4 l SRUTI April 2019

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Setting an examplePerforming under stressful conditions at a premier concert requires excellent time management and scholarship coupled with poise and experience. These attributes came to the fore in the concert of the Bombay Sisters, C. Saroja and C. Lalitha, during the season. They performed on the morning of 22 December 2018 at the Music Academy, commencing their concert with Sumasayaka—the daru/pada varnam in Kapi composed by Swati Tirunal. This generally goes down well with any audience and the sisters sang it in a leisurely manner. This was followed by Papanasam Sivan’s Tamil composition Gajavadana in Sreeranjani, with a few rounds of kalpana swaram adding to its beauty; and the leisurely paced kriti on Devi in Chintamani raga. All appeared to be well, when there was a rude interruption at the commencement of the charanam, with the sound system playing truant, initially with Saroja, then with Lalitha, and finally after about 30 seconds, the entire system broke down for a good 12 minutes before it was restored and they could continue with their kutcheri. Whilst the concern for this interruption, lost time and anxiety were palpable, not once did the artists let this come in the way of their superlative rendition. They continued from the phrase they stopped and completed the kriti with aplomb. This was followed by a brief alapana in Sahana before they began the first major piece for the morning. This concert had some lessons for the younger apprentices in the audience on raga vistara paddhati, which were brought out in the two raga alapanas taken up for detailed exposition. The raga

alapana in Simhendramadhyamam by Lalitha commenced without any ambiguity on the identity of the raga. The jeeva swaras were highlighted with detailed sancharas, embellished with intelligent briga sangatis and korvais before touching the tara shadja. The unique feature was a total lack of hurried forays into the tara sthayi rishabha, gandhara or the prati madhyama which is an obsession with present-day artists. The fact that one must understand one’s strong points without allowing the same to overshadow and dominate one’s music was clear in her rendition of the raga alapana. Ninne nammiti composed by Mysore Vasudevachar was the composition that followed.

Todi was then taken up for the ragam-tanam-pallavi. C. Saroja, known for her dexterous handling of Todi, wove intricate patterns in the alapana to cover all the three octaves despite a small voice strain in the higher octaves on account of her age. Her handling of the raga, particularly in bringing out the different facets of the sadharana gandhara, was noteworthy. An equally good tanam paved the way for the pallavi Devi Sree Tripurasundari, deenadayapari Jagadeeswari in Chatusra Triputa tala (2 kalai with the eduppu at 3 aksharas away from the samam). The niraval for the pallavi was full of bhava reflecting their tutelage in the Musiri-TKG school. What was noteworthy about the pallavi was that despite the time constraints, they managed to sing a tisram, the pallavi in three kalas and kalpana swaram in both the speeds with the swarams ending at Sundari, Tripurasundari, devasree Tripurasundari, deenadayapari and

jagadeeswari, which covered almost all the phrases of the pallavi. It ended with a ragamalika in Vasanta, Bilahari, Hamsanadam and Behag rounded off back to Todi.

Whilst the clock was ticking away to the finish time, 11.30 am, the veteran duo was calm and composed till the very end. This was despite desperate attempts by a member of the audience requesting them repeatedly with frantic gesticulations to sing the song Nandanandana Gopala. Saroja calmly replied to the rasika: “Time ayachu”. She ended the concert with Sree Ramachandra sritapalaya—unfortunately this was inaudible as the mike system failed her once again.

The superb qualities of time manage-ment, steadfastness, scholarship, the eye for detail and the attitude of ‘music for music’s sake’ without playing to the gallery—are some of the qualities to be imbibed from these senior vidushis.

Ranganathan N. IyerHyderabad

A correction

Apropos the article, In search of Rama, in the March issue of Sruti, there is a mention of Janardhanashtakam. The correct spelling for Janardana is without the ‘h’. The etymology is Janaan ardayati iti. It refers to the One who causes people (janaan) to perish (ardanam), possibly a reference to the time of the cosmic dissolution (pralaya). Inserting an ‘h’ to ‘ardana’ will make the meaning seem like: the One who causes people to be halved (ardhanam).

B. NaveenaChennai