mallAdi SuribAbu@Carnatica (Arkay hall) on Dec 31st 2010

[rajeshnat]

mallAdi SuribAbu@Carnatica (Arkay Convention hall) on Dec 31st,2010
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Vocal : mallAdi SuribAbu
Violin : Balu raghurAman
Mrudangam : Arjun kumar
SabhA/Day : Carnatica /Friday

In 2011 , as I opened the hindu I saw an archive writeup from GNB. Atleast one phrase had a very impactful and everlasting truth . That phrase by Shri GNB was "Unless an artiste is endowed with a good voice, his scholarship would be of little avail."

Flash back one year back |( , I attended a concert of mallAdi suribAbu for the first time . There is indeed a living example for that phrase, that was this veteran mallAdi suribAbu. If you like vOleti , you can find the near close sonorous voice of voleti in suribAbu. Incidentally suribAbu is the father of mallAdi Ravi kumar.

This was the second concert that I attended after hearing a 2 hr concert of vasudha keshav, suribAbu also started with the same vanajAkshghearO ] in kalyAni. He sang bit slow than the usual slow tempo , but what I could latch from there on was his voice culture.

He went on with reetigowlai with a rare vasudEvacharya krithi and he sang beautifully, the sAveri of T was just haunting ,when sAveri has a sonorous and filling voice it adds a high sense of sereneness and with that T (not ST) krithi tulasijagathjaNaNi it was really very aesthetic .

The next was bit of a spin , when he was singing the alApana atleast for the first half the touch of hameerkalyAni was more but some how ended like a kannada. MD's shree mAthrubhUTam in kannada was sung very well , his diction is really clean and he sang swaras for the first time there .

I heard a fairly elaborate chandrajyothi alApana and I had to leave the hall at that time when he winded up very well .There is a touch of tadepalli lokanAtha sharma (another rare singer from andhra ), particularly for most of the time they close their eyes and just lift their hands . I guess for all budding singers that will help a lot as the hall size does not matter whether it is 1200 + Narada gAna sabhA or 120 + arkay convention hall.

The violinist balu rAghuram played well , especially I thought it was a bit of tough catch to play the kannada alapana, but his bowing was very nice with a high shruthi suddham.

I am listening to this ArjunkumAr for the first time and he played well. I had to leave at the beginning of perhaps main, AC and margazhi weather is a dampener ] .

1. vanaJAkshirO (R) - kalyAni - poochi
raga alapana for 3 mins
2. mama hridayE - reetigowlai - MV
3. tulasi jagathjanani - sAveri -T
4 mins alapana and 3 mins violin return

4. shree mAthrubhUtam (S) - kannada - MD
5. chandrajyothi alapana
.... possibly the only bhAganayya
....
...

[mahavishnu]

Incidentally suribAbu is the father of mallAdi Ravi kumar.

Rajesh, isn't he the father of both Malladi Brothers?

[srikant1987]

the sAveri of ST was just haunting ,when sAveri has a sonorous and filling voice it adds a high sense of sereneness and with that ST krithi tulasijagathjaNaNi it was really very aesthetic .

It's a Thyagaraja kriri! :tmi:

[kartik]

It's a Thyagaraja kriri! :tmi:

Ya, ST is Saint Tyagaraja I suppose!

[rajeshnat]

Rajesh, isn't he the father of both Malladi Brothers?

I am not sure if they are own brothers , perhaps some one else can clarify.In the concert, I saw ravi seated in the hall along with the sparse crowd of 15.
Corrected T from ST , thanks.

[srikant1987]

Rajesh,

There's one more place where it'll need to be "corrected". Though we can just assume it stands for Saint Tyagaraja, like Kartik suggests.

[musicfan_4201]

" own brothers " ????. If not brothers, they are cousins. Is there any usage such as own brothers
Ofcourse they are.

[mahavishnu]

musicfan_4201: the expression is a translation of the tamizh expression "sondha thambi/anna" meaning brother (of the same parents). While there isn't an equivalent expression in English, for most south Indians Rajesh's expression is a neologism that makes perfect sense.

And yes, Malladi brothers are indeed biological siblings. My question was more rhetorical.

[rajeshnat]

musicfan_4201: the expression is a translation of the tamizh expression "sondha thambi/anna" meaning brother (of the same parents). While there isn't an equivalent expression in English, for most south Indians Rajesh's expression is a neologism that makes perfect sense.

And yes, Malladi brothers are indeed biological siblings. My question was more rhetorical.

Tx I did not know for sure that they were biological siblings .

mahavishnu
This translation of thamizh expression just reminds me of my college days:
There was a thamizh to english translation, where one person asks a question and the other translates exactly in english:

1.In thamizh: Un peyar enna???
1. In english "What is your name??"

2. In thamizh : Unga appa enna vEla patkarAr?
2. In english : What is your fathers occupation?

3. In thamizh : "Unga vEEtila nee ethanAvuthu paiyan???"
3. Try translating the above question to english????? , I gave up then and I give up now too...

[rshankar]

3. In thamizh : "Unga vEEtila nee ethanAvuthu paiyan???"
3. Try translating the above question to english????? , I gave up then and I give up now too

'What is your birth order?' I guess...This is an example of why one can't 'blindly' translate, because there are some aspects of the two languages that need to be kept intact - which is why 'I am keeping the phone' (literal translation of of 'nAn phOnai vekkarEn') is as incorrect as 'nAn phOnai kIzhE pODa pOrEn' (literal translation of 'I am going to put the phone down')!

[mahavishnu]

Rajesh and Ravi: This one is especially hard to translate, given cultural differences in usage as well.

When I was in high school, some of us came up with this one: If all the children in your household were numbered 1 through N in order of birth, what would your number be? Ravi's version is much more succinct.

[sureshvv]

3. In thamizh : "Unga vEEtila nee ethanAvuthu paiyan???"

What is your birth order?I guess...

Close, but no cigar... This exhibits no preference for gender unlike the tamil version.

[vasanthakokilam]

"How many'th son are you?" will convey the meaning except that word does not exist. It is a problem with English. Like prepone, if Indians start using it, it will be accepted, at least considered as part of Indian English, even if purists cringe. English is good that way.

[rshankar]

"How many'th son are you?"

A less cringe-inducing version may be: What's your birth order among your male siblings? (disgusting things, cigars, btw!!)

[rshankar]

Indian English.

I thought that it was Inglish

[vasanthakokilam]

Yes, Inglish alright.. Though less cringe-inducing and correct, "birth order among your male siblings" for 'etthanAvathu payyan' is too long and I do not see it rolling off the tongue The root cause of the problem in English is at a lower level, namely, the equivalent for the word 'etthanAvathu' outside this birth order context. "etthanai' is 'how many".. etthanAvathu is .... ?

Is there a straightforward word in other European languages? How about Sanskrit?

[srikant1987]

You could simply ask "How many older brothers do you have?" without sounding contrived.

Now how do you translate that to Tamil? "onakku ethana aNNAkkAL?" Isn't that horrible? :devil:

That said, I find musicfan_4201's post here too whiny.

[bilahari]

In that vein, one could simply ask, "are you the eldest son?" That would hopefully extract the desired information. Of course, there is nothing horribly arduous about asking the question in two stages - (1) do you have any siblings, and (2) are you the eldest, middle, youngest (chances are there are no more than three in a modern family). But coming to think of it, these sort of questions are usually only asked by Indians (in my experience, anyway).

[srikant1987]

But coming to think of it, these sort of questions are usually only asked by Indians (in my experience, anyway).

Yeah, not a lot of people have four sons and seven daughters anyway.

[arasi]

I see that an 'only son' has raised all this!
I suppose one of the very opening lines such as in pleasantries (?) in India may even sound a bit forward (bordering on rude?) to westerners. Reminds me of something I've heard from villagers while traveling in a train in my college days, eons ago:
One of them--her very first words to me: how many children have you?
Me: I have none.
Another: Poor dear! God shold grant you some!
Me: I am not married.
Another: You poor thing! Not married yet!
Now, their focus turns to the poor woman's awful family which abandoned their duty of getting her married at the right age (fourteen?).

Back to the subject of Malladis: are they, in true indian english, cousin brothers?

[rshankar]

Arasi - they are brothers ('own' to use Inglish - not the rented kind....)
Full siblings (to use the term used by lineage specialists, not half-, step-, or 'cousin'-brothers)!

[vgovindan]

Don't we use 'real' (real brothers)?

[arasi]

VG,
If the relations between the brothers is real