Continuing....
It was soon evident that it was not going to be that kind of a post main. They announced that they will sing a song in kannada by Thyagaraja before the RTP.
That one statement essentially laid out the plan for the next hour or so. Now, let us talk fillers.
'Ninnada' is a filler if there is anything that can play the role of a filler and that is not to denigrate it. Not at all. What a delight to hear this song. Manoj Siva knew exactly how to play for this song and it was all pure joy and fun.Again, having two singers for this song is special. It can absorb and radiate any amount of energy you can give it and shine that much better. (if it is true of two singers, why not try with 4 if an opportunity arises. But it is hard to find 4 good singers who can sing together well. Oh well.. )
After this gaiety, it was time to settle down for the RTP. Given all the ragas that have been covered, what will be an appropriate raga choice for the RTP? Go all the way to Prathimadyama sombre aesthetics, (oh no!) or continue on the bright side. Their choice was something in the middle, Chakravakam. I do not know if such thought pattern went into their planning on song selection and placement but if they did, good job by them since it worked. My mind always wanders towards Karna and Krishna whenever I hear this raga and this was no exception. On top of that, just yesterday morning, in a totally different context, I read the the entire Mahabharata story sent by someone in 36 tweets ( of 140 characters each )! But I digress. Check it out if you are interested (
https://storify.com/ibnlive/mahabharata-in-36-tweets )
I was brought back away from all that battlefield stuff and moral quandry to a more poignant mood since R&G's take on Charavakam was more along Thyagaraja's. It was a grand alapana and thanam lasting for almost half an hour with Bhaskar getting a chance to play a bit more. It was all very good.
Just before the thanam started, I thought I heard some grahabedam from Gayathri. Definitely a different raga, may be two different ones next to each other! I thought I heard Yamuna Kalyani and Kurinji. What else can it be other than grahabedam? Hope someone sheds some light on this. Does that make sense? It was of course for a fleeting few seconds and then Gayathri got back to Chakravakam.
(Wikipedia says that the two possibilities for grahabedam from Chakravakam are Sarasangi and Darmavathi. Alright, things do not add up.I will wait for many of you to straighten me out.)
From my thoughts initially of an all thukkada post main, you can imagine the dramatic change in happenings this kind of an RTP creates. That was not all.
The pallavi was setup to a grand tala framework. It was Trisra Jathi Jampa misra nadai.
Took a few seconds to comprehend all that. ( funny, Gayathri who announced the pallavi said 'It is set to.. Trisra jathi..." and she paused. Don't know why. May be it was a just a momentary distraction, but Ranjani pitched in with 'Jampa'. Gayathri continued with a smile "Misra Nadai.)
It was a good pallavi. It is a complicated thala to follow along. It is a blessing in disguise since none of the audience made any thala keeping sounds. (they were quite good even otherwise in this concert ). The tala structure gave it some grandeur and majesticity, if I may.
Jampa goes like this: Laghu Anudhrutham Drutham. So Tisra Jampa is 3 + 1 + 2 = 6 beats. Misra nadai made it 6 * 7 = 42 counts. They performed the usual RTP maneuvers ( I do not think they did trisram ). Doing all that slowing down and speeding up in misra nadai was not easy. But the people on stage were all comfortable with Manoj Siva herding them all together with his mridangam playing.
Then there was some kerfuffle on stage. 'kerfuffle, really?' you may ask. No, but something happened which changed the nature of the proceedings. Manoj Siva had a meaningful smile on his face. Gayathri then explained, while not missing the beat of the thala that they are switching to Trisra Jathi Triputa Trisra Nadai. (try that when you get a chance, speak normally to someone while keeping to trisra triputa trisra nadai
).
Why does that work? Simple math really. Triputa goes Laghu + drutam + drutam. Trisra Jathi Triputa is 3 +2 +2 = 7 beats. Trisra Nadai makes it 7 * 3 = 21 counts, doubling it gets you 42 counts. So the total length of the tala does not change but the vibe changed due to the nadai change. Siva can now play thakita thakita which has a more free flowing feel and there is definitely a change in flow in the pallavi line itself. It was a bit stuffy before with misra nadai.
After a few rounds on the pallavi with the change in Nadai, they launched into kalpanaswara. Kalpanaswaras sound a bit more attractive in Trisra nadai, I think. So, may be the switch is not just dry technicality but it is aesthetically useful too.
Anyway, Chakravakam swaras led to the raga malika swaras which as usual was a big hit with the audience. I think they started with Sahana ( I say 'I think' because it was a fast paced kalpanaswara and so none of the curves of sahana was possible. It sounded like sahana, hope I am right ). Then unmistakably Mohanakalyani which was beautifully done by both the vocalist and violinist, then to a raga
I could not pin down though I thought I should know that raga ( it was very HM sounding with the usual heavy M2 and may be both M). And finally to a grand and long Dwijavanthi. I did not have a problem with Dwijavanthi at a fast pace like I did with Sahana though I kind of consider them to have similar vibes. Idiosyncratic!
Anyway, as I wrote elsewhere, I could now figure out that the Viswaroopam Song 'unnai kanadu' is predominantly Dwijavanthi ( or jajavanthi ). There was a lot of similarity between their kalpanaswara and some elements of that song ( to be sure, they were not attempting to invoke that song ).
That aside, that was a good portrayal of the raga with kalpanaswara. Bhaskar also got a chance to play solo for it which he did a good job. Back to Chakravakam swaras and to the pallavi line for the finish.
That was an RTP with all sort of heavy elements in them. Refer back to my earlier thoughts of an all thukkada post-main. R&G had the last laugh.
Had pavamana followed, that would definitely have been enough for me.
Well, we were not done ( and you are not done reading this!).
There was a bit of consultation among themselves and with the audience. What to do next? That was quite endearing really. They said that they have 8 requests for Abhangs. Not just 8 requests, but requests for 8 different Abhangs they clarified. What to do? They asked, should they drop the Viruththam?
Audience overwhelmingly said 'NO!!!". OK then! Back to, what to do? On top of that, instead of subtracting the audience kept adding requests. Someone wanted a purandara dasa krithi, someone wanted a song in the theme of 'Amma'. Their Margazhi Mahotsavam theme was 'Amma' and that seemed to have been a big hit with people and that was the context of that request.
Gayathri was all set to get to the song on Amma and she started saying "We sang this song in Chennai and the special feature of this song....". At that time Ranjani tapped Gayathri on her shoulder and got her attention and they conferred a bit on something. That left us all with that open question about what that special feature was. They started the next song. It was a viriththam. After the first half line, Gayathri, realizing there may be a confusion, said with smile in her face 'The viruththam is not on Amma but on Muruhan". Audience had a good chuckle at that.
That was a grand viruththam indeed. It was from Kandar Alankaram and Kandar Anuboodhi.
I am not familiar with those and so I had to look them up today. The starting words are quite unknown to me: "koLLith thalaiyil eRumbu adhupOlak kulaiyum endRan".
Their Tamil diction is just awesome. As rshankar had written in this forum before, they write Tamil using Devanagari script! They were always good and a cut above the rest but I would say they have tidied things up even more. The unfortunate reality with some Tamilian CM singers who should
know better is the jarring misapplied dialectical phonetic use for some words in Tamil ( the tadbhava words ). There was not any trace of that in their singing yesterday.
Started with a majestic Kambodhi for the line 'koLLith thalaiyil eRumbu..', the next one may have been Behag ( not sure ) and finally a very delectable Kapi smoothly transitioning into the Papanasam Sivan Song in Kapi "Sodanai sumaikkavezhai aLa subramanya". This is a new song for me. It was very good.
They picked back up the song on Amma after that. She did not remember to finish her sentence she left hanging about the special feature of it. We may never know! Anyway, the song was very good and energetic and quite capable of stirring religious emotions in people. It was "mAthakALika - darbari Kanada". They sang it for jaya tv. I found the link. Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKrtMvk ... age#t=2531
Even from a non religious perspective, one can't go wrong with Darbari Kanada.
( I also found some HM versions of it which sounded sort of similar but they are tagged as Adana but
R&G rendition sounded very much like Darbari Kanada to me )
Then started another interaction with the audience. What abhang to sing was the topic since there is a request for 8 different ones. Soon, they themselves picked one and when they are about to start, someone from left field wanted Yamuna Kalyani. Gayathri said the raga they chose is Meru Behag which has a similar feel. They apologized to bear with them that they could not satisfy all the requests due to lack of time and sang the abhang "roopa pahata lochani" for a good 10 minutes. That sounded nice.
And with a quick Pavamana they wrapped up the 3+ hour concert.
Dynamic and entertaining sums it up.
