Looking Back at Margazhi 08

A wrap up of noteworthy trends

What was that, again, about the economy? The verdict can be read out now. The economic impact on the season turned out to be much ado about nothing. The Academy started putting up the “Sold Out” sign earlier than ever before. For the Aruna Sairam – TM Krishna double header, rasikas were apparently waiting from 5.30 AM and had to be given coupons for them to even join the Q! The story was pretty much the same at all the major venues – even the Hyderabad Brothers, who aren’t exactly known for their jingli box quotient these days, managed to pull in a full house at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.

The Reluctant Dieter - Until last year, the centre of the season’s attraction was – no, not Sanjay, or Kambhoji – but Jayaraman of Gnanambika and his Vazhaipoo Vadais. Alas, this season has left rasikas hungry and undernourished. Jayaraman’s magical culinary smorgasbord was nowhere to be seen at the Narada Gana Sabha this year. His magical ladels that should’ve been stirring those heavenly sambhars were instead immersed under 6 inches of rainwater, being a victim of a pre-season storm. The insipid fare of the woodlands was the last minute replacement at NGS – their formulaic renditions of vadais and idlis were a far cry from Jayaraman’s dazzling manodharma! The Academy’s aromas were no more inviting – little known VRS caterers are well advised to take voluntary retirement after their dismal performance this year! Post cutchery dining options were thus reduced to Mylapore Fine Arts and Parthasarathi Sabha. After a few encounters with their insipid offerings, I decided in favour of “phalaharam” at the fruit shops on CP Ramaswamy Road or, if the hunger pangs were particularly severe, Koffee World/Pizza Corner further down the road.

The Shine’s Back at the Academy– Carnatic enthusiasts can rarely agree on anything. Even the beloved MS Amma has her share of detractors. Murali of the Hindu can therefore take a well-deserved bow for the rasika community’s’ near-unanimous endorsement of the Academy’s festival. Just 4 years ago, the institution faced the ignominy of having to skip its annual festival and was perhaps the worst example of the politics and bureaucracy that plague the arts scene in the country. In the short span of time since Murali took over the reins, the place has begun to sport its crown with renewed aplomb - it has the best sound system by far, swanky loos and, would you believe it, valet parking! Best of all, the balcony has been given its long overdue overhaul – the seats actually have more leg space than in the stalls! Sure, the system for ticket sales could be improved and its website is still a joke but it is THE PLACE for carnatic music , no question about it.

Failed to take off– Perhaps it is just my evolution as a rasika but it was jarring to note the number of slip-ups, sometime very elementary ones, even in senior level concerts. The worst offenders were those who could not identify the take off point after the tani avarthanam – this happened so many times that I stopped counting - and more often than not, these tended to be sadhu 1 avartha korvais from idam which even I could figure out! One has to wonder how much of the proliferating talent (not to speak of “child prodigies”!) is really ready for the stage.

Season of Bad Cheer – Controversy was the name of the game this Margazhi and things started to get hot under the collar well before the season began. TM Krishna in particular seemed to be getting singled out for a lot of negative attention for his views on a host of subjects including the role of spirituality in music, games musicians play with each other and certain experimentations with the concert format (more on that below). While the forthright and media-savvy Krishna is not unused to controversy, the poor Malladis walked right into a trap laid out for them by a reporter who quizzed them on their limited repertoire of Tamil composition – in response, the Brothers wondered aloud, rather unwisely in retrospect, about the number of Tamil compositions Semmangudi had sung.

Ariyakudi Takes a Shower (2) – It wasn’t so much a shower as a dunk. Some would say, an inundation. Krishna, as expected, was the mastermind behind the operation. We now officially have a ragam-taanam-varnam or RTV, replacing the ragam-tanam-pallavi! If the abbreviation sounds like a European Intercity Express, that’s exactly how many cynics dismissed the whole affair. Bombay Jayashree’s somewhat unimaginative variation on the theme was to fire a volley of tukkadas on the tani avartanam. Her Academy concert featured a 2 minute tani despite a good 20 minutes to spare for the lullabies that followed. Apologists argue that it was done with the consent of the mrudangist. Somehow coercion strikes me as a more appropriate word. Oh, and Sanjay continued his northward juggernaut – Darbari was among the additions to his Hindustani repertoire this year. The man’s appears to be listening to some seriously heavy stuff - the Dagar Brothers peeped out of his taanams every once in a while. Suryaprakash was among the others who went for a “jog” beyond the Vindhyas!

The Margazhi Idol - One of the “finds” of last season was an 80 year old matron by the name of Parasala Ponammal! Such a thing can only happen in Carnatic Music! Carnatica, which can take some of the credit for discovering this gem, pulled out another one this year – Malladi Suri Babu, student of the legendary Voleti Venkateshwarlu and the father of the Malladi Brothers. The Nishadam in the Thodi alaapana was vintage Voleti – without a care for Raga lakshana but backed by a manodharma so powerful as to make a laughing stock of grammar…and there were little traces of his genius in the third generation of his bani – Voleti wafted through the exquisite Charukeshi sung by the Malladi Brothers at Brahma Gana Sabha. Oh, but no recording exists, of the master himself!

Dancing the Blues Away – It is estimated that no more than half a dozen Bharatnatyam dancers actually manage to turn a profit from their trade. For the others, expenditure on costumes, “donations” to sabha secretaries and meeting the hefty demands of accompanists, turns out to be about as astute an investment as a clutch of Sathyam stocks! They should be better off in a few years time if the response of rasikas this season can be seen as a trend – the Academy’s dance festival was almost as much a success as its Music Conference. I had to shell out Rs. 500 bucks to watch Alarmel Valli and was probably lucky to have purchased my ticket in the morning, judging by the bursting auditorium. The story was along similar lines for top draws like Priyadarshini Govind and Malavika Sarukkai in sabhas around the city. Go get ‘em, girls!!

The "Awards" shall follow shortly...