thoughts

Ever since I went to Sudha Ragunathan’s concert, I have been humming this beautiful song set in raga savithri, Katrinile Varum Geetham. Many know that its a time immemorial song sung by M.S.Subbulakshmi in the film Meera. What a soothing voice M.S. has!

I realize the song was written by Kalki Krishnamurti, the famous author of Ponniyin Selvan and other novels. The song has simple lyrics, but I guess the very simplicity makes it adorable.

Here is the lyric for the song:

Kaatriniley varum geetham
Kangal panithida pongum geetham
Kallum kaniyum geetham

Pattamarangal thalirkkum geetham
Pannoli pongum geetham
Kaattu vilangum kette mayangum madhuramohana geetham
Nenjiniley — Nenjinil inba kanalai ezhuppi
ninaivazhikkum geetham

Sunai vandudan solaikkuyilum
manam kuvindhidavum
Vaanavelidhanil thaara kanangal
thayangi nindridavum
Aah, en solven maayappillai
venkuzhal pozhi geetham

Nila malarndha iravinil thendral ulaavidum nadhiyil
Neela niarathu baalagan oruvan kuzhal oodhi nindraan
Kaalemellaam
Kaalamellaam avan kaadhalai enni urugumo en ullam

Its that time of the year again - Carnatic music everywhere in Chennai. I get to visit Chennai only in the weekends and I am determined to go to at least a couple of concerts.

I could make it to Sudha Ragunathan’s concert in Brahma Gana Sabha / Vani Mahal last week. Sudha, who is becoming one of my favorite these days, I guess is different from many other singers, in that she experiments quite a bit in the concerts making it interesting. These days she is considered to be a high class singer and she seems to understand that the bar is raised for her.

It was the typical upper middle class crowd, where mamis wear silk sarees, come in mid segment cars. Jayashree had got the most expensive of tickets for me and my dad and myself got seats pretty close to the dias.

Finally, let me talk about the concert. We, being a little late, entered the hall when she was singing Maha Ganapathim in Nattai and I was relieved that it must have been the first keerthanai. After a couple of thukadas, the concert gained momentum when she started the aalapana in Sahana. Mellifluous is probably the best word to describe the rendition. I was even more pleased when the keertana happened to be Vandanamu Ragu Nandhana.

The next best one was the Simhendra Madyamam. The elaborate aalapana included a shruti bedham to Raga Bowli, as she explained. The violinist Raghavendra Rao was no less in talent and he deserves to be mentioned.

Next biggie was the Ragam Thanam Pallavi in Hindolam where Sudha drove to other ragas while rendering the kalpana swaras.

The usual Brahmamukate followed it and the Katrinile Varum Geetham was up to the mark of the great M.S.s’ rendition, one would agree. By the way, does anyone know if there is any other song in Savithri raga?

In all, it was a memorable evening and my dad was so enthralled that he kept talking about it even after we reached home, an hour later.

With the Cauvery issue getting worse by the day, I did not want to risk losing any part of my body cheaply or that of my Tamilnadu registered vehicle. With these good reasons, I decided to use the paseos and the public transportation to go around. It turned out to be a delight, forever changing the way I had experienced the city.

It turns out that I have missed quite a few interesting things so long. I had missed those small shops with aluminum tins filled with kara baths in the corner of the streets; Those young guys wearing blue ties eating them hurriedly; That attractive girl wearing an odd black suit on a sunny day and reading Doomsday Conspiracy sitting in the park bench; Those small pan shops that went unnoticed although I used to pass by everyday. And I had also missed the pleasure in walking.

Going around by foot and in the bus gave quite a few surprisals to me. I realised that very many software people actually commute in bus; That I could walk five kilometres without much difficulty; That Hercules bicycles actually cost more than Rs. 4000 (when I seriously thought of buying a cycle to commute); That I have to ask for Doopanahalli to get down in my bus stop; That pedestrians are actually treated meanly by car drivers; That the securities in glass building shops like Levi’s and Reebok give a funny look to you if you walk to their shops; That the conductors have the right not to give change to you in buses; That people flock to parks in the city to read books; That four out of five young people use either mobile phone or ipod while walking; That the BPO vehicles are officially used by those drivers like bus and charge the same as bus!

The other change in life that Cauvery row brought about was that the Tamil television channels are blocked and I was getting bored of the repeat movies of Zee Cafe and HBO and I could not watch Sonali Mithali and Udayan talking in CNBC forever about Tata acquiring Corus, although I love watching them dissect Bharti’s quarterly results and find the reason for the poor performance of Sugar stocks for half an hour a day.

Television gave its share of surprisals for me. It was interesting to note that there are 72 channels coming in Cable Television; that MTV has become crappy with pseudo reality shows instead of playing music; that all the new born news channels in English news channels seem to fear that they will be out of business if they dont continuously come up with some Flash News or with crappy Cricket news; that VH1 and Music India are actually playing music unlike other music channels; that CNN International has actually become an Iraq-only television; that Dr.Rajkumar has acted with ‘Pudupudhu Arthangal’ actress Geeta.

Change is good. It could take you to a different world or it could give you a different perspective to something you are so used to!

Hey, I have added some more pictures to my photo blog - Perceptions. Check it out.

Its music season again, in Chennai. After the incessant rain, it would be raining mellifluous carnatic music now. Interestingly the number of concerts have been growing year after year, which affirms of the growth of Carnatic music per se.

I tried to make the plan for making it to the concerts by creating an excel sheet of concerts. You can download the sheet here. The information is collected from KutcheriBuzz.com. The sheet will be updated as more sabhas come up with the schedule. Hope you find it useful.