The Music Season is here!

It all begins with the onset of festival and pooja season in the Tamizh month of Aadi(July/August) in Mylapore: the excitements, craft fairs, crowd and more crowd, reduction sales, golu bommai display, competitions and of course the ‘kutcheries’(concerts)-the cultural extravaganza characteristic of this place.

 Mercury levels slowly dip and that wonderful nip in the air announces the arrival of ‘Madras winter’?! People plug their ears and wear monkey caps, and the Mylapore ‘maamis stylishly drape a shawl around their shoulders – all to take up their respective ‘winter’ activities. Mylapore in its special way gets ready to welcome the cool and pleasant December with every Sabha and concert hall gearing up for the Music Season. The Newspapers carry a special ‘season supplement with music reviews and not to lag behind, the Tamizh weeklies have their own column for critically reviewing the performances.

Even after a year and half, it gives me such thrill to be in the midst of all, soaking up the cultural fervor! I packed my days with as many programmes as I can accommodate. (at least one per day). But, there were pre- season programmes- curtain raisers for the main season – which I could listen to because I live in Mylapore.

When I was in my teens, I used to have such longing to listen to classical music of those legends like,M.S, M.L.V and many others. This remained as an unfulfilled desire for a long time. Thanks to the patronage of All India Radio to all classical music that I was able to enjoy the broadcast of the concerts those days but Law of Increasing Returns was in force! More of those radio programmes I listened to, more was my longing to listen to a full concert!

I have been a ‘Chennai Vaasi’ for the last 25 years or so but my long time desire I could attend to only for the last 7,8 years. I cannot but remember Shri. KS V with a feeling of respect and a sense of loss, for it was him who made it possible for me to respond to the call of my heart initially. He perfectly understood my love for music and happily gave entry pass for one of the Sabhas in Mylapore. Now, the association with the Sabha continues and to my heart’s content, I sit and listen to the musicians perform!

This time, it is not only the music, but the people around also drew my attention. I keep looking around every time, however, this time, there was a keen sense of observation.

I would like to share my impressions through my blog post and hope some of you will read it and share your comments.

This is like the preparation time before the concert- tuning the instruments, aligning the pitch with the human voice, checking the sound system and so on.

Hope to come back soon with the main ‘kutcheri’ I mean, my thoughts about the music I had listened to.