Trivandrum , ironically, woke up quite late in paying its respect to Semmangudi on his birth centenary. The attempt that finally happened during 19-20 Sep 2008 was quite feeble with Neelakantan Sivan Sangeetha Sabha taking the lead and organizing OST's concert at their premises. There were some good reminiscences about Semmangudi by his disciples when they had the opportunity to learn from him during his tenure as Principal of the Swathi Thirunal Music college - especially the one by Seethalakshmi was quite sincere. Parasala Ponnammal was also present.
It was a typical ISO-9001 certified concert by OST. While every component of the kutcheri process was in conformity with standards, the emergent property of sukhanubhava somehow proved to be elusive. OST was accompanied by T.H. Subramaniam on the violin, J. Vaidyanathan on mridhangam and Trivandrum Karthikeyan on the ghatam. The concert started off with Vallabha Nayakasya in Begada and proceeded with Sundhara tara deham in Panthuvarali and Naradha Gana lola in Atana before reaching its climax in Thodi (Syama Sastri’s Ninne nammi). Earlier while speaking a few words about Semmangudi, OST recalled as to how the veteran had attended one of his concerts at Kozhikode sitting unobtrusively at the back of the stage and gave him the feedback not to overindulge in swaras. Perhaps if Semmangudi had attended the concert on 19 Sep, he would have repeated the same message. He might have also added to keep raga alapanas simple and melodic without resorting to complicated graha bedham exercises. It took about 20 seconds even for an unambiguous raga like Atana to reveal its true colour. Instead, T. H. Subramanyam on the violin had internalized the messages and played pure ,simple and sweet versions. It is said that class is permanent but form is fleeting. There is no doubting OST’s class – the form on the given day was a little off.
I could not attend the later part of the concert as the microphone bug had caught the organizers. I don’t see any point in someone making a summary of what has happened in the concert so far. The speech intrusion in the middle of a concert robs it of continuity and mood. After all there was an hour and a half of speeches prior to the concert. If it is in the nature of a “Vote of Thanksâ€