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.
Notes on Ra-Ga 