A New Year Wish, after listening to Amrit, Trichy Shankaran

[sindhu29]

I visited Chennai for a few days and planned my return to Hyderabad today, so that I could leave after listening to the lecture demonstration by Sangeeta Kalanidhi designate, Prof.Trichy Shankaran. As the Music Academy Mini Hall is inadequate to accommodate all the listeners for a well attended lecture, I reached the place quite early, even before the lecture on Harishankar by his disciple Bangalore Amrit. I had just heard the boy a few times, along with Karaikuadi Mani, V.Suresh and others. He was quite explosive then.

Today I, along with many others in the audience, were in for a surprise though. The kanjira vidwan Harishankar was famous for striking fear into the hearts of many mridangists. He was also the object of a lot of jealousy, because of his unparalleled mastery over the instrument. Young Amrit seemed to carry forward his guru's mastery as well as the ability to inspire jealousy in mridangists. Most lectures I attended were either extremely dry and boring, or followed the usual cocktail of mixing a bit of reminiscences, humor, self depreciation, a couple of anecdotes and leaving non discerning members of the audience feeling happy and smiling warmly, without even touching the topic which was supposed to be discussed.

In this context, young Amrit's lecture shone like a jewel. When he started, he sounded a little nervous. But once he got going, he scored on every single count. The sincerity with which he paid tribute to his guru, the thoroughly organized way in which he went about giving his lecture, the clarity with which he explained each point painstakingly; everything he spoke or played was pure class! Without trying to be funny or charming and without going out of his way to impress, he held the entire audience spellbound, right from start to finish. Harishankar couldn't have made a greater contribution than Amrit, who, like his guru, may also painfully realize that it could get lonely at the top. I don't wish to go into the technicalities of the points presented. I hope some of the many mridangists who attended would be able to write about it.

What disappointed me firstly was the sight of senior musicians limping in right at the fag end of Amrit's lecture. But this was just the start. The moderator who is extremely indulgent with Sangeeta Kalanidhi awardees and extremely curt and dismissive with most others, actually said that this was just a 'prelude' to the grand lec dem by Trichy Shankaran that everybody was waiting for, and almost brushed Amrit off the stage, saying "leave the compliments to me" first and not offering any. This was followed by a few words by a couple of others, which were also spoken only to display their familiarity with Harishankar. Hardly a word was spoken about Amrit's excellence and the beautiful lecture he had just presented.

After this Prof.Shankaran's lecture followed. While this was quite good by itself, it simply didn't create the impact expected, because of the Harishankar effect, so beautifully recreated by young Amrit. Things sank to a new low at the end when a senior mridangist was asked to speak. He rambled on and on for around what seemed like the best part of a week, despite the now servile moderator even venturing to interrupt him gently after a long time. He concluded grandly by reciting a korvai which left the listeners feeling that instead of syllables like Ta Ka Dhi and Me, it was just ME, ME, ME, ME all the way. He ranted that we should go on glorifying the old masters, but for which young people would become great and old people would become small. He seemed to be the flagship, heading a fleet of old musicians suffering from megalomania and insecurity.

As someone who went to attend senior percussionist Shankaran's lecture, and left the auditorium feeling disgusted with the conduct of most of the seniors there, and being completely impressed and deeply touched by young Amrit's total devotion to his art and to his guru, I can only share the New Year wish, "Ring in the new. Ring out the old."

(Mod note: Put in new lines to create paragraphs as per request below by Sreeni Rajarao)

[Nick H]

As I wasn't there, I can't comment either for or against, but your review is both hard hitting and brilliantly written.

ME ME ME ME instead of Tha Ka Dhi Mi ... Brilliant! I foretell that you are going to be quoted in many a tani review in the future!

[mahavishnu]

SIndu29, thank you for your honest report. Just out of curiousity, who was the senior mridangist?
It appears that Sri PVR's chairing/moderating skills have a long way to go.

[Sreeni Rajarao]

Sindu29,

May I please ask you to edit your post, and make it easy to read. Short paragraphs and more white space will help.

I am afraid that many people will find it hard to read, and your earnest message here may not reach as many as it should reach.

Thank you for your honest report!

[Rajani]

Sindhu, thank you for your eloquent and earnest summing up of the lec-dem.

[Nick H]

Thanks for the suggested edit, too.

Must admit that, once I got started, I found it gripping, paragraphs or no paragraphs --- but my attention span has been interneted (but, thank god, not twittered, as yet!) and a big block of text is daunting.

They tell me that, once, people used to read whole books!

[n s sankar kanjira]

sindu29:"Harishankar couldn't have made a greater contribution than Amrit".
This line should be deleted, even amrith wont accept this.. if he did, he wont be a student of harishankar... Guru G harishankar's contribution to the field of kanjira is immense . no one have the rights to talk abt that, he took the instrument world wide, its a non sense.. to compare amrith's lec dem to harishankar' s contribution...u have the rights to praise amrith but not to degrade the legend's contributions....

[Nick H]

Be a little less sensitive to words, and see them in context! Sindhu29's post gave me no thought of any disrespect of Harishankar: quite the opposite, in fact. She is measuring an accomplishment against that of a known giant: it is compliment to both.

Recently I saw my guruji's senior student playing. My thoughts were, this is wonderful, this is like listening to Guruji, he is as good as Guruji. In absolute terms, they would both tell me that I do not have 10% of the knowledge to make that comparison, and they'd be right (You, or any other percussion artist could too), but we are ordinary people, with our judgements and appreciations.

Is not the Guru always glad of the success of the student? That is the spirit in which I read the remark.

[semmu86]

Nerkunam Sankar, Pls cool down. Am sure "sindhu29" didnt mean that. Am sure What sindhu29 meant was that, the greatest contribution which Sri.Harishankar made to the field of music was, producing a student like Amrit who blossomed into a great artiste under him.....

[raghavt]

Good review Sindhu29... I planned to attend it, but somehow couldn't

~ raghav

[sindhu29]

I have been travelling since a few days with limited access to the Internet.

@ Sankar: I never said that Amrit was better than Harishankar. Please accept my apologies if you can't understand English properly.

Thank you, Nick, Mahavishnu, Sreeni, Rajani, Semmu, & Raghav, for your appreciative comments.

but my attention span has been interneted (but, thank god, not twittered, as yet!) - Same here, Nick!

[anonymityatlast]

Please accept my apologies if you can't understand English properly

Why do you have to go on a counter-attack like that?

[sindhu29]

@ anonymityatlast: I only said it as a matter of fact. . . nothing wrong/derogatory to not know English.

[Nick H]

Let's settle for "nobody is attacking anybody."

[sindhu29]

@Nick: Won't be able to agree with you on that, Nick!

[Nick H]

You can attack me if you want to.




... as long as you do it nicely!

(Of course, as I said, your review itself is hard-hitting: but that is different)

[sindhu29]

Nick, on the contrary, I am glad you and most others in this thread have been able to read my post for what it is.

[arasi]

Sindhu,
Loved your post!
Wanted to be there, but couldn't.
I have heard Amrit many times, and he is something--though not equal to his guru, of course

[Nick H]

I hope you left the snake gourd outside, when you joined this thread!

Sindhu, thanks... misunderstandings of the "interneted" word are all too easy, though.

[arasi]

Time to sock it to you Nick, with the snake gourd