was followed by a beautiful kaanada alapana and mamava sada. Lovely variations on mamava sada during the kalpana swaras.

Followed by the day's thirupaavai in Behag

Then a crisp orajupu chucheti nyayama of Thyagaraja which I had not heard and did not recognize at all.. My smart phone was resolutely dumb and no help at all. Finally whatsapp and my friend Ramya confirmed that it was Kannadagowla( srgmpns, sndpmgs-- janya of 22).

Followed by the main piece jesi nadella of Thyagaraja in Thodi .

The thani which followed this was quite disconcerting for me. For the first few minutes of UKS playing I kept trying to figure out if there was some other instrument on the stage. He kept producing a sound I had not heard .. resembling the twang of a pull on a musical string, complete with the resonance one hears after a string pull. Very unusual . Unlike anything I had heard.

I have heard Gurucharan thrice in the last 12 months and he has never disappointed. Overall quite satisfying.

The Mahathi concert

And yesterday a concert by Mahathi at Bhavan's Andheri. I had heard of her as a child prodigy who was recognising ragas when she was 18 months old. And maybe I had even heard a song or two by her.. but never a full fledged concert.

Mahathi started with the Kalyani Ata tala varnam by Pallavi Gopala Iyer. She has a voice that is capable of moving through musical phrases at  lightning speed. This was demonstrated right in the beginning at Chirunavvu itself and sort of set the pace for the rest of the concert.

This was followed by Deva deva( Mayamalavagoula, Swathi) with neraval at Jaata roopa nibha chela, janmaarjitha maamakhila. And I clearly remembered Dr T S Sathyavathi telling us that if we had to sing neraval for this piece , it would be better to do it at Dithi jaali vidalana, deenabandho maamava. TSS, could in general be extremely acerbic about many musical irregularities. And she used to be particularly biting about people who sang neraval without understanding the meaning of a line. I am unable to remember which workshop she said this in.. so I could not listen to the recording again. But I remember the gist of what she said in this context. It was her contention that all krithis would not lend themselves to neraval( obviously). She believed the musician should select that line which was not just amenable to musical variations but was also a line which encapsulated a lofty thought or idea and was worth repeating again and again so as to bring forth the composer's core vision.

And therefore I came back and sat with my Sanskrit translator and Govinda Rao's book again today morning . And yes, janmaarjitha maamakhila encapsulates an incomplete thought which gets completed only with the next 2 lines paataka sanchaya... karunaaya. All of it together means " Please obliterate all the sins I have accumulated in previous births" .

This was followed by Jagadananda and then Lavangi( Omkaarakarini by BMK). Lavangi as we know is the raaga with the least number of swaras( just 4 .. S R M D). Mahathi of course was able to traverse till the upper dhaivatam easily.

This was followed by a krithi called Saravanabhava, which I had never heard and sounded like it was Sudha Saveri and had all the Sudha Saveri notes. However, it was later announced as Pasupatipriya.. again a raga which I have not heard anything in.

The main piece was Kadanuvaariki. During the thodi alapana, there was a brief graha bhedham to rishabham resulting in mohana kalyani

Followed by a RTP in Malkauns .. other ragas during this piece were Brindavani, Durga, Behag and Revathi.

Followed by a thillana and a mangalam.

The musician has a very flexible voice, great skill and high energy. 

My experience at a TMK concert

Yesterday, I attended a concert by T M Krishna at the Nehru Centre, Worli. TMK was accompanied by Hemalatha on violin and Prasad on the mridangam.

The concert was interesting at various levels. Krishna began the concert with a Kedaragowlai alapana and I wondered if he would really sing Sami dayajuda( way too staid a way to begin for him). But he did not disappoint. He started with Saraguna Paalimpa, the 2 kalai, Poochi Srinivasa Iyengar krithi, which I had learnt a while back. It is always so much more interesting when you are listening to a song you have actually learnt, rather than just familiar with. And if you can actually remember all the sahithya, so much better. I feel it enhances my enjoyment of the process. So there we were beginning with a nice heavy piece. The neraval at shatadrutha poojitha had a number of variations in the mandara sthaayi.. which sounded different and good

He followed this with a Lathangi alapana which moved into taanam I was a bit nonplussed at this point and wondered if he would go into a RTP, this early in the game. But no worries.. he began Aparadhamula( Patnam Subramaniya Iyer). And this piece was lovely as well.

After this, Hemalatha began an alapana moving into taanam and I thought " Well that is democratic.. why should raga delineation always start with the vocalist?" Hemalatha was followed by Krishna's tanams which moved through a number of ragas so quickly that I could not figure out the individual ragas. Nor could my teacher, sitting next to me, who has been teaching and performing for over 50 years. So it was not just a function of my limited musical knowledge. The last taanam ending in Gowlai moved into Dudukugala. And my mind went " Whaaat.. Really? I am travelling 3 hours to listen to Duduku." But then I told my mind to shut up and be with his Duduku, which needless to say was also excellent... at least one variation hat I had not heard before with the ku as 3 perfect superfast upward moving spirals.And while I did sit back, there was just this little seed of inner discontent.

This was followed by Minalochana( Dhanyasi, Misra Chaapu, Shyama Shastri).. No alapana or taanams .. just a virutham preceding it.

After, this piece he started asking the organisers, who were seated in the auditorium well, if he could sing one more piece. And since it was just 9.15 and we had not started till well after 7.30, I was a bit surprised. But I resigned myself to the fact that the concert was maybe going to be one of those smaller affairs. Even though, it had been billed as One evening, One Maestro leading to expectations of a longer duration concert by the one artist.

And while we wondered if it would be Sindubhairavi or Madhyamavathi or maybe even a Hindolam, he started an alapana which sounded like Shankarabharanam. The alapana grew more elaborate and culminated in Dakshinamurthe( Dikshithar, Misra Jhampe).

Every one of the pieces Krishna sang was beautiful. It was melodious, tone perfect, flawless in every respect. The accompanists were of an extremely high calibre. The 5 pieces were individually like 5 perfectly polished high carat diamonds, which for some strange reason when strung together were  resulting in a less than perfect ornament.

And I could not understand why. I have attended concerts of artists of a much lower calibre, where I have left the auditorium feeling replete and content. And yet, I was leaving this auditorium feeling incomplete in some way.

Soundararaajam

Was taught Soundararajam, last Saturday at Sameeksha. Was ensnared from the very first raajam( r,n, s, p,) Of course these notations do not capture the beauty of that first descent into the mandara sthayi.

I think Dikshithar has explored this raga way better than anybody else I know. All that I have learnt in this raga is Rangapura( also from MKD and in the same tala as Soundararajam), Kamalaptakula ( Thyagaraja), Kaliyuga varadan( Periaswamy Thooran) and Saraseeruhaasana( Patnam). And before anybody accuses me of bias towards my ishta vaggeyakara, let me quickly say that I will be the first to admit that Thyagaraja has explored certain ragas way way deeper than MKD.. ..a Sukhi yevvaro and sri narada as compared to a  Veera hanumathe and Balambikayaha in Kaanada

 Anyway let us get to the sthala. Let us look at the genesis of the name – Nagapattinam( originally Nagar Pattinam since Adiseshah, the king of Nagars or snakes is believed to have worshipped Vishnu here)

 This temple is classified as one of the 108  Divya Deshams. I will not elaborate too much on the temple since there is enough available on both Wikipedia and the temple’s own site. There is no point cut pasting to this blog.

However, just a couple of other things.. this deity is also called Kaveri Thuraivan since the Cauvery apparently flows nearby. Vishnu, at this place is also called Azhagiyan or Soundararajan( the most beautiful one.) His consort here is called Sundaravalli.MKD has composed another song on this deity Sri Sundararajam Bhajeham in Kasiramakriya( Pantuvarali). Have gone through all the 472 compositions of MKD with me , but there seems to be no song on Soundaravalli by him.

 Since this blog is basically a learning tool for myself, I will not go into the kind of detail, there was when I started with the pancha buta krithis. The meanings are available in enough places already. Will just refer to certain aspects.

 In the pallavi , he is obviously referring to Gajendra Moksham( the incident when the leg of Gajendra, king of elephants was caught by a crocodile.) After many thousand years of struggle, Gajendra prayed to Vishnu and was saved by him. Varada means boons. So the person who is most adept at giving boons.

 Let me just dwell on the line sura vinutha mahi raajam

 First sura in this context has to refer to the number 33. As we know there were 33 principle devas, who were the guardians of Nature and Cosmic Creation. They were the 12 Adityas( Indra, Surya, Mitra Varuna etc), the 11 Rudras( manifestations of Shiva), 8 Vasus or elemental Gods like Vayu, Agni, Antariksh etc, Prajapati Brahma and Shri Hari Vishnu

 Sura is image of God/deity/sun or symbolical name for number 33

Vinuta is to be praised by

Mahi – great/greatness/ intellect.

So MKD is saying the king who was praised greatly by the 33 devas. Of course, this also means I have to stop singing it as soora vinutha and start saying sura vinutha

 The madhyama kalam in the anupallavi is pretty straight forward( no layered references). Most of the words like manda smitha , karambujam etc.. I have gone into at the root level in earlier posts

 Let us go to shambara vairi janakam. i.e father( janaka)  of the enemy( vairi)  of shambhara. Shambara was a asura , who carried off Pradyumna, Krishna’s son and threw him into the sea. He was eaten  by a fish. Shambara’s wife released him and later Pradyumna killed Shambara.

 The next few lines are straight forward. We will go to Ambudhi ( sea) garva( pride) nigraha( defeat, punish, suppress). Nagapattinam is on the sea shore and was badly destroyed in the 2004 tsunami. I am sure the people in this area have been at the mercy of the sea, from time immemorial, and Soudararajam, the presiding deity of this town, was seen as the protector of the populace, who suppressed the sea.

 This post can be made still richer. Will try at some future point, when I have more time. And of course, let us hope I can sing it the way it should be sung.

Sameeksha- Musical Retreat

Just back from the four day Sameeksha retreat in the Kottagiri Hills in South India.

What can one say? It was one of the most enjoyable and enlightening experiences in a long time.

Sameeksha( the brain child of Dr Vijayalakshmi Subramanian, Aruna Ranganathan, Dr Sunder and Mannarkoil Balaji) has been conceived as a retreat for music aficionados and practitioners. One gets to learn from experts who are at the zenith of their skill and expertise, while they explore the hills and valleys, forests and water falls in these pristine surroundings. Day long music sessions, yoga, treks, listening sessions accompanied by Kodagu food in the incredibly energising mountain air.... is it a surprise that everyone of us was tempted to abuse Aruna's incredibly overwhelming hospitality and linger in those surroundings a while longer?

Since it was the first ever such retreat, it was limited to a small group of about ten people so there was sufficient one-on-one interaction. Feel really lucky to have been present at the very birth of a whole new concept.

Like I told Aruna on the last day, I was tempted to switch genres for a minute and sing like Julie Andrews " The hills are alive with sound of music..."

A heart felt thanks to all the four principals and my wonderful co-participants.