Reached the auditorium half an hour early, hoping to mark my territory with a bag and heading out for a khichdi at Karpagambal’s but looking at the burgeoning crowds, I wisely revised my plans and stayed put. Clearly an air-conditioned joyride into the past was well worth a mad scramble for many a heat-struck Mylaporean.
The format was faithfully reproduced for each of the 15 vidwans and vidushis although the length of the presentation appeared to be proportionate to the number of tch tch’s and aha’s following the announcement of the artist’s name. The list was as follows (not in order):
A krithi in Bhairavi rendered by the Alathur Brothers – a rare recording I was told. Brilliant.
A Padam by Brinda & Muktha
Forgettable Moments
Speech session in the middle of the program. Fortunately most of the speakers were sensitive enough to keep their interruptions short.
Truncated pieces – I would have preferred more time for music and less for nostalgia although that was good to hear too.
13. maharAjapuram SanthAnam .
Vijay, thought you started your review with a bang , but some how it sagged , more like today's kutcheri (post semmangudi ,everthing looks little bleak).
Guess we all have our bad days in office Rajesh Nat and mine was not limited to the slipshod write-up above! Santhanam it was, and not Ramachandran who will hopefully continue to provide quality music for many more years!
The program was apparently conceived sometime back which was cited as the reason for not including Mukta for instance (it featured only vocalists who are no longer alive) but even that does not explain the overlooking of KVN or Ramnad Krishnan who I thought was a shoo-in...
Prashanth, just can't remember the krithi - it was not one I'd heard before - but if you can hazard some guesses maybe that will jog my memory...it was a slow tempo krithi in Telugu is all I can remember. It was magnificent though...