Monthly Archives: December 2006

Concerts – Part 1

As I didn’t write about the concerts I went to for quite sometime now, here you go. I am planning to write in parts about all the concerts I went to till now. Those who are not interested in Classical music, please skip these posts!

Concerts at Music Academy:

Lalgudi G.J.R.Krishnan & Vijayalakshmi – Violin Duet on 22/12/2006
This happens to be the first concert of theirs that I am going to. Each and every song/alapana they played were so good. The raaga chosen for elaboration was Todi and RTP was in Vachaspati. I now want to go to more concerts of theirs.
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Does your name start with ‘A’?

I have always wondered whether having a name starting with the letter ‘A’ is advantageous or not. (I know you must be thinking idhellaam think panra vera velaiye illayaa! Seriously ippo vera velai illaye & blogla edhavadhu ezhudhanume! 🙂 )  Be it in school or in college or for that matter even at work wherein employee number is allotted according to the alphabetical order if more than one person joins on the same day, mine has always been among the first few roll numbers. As a result of that whenever a teacher/lecturer asked a question to the class and no one answered, as would usually be the case, the teacher would immediately say that if no one volunteers I will start with the first roll number then! That’s it! You would end up standing in front of the class without knowing the answer! The worst thing happened in college where we were asked to give seminars in some subjects. Since no one volunteered, it was decided that starting with the first roll number everyone will give a presentation every week. By the time not even half the number of students had given a seminar, the semester was over and the others escaped. The same thing had happened in many semesters.
As they say, there is always another side to the coin. Having a name starting with ‘A’ meant all the practical exams and viva got over for you first. It felt good to relax when others were studying hard. 😛

My Favourite Hindi Songs

After the list of my favourite Tamil film songs, here’s the list of my favourite Hindi film songs (that I would like to repeatedly listen, watch and hum) :

Kabhi Neem Neem from Yuva
Rang De Basanti & Tu Bin Bataye from Rang De Basanti
Chayya Chayya and Dil Se Re from Dil Se
All the songs from Lagaan
Yeh Tara Woh Tara from Swades
Ishq Bina from Taal
Is Deewane Ladke Ko from Sarfarosh
Suraj Hua Maddham from Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gham
Ban Ke Tera Jogi from Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani
Jaane Kyon from Dil Chahta Hai

Old songs:
Saare ke Saare from Parichay
Ab Ke Sajan Sawan from Chupke Chupke

This is just a random list. I have written whatever I remembered now.

Alaipayuthey

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The year 1999: The first time that I came to know about this movie was sometime in September-October 1999 when I found Madhavan’s photo in the front cover of the Tamil magazine, ‘Ananda Vikatan’. Since he was coming in the ad for ‘Fair & Lovely’ at that time and I found him to be quite handsome, I immediately started turning the pages curious to know what was written about him and also to know his name. I found an interview with him and this is the first of the many interviews of his that I have read/watched till now. Being a person who didn’t watch many movies, it didn’t excite me much when I came to know that he was going to act in a Mani Ratnam movie! Believe it or not I wasn’t as crazy as I am now about Mani Ratnam’s movies. In fact the only movies of Mani Ratnam that I had watched at that time were Roja, Bombay and Anjali! I had watched a couple of other movies of his but didn’t remember anything about them.
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My Favourite Tamil Songs

My most favourite Tamil film song or for that matter my favourite in any category is Pachchai Nirame from Alaipayuthey. I don’t think there will come a time in my life when some other movie/song will fascinate me as much as Alaipayuthey/Pachchai Nirame did. I will be writing about it very soon.
Since I am now writing about the songs that I would like to repeatedly listen, watch and hum, I guess it will be a bit easier to choose the list of songs. (If I had to write about my favourite songs that I would like to just listen to repeatedly it would have been the most difficult thing to do).

Here goes my list of songs:
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M.S.Gopalakrishnan & M.Narmadha – Violin Duet

It was a pleasure to hear the great violin maestro M.S.Gopalakrishnan play the violin. The concert was at Dakshinamurthy Auditorium yesterday. Here’s the list of songs and raagas (I didn’t know most of the songs so I am writing only the raagas for the same):
1. Kambhoji Ata Taala Varnam
2. Siddhi Vinayakam – Shanmugapriya
3. Atana
4. Poorvikalyani
5. Seethamma Mayamma – Vasantha
6. Pakkala – Karaharapriya
7. Behag
8. Khamas
9. Sindhubhairavi
10. Hamsanandi
11. Mangalam – Sowrashtram

MSG and Narmada were accompanied by Karthick on the Ghatam and J.Vaidyanathan on the Mridangam. The concert was excellent as expected. The Karaharapriya alapana played by MSG was superb. I loved the brief alapana of Behag that Narmada played.
I thought the auditorium would be full since this is the only concert of MSG in the whole season. But not many turned up for the concert. I consider myself very lucky to have got an opportunity to listen to him live!

Sangeetha Sivakumar’s Concert at Music Academy

List of songs:
1. Mathe (Daru Varnam) – Khamas
2. Jaya Jaya – Nattai
3. Yagyatulu – Sri Ranjani
4. Maamava Meenakshi – Varali
5. Ma Ramanan – Hindolam
6. O Rangasayee – Kambhoji
7. Kamalacharane – ?
8. RTP – Reetigowlai
(Pallavi – TamarasadaLa Nethri Tyagarajuni mitri)
9. Pullaagi (viruttam) – Sahana, Hamsadhwani, Suruti
Maatrariyaada – Suruti
10. Bare Panduranga – Misra Maand

Accompaniments:
Vioiln – B.U.Ganesh Prasad
Ghatam – N.Guruprasad
Mridangam – N.Manoj Siva

Sangeetha started the concert with a very beautiful song in Khamas, Maathe. Then she went to sing all the songs in quick succession before starting with Kambhoji alapana, the raaga chosen for singing elaborately. Reetigowlai RTP and the last two songs were the ones that I liked in the concert very much. She sang the pallavi in RTP in raagas Kalyani and Kanada also.
Sangeetha’s concert was at 7.30 PM yesterday. It was very sad to see the auditorium almost empty. At the beginning of the concert, only around 100 of us were there in the balcony. By 8.30, almost half the audience had left. An hour later, around 25 of us were only there in the balcony which can actually accomodate a little more than 750 people!
One very big surprising thing in yesterday’s concert was not even a single person’s mobile phone started ringing loudly in the middle of the concert! (Till now there was not even a single concert to which I went where the mobile didin’t start ringing loudly right in the middle of the concert thereby disturbing the performing artistes as well as the others in the audience).

Procrastination

I think the word procrastination was coined especially for me. I always keep postponing things and end up doing all the work in the last minute. Of course, I still manage to complete the work on time. Maybe that’s what has given me the confidence to leave everything to the last minute. I also feel that I work more efficiently in the last minute. 🙂 The reason why I am writing all this now is I went to three concerts last weekend and still I haven’t written about it in my blog in spite of logging in many times to write it. One reason why I started writing about the concerts I attend is I will have something to write in my blog regularly. But I have gone back to my good old habit of postponing things. (How can I claim that I have gone back to it when I never did stop postponing things?!!) As a result of that, I have already read many reviews/writings about the concerts that I don’t feel like writing about it now. 🙁