Tri RaGa RTP – First Gayana Samaja Concert – 10 February 2018

I can’t believe that today just happened. That this evening is a thing that happened with 100% probability. It was not a figment of my imaginative, or an overly wishful dream. Because I for sure can’t even dream of anyone doing such a brilliant concert. Anyone other than you, that is.
Have I told you I love your soundchecks? That beautiful yamuna kalyani. Checking sound, done in style. And I heard phrases of Maand and I and my friend exchanged hopeful glances.

The Season of the Swan – 3 January 2017 (On the 2016 Season)

Narada Gana Sabha
To be at the Narada Gana Sabha today was to be truly blessed – RaGa after RaGa was a treat to the listener’s blessed ears. During Ragam Thanam Pallavi, we witnessed something extraordinary today. A swan. At first, Ranjani ma’am slowly infused nectar and life into it and let the swan slowly hatch, at its own pace, nudging it slowly with love, letting in grow phrase after phrase and then the swan slowly reared its head and mustered the strength to walk out, into the real world. Then Gayatri ma’am sang. She nurtured it and added layers and layers of honey. Then the swan, fully grown, spread its wings wide and burst into song – The swan song, or Hamsanadham.
Then they both created a mighty being full of music and it rose, undaunted, soaring, while being grounded in classicism, and brought the moon back with it – “Vaa Vennila”. Then they beckoned the sun, Soorya, too and thus there they were – the Sun and the Moon, Ranjani and Gayatri, on earth, eclipsing all mundane worries that the rasika might have been suffering from earlier, illuminating all our lives to an extent that seems impossible. Thank you for the music, Ranjani-Gayatri : Ra Ga!

Season
It has been four days since I reached home and I’m still yet to get over the Madras Margazhi Music hangover. This time I chose to stay for ten days in Chennai, going back only on the 31st on my parents’ insistence to return home the day 2017 began. I felt like I was going back after a year… Jokes apart, I really did feel that way, because of the sheer number of concerts I got to listen to in just ten days, some of them unforgettable experiences. The reason I chose this period was to optimise the RaGa concerts, of course.

Vocabulary – 30 December 2015 (On the 2015 Season)

Vocabulary. It’s often something that everyone strives to achieve perfection in, though it’s not entirely possible. Especially in my case, when I try to describe my experience as I attended your concerts this December season.

To me, you were the reason I was reborn, in the musical sense. I still remember the first concert of yours that I listened to, in Jaya TV. It was December 2010. You sang “Shiva Shiva” in Panthuvarali. It was amazing. That’s when I realised how removed I had been from my musical roots and it was an awakening, a reminder, an opportunity. Then the internet gave me access to so many of your wonderful renditions and I even bought your albums religiously. But I continuously, to my dismay, missed several golden opportunities to attend your live concerts. I longed for them so much that I have dreamt about them, literally, to the greatest detail of what RaGa the RTP was in. There you go. I wanted to type raga and my autocorrect changed it to RaGa. To me, they’re indistinguishable.