"Sandhya Ragam" - Concert Reviews by Sandhya Shankar

  Thirssur Pooram Kaanaan In our country, everyone celebrates everything including festivals. There are certain festivals which are famously associated with certain places, like Ganesh Chaturthi in Maharashtra & Durga Pooja in Bengal. Likewise, Thrissur Pooram is an annual festival held in Kerala. It is held at the Vadakkunnathan Temple in Thrissur every year on the day when the moon rises with the Pooram star in the Malayalam Calendar month of Medam (April - May). It is a spectacular event which has lakhs of people visiting this city. A resplendent festival celebrated with a grand display of caparisoned elephants, dazzling parasols, and percussion music, the Thrissur Pooram is magnificent, merging the spiritual and cultural essence of Kerala. It is held at the Thekkinkadu Maidanam in Thrissur. This concert by the Trichur Brothers was also like the festival....spectacular ! They started as many do traditionally, on Lord Ganesha with a composition of Keshavananda Bharati, ...

  Marghazhiyil Rhapsody I couldn’t ask for a better way to begin a Marghazhi Sunday(after all the psychological games Corona played on most of us)......... sitting in the open air, with gentle sun rays filtering in through the green trees with hot filter coffee in my hand, while listening to the most melodious live piano performance, followed by a delicious ‘all’ South Indian breakfast, chatting with friends after a long time. All this was possible because of the ever warm & hospitable Anita Ratnam, who is always eager to open her house to friends, art, artists and beautiful things, no wonder she remains beautiful herself ! Year after year Anita invites a few like minded people on a December Sunday morning, to enjoy Anil Srinivasan’s beautiful music as they both join hands to celebrate Marghazhi season and this city, they both love ! Having been long-time neighbours, their relationship doesn’t just stop with sharing a compound wall but also sharing their love for art. Last year...

  Dushyanthaha, Dushyanthow Dushyanthaaha If you have studied Sanskrit, in school, (however briefly it might have been) you would surely have learnt Vibhakti declanation. If you were like me, then the choice of Sanskrit would have been thrusted by your parents, who thought it was a ‘scoring subject’, and you would have sulked because you thought it was ‘cool’ to take French or German, having not even the faintest idea what we are going to do with these languages ! Anyway, this should indicate my limited romance with this glorious language, though I tried to rekindle my romance at Samskrita Bharati, a few years when I had realised the value of this ancient language. Well, here we have this young man Dushyanth Sridhar, who is a qualified engineer from one the premier institutions, who had been in the corporate world, who had chosen to devote his time & life to pursue Indic studies, Vedanta, Vaishnavism, several languages(Sanskrit being one of them), possessing extraordinary memor...

  Swagatham Krishna Living in Mylapore which is very self sufficient, I need a compelling reason for me go towards Annanagar, Kilpauk, Egmore and other places. T.M.Krishna’s kutchery at Rajaji Vidyashram was a good enough reason for me. ‘Swagatham Krishna’ is a composition of Oothukadu Venkatakavi in Ragam Mohanam, which was popularised by K.J.Yesudas. This is the song that came to my mind, when T.M.Krishna announced in the beginning of the concert, that it needed Corona to bring him back on stage during the Music Season. My mind voice reminded me, that despite his self proclaimed decision to hibernate, there have been quite a few times, he has performed during the December Music Season, and I have personally attended a few of them, like a program in Krishna Gana Sabha, one in Spaces at Besant Nagar, another in Dakshinamurthy Hall at P.S.Senior Secondary School, the mega program at Lady Andal school auditorium and one at Nanganallur. If my memory is good, this is the first concert ...

  Ram(ar)Prasadam It is probably only Lord Rama’s Prasadam that Palghat Ramprasad is gifted with the kind of musical proficiency & knowledge he has. It was my first live concert of his and it was in a very intimate & lovely ambience at the vocalist Late Indira Ranganathan’s house which has been made into a Trust by her students and as a tribute to her, they have formed a platform ‘Sunaadalahiri’ where they often host kutcheris. It is a pleasant open air yet cosy setting and a small stage designed in an ethnic style where the artistes performed. I loved the ambience and think it’s extremely thoughtful to have converted this space for this purpose. Who would have guessed that there is such a place tucked away in the backyard of an unassuming house on the busy C.P. Ramaswamy Road ! Ramprasad began the concert with a song on Lord Vinayaka, which is how often people start to invoke his blessings for an obstacle free concert. It was ‘Vathapi Ganapathaye’ in Sahana Ragam set to Ad...

  MonArkay of Music If you are an old resident of Mylapore, you will remember certain popular landmarks such as ‘Shanti Vihar’ Hotel for hot and soft idlis and this was before the Sangeetas, Saravana Bhavans which multiplied by the year at every available corner !  You will remember ‘Rex Fashions’ as a landmark place for clothes and this was before the Mall culture began and online shopping became a habit ! You will remember Vivek &Co for all home appliances and this was before Amazon came to rule everyone’s life !  You will remember the only beauty parlour around to be ‘Kanya’, this was before the Green trends, Page 3s, Vurves, YLGs were everywhere!  You will remember ‘Thanithora Market‘ being a landmark for your veggies and this was before the Kovai/non-Kovai Pazhamudircholais cropped on every road, sometimes opposite each other !  Today, if you ask someone to wait for you at a Pazhamudir, your meeting may never happen unless you actually give the accurate...