Ripples on the brain

Bhaktaswara Bhajan Mandali
I had probably an overdose of music in the past week. Attended the 19th interschool Bhaktaswara Bhajan Mandali competition at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in Mylapore last Saturday. This is a very prestigious group bhajan competition open to all schools in Tamil Nadu. I have been a spectator to this event for some 2-3 years. Having missed it for quite some time, it was great to watch it - the intensity of the competition, the best talent, the strategies etc.

The competition is usually held for 2 days - one Saturday for the prelims and the next Saturday for the semis and the finals. It’s usually held as a day-long event on both the days. Obviously “All are welcome” (this is a very important term rasikas in Chennai look for whenever they search for concert listings in newspapers ) and food is on the house. I attended only the finals (i.e afternoon session of the final Saturday) of the event as I had to play in a company cricket match last Saturday. This way I got to view the best teams perform.

First things first. The spirit of the competition has been maintained for the last so many years. You can feel it as you enter the hall, the confidence and the tension. In that sense, I was a little sad that my school, KV IIT, didn’t participate this time - I could’ve got an opportunity to see them devise strategies and practice first hand. The strategies are important to choose the right song at the right moment. This depends on the mood of the audience, the prior song (generally a fast paced song followed by a slow bhajan will be a good combination), the percussionists’ skill and so on.

In the earlier years I’d gone there, I could see a definite difference between the standards of the top-performing teams and the other ones. This year, I could see that that difference has diminished. All the schools in the finals (some of whom I haven’t heard before) with the exception of one sang exceedingly well. But unfortunately, in closing this gap, the schools have copied each other to such an extent that the competition has turned out to be monotonous after sometime. Same kind of start, same kind of lead singers, same kind of ending and so on. This is probably something that teams have contemplate. They have to bring some innovation - somethings I could think of are parallel singing in different swaras, use instruments like violin, and so on.

Still this competition is something I am going to look forward to every year.

Abhaswaram Ramji’s Isai Mazhalai
I had a chance to see this troupe perform for the first time last thursday after having heard about them for quite sometime. For starters, Ramji has got a troupe of school children who give concerts. They sang the Pancharatna kritis of Thyagaraja. Though some members in this group sang well (I had already seen some of them singing in the Bhaktaswara competition itself), I really felt the performance on-the-whole was below my expectations. These days, the kids that sing on stage have set such high standards that you begin to expect them to sing well everytime. More so with Ramji’s troupe simply because of the publicity he’s generated for it. In that sense, the kids seemed to sing without any concentration - one could see them looking in all directions, switching off and then switching on after sometime, missing some sagathis. It clearly showed that they lacked practice and the motivation (obviously they are not to be blamed. They probably came there after finishing their day at school and would have to go back and do their home works etc.)

Still their performance was enjoyable. Remembering the order of the swaras, I believe, is difficult in the Pancharathna kritis, especially if you’re singing all of them at the sametime. The kids did a wonderful job of singing all of them at the sametime.

Unnikrishnan
He’s one of my favourite singers. I have a lot of his cassettes and somehow I learn the songs I hear him sing sooner than I learn the others’. His voice is absolute magic, especially his range. There is a lot of difference between his concerts and TM Krishna’s concert that even a layman like me can spot. I couldn’t stay till the concert ended as I’d to travel a long distance back home.

All in all, a wonderful week of music.