Bharat Sangeet Utsav

I did not realize till Sunday that Carnatica was presenting Bharat Sangeet Utsav. And contrary to what appa says I did not miss the advertisement due to the way I read the newspaper. 30 seconds is enough for the nonsense they publish in the newspapers.

Anyway, I missed most of the utsav but on Sunday managed to watch dance performance by Rama Vaidyanathan and music concert by Vijay Siva followed by Sanjeev Abhyankar.
Rama Vaidyanathan presented a Margam sans Jathiswaram and sabdam. She started with a kauthvam and a Alarippu. This particular Alarippu was devoted to the National Bird- The peacock. While she captured the dance of the peacock beautifully, I maintain she did not highlight two aspects of the peacock- One its tendency to give its court call at 3am in the morning and second, its propensity to model itself on my verandah every morning. There it poses, with its tail spread behind for the world to admire, and eats up all my plants.

Anyway, that aside, it was a fantastic performance. She danced a varnam composed by Lalguidi Jayaraman. This was followed by Varugalaamo (Gopalakrishna Bharati's composition), and a padam composed by Purandara Dasa. The concluding item was a Thillana.

I missed Gayathri Venkataraghavan's concert but managed to go for the concert by Vijay Siva. He sang a beautiful ragam tanam in Madhyamavati (Palincu Kamakshi).

The final concert was by Sanjeev Abhayankar. Most of the South Indian crowd left at this point and only few North Indians (Mainly Maharashtrians)were present in the huge auditorium. Undaunted, Sanjeev Abhyankar sang Rag Bageswari and Madhukauns. At this point I had to leave as it was 8pm and getting dark.

One of the differences between the Hindustani and Carnatic musicians is that the former tend to use the Tanpura. The Carnatic musicians have replaced it with the electronic sruthi box, which is convenient but lacks the ambiance. I was thus surprised to see Sanjeev Abhyankar without the Tanpura. He too has adopted the convenient electronic sruthi box.