Christmas - In TN style!

Hi all! I am a South Indian, and proud to be one!

This weekend was a bit different for me. After a long time, I went to a temple - not to pray but for a mridangam performance by my friend who is in 11th standard. It was held in Ayyapan temple (Anna Nagar - everyone knows this place). I went with my mom.Got to say, I like Ayyapan temple and Shiva temple because they give me this விபூதி and I always eat it - it tastes good! :) The performance started at 8.00 PM

A 7th standard girl sang. A 6th standard guy (who looked so cute and funny) played the violin and my friend handled the mridangam. In the first five min, I thought 'What the hell am I doing here? I don't even know classical music!' But then I thought, alright I just came for a different experience in this monotonous vacation.

After 20 minutes (it was a 45 min performance), however, I started liking it (one big reason - I did not understand) bcz the rhythms went inside me and I was putting தாளம் for the mridangam (other instruments of course did not reach me at all). After seeing so many episodes of Airtel Super Singer in Vijay TV, I was not absolute zero in music (but relative zero!). Till the end, I enjoyed like I knew music A to Z!That's the magic classical music creates - the things which we see on TV are nothing. Live performance is a different story altogether!

Christmas day - my best friend from school (Bharathi MHSS, Coimbatore) came to my house and the 6 hours he spent were one of my happiest times in Chennai I can ever imagine! (I am not going to write about that, tat's only for us)

After he left at about 6 PM and I started for the next kutcheri by the same mridangam specialist, this time in Cine Association hall, near HCL building (and Kamala theatre) in Vadapalani. One thing I heard was that all the performers never did any rehearsal, they just came and played and sang. Also, they don't even know whom they are performing with. They said this was the work of a professional! I have NO idea how they perform with sync without even knowing what song or whom they are performing with! May be, they know the தாளம் and ராகம். But still, to musical retards like me, it sounded impossibly interesting!

When my friend went to perform, the 'ganjira' was handled by a 23 year old guy (who they said could play 23 instruments, when I counted the names of instruments I knew!), violin was played by a girl who looked about 22 (no she was not that beautiful!) and 3 female singers one after the other. The performance lasted for one and a half hours! In the previous one, my friend was the eldest, now the youngest! This time, it was funny because of the 'understanding' between my friend and the 23 specialist!

The first female was from Bangalore and never knew tamil and it was obvious from the fact that she did not sing with 'sruthi' (even I could find that, so u can imagine how bad it was!). Also before she went on stage, she fixed a digicam with a tripod just below the stage (this was too much actually!) and I guessed she lacked substance. It was not a horrible performance, but still bad by music season standards! Now came the funny part. The ganjira and mridangam got a wonderful chemistry going (the 2 guys young and old) - they could not help smiling to themselves. They split their job wonderfully that at one instant, only one was playing... the rendition never really needed both! To watch all this (they had just eye contact going) from the audience side was simply amazing (my friend's parents were telling me what was going on)... The fact that she had written the 'swaraas' in paper and looking at them and singing did not help much. There was not much breathe control!

The next singer was much better than the first... definitely! At least, there was better 'sruthi' this time and our friends responded with their instruments more prudently!

The third singer was from our national poet's family. Bharathiyaar's grand-daughter had come (she looked about 80). Her son also had come (he looked about 60). His granddaughter was the singer (she looked about 18). She had lovely tamil accent of course. But the singing was pretty ordinary. Her stress on the accent (which was more than necessary) meant that she could not control her voice for long. Also, the transition from one song to another (the in-between) times were not good. She sang about 6 songs (given the influence) and we could enjoy only one of them. All in all, it was a great performance... by the mridangam and ganjira!

This is one Christmas I cannot forget, because it was so different from watching pointless programs on TV which they call special programs! I celebrated in pure tamilian style! :)

Happy New Year to all! :)
ak