Ramani Narayanan, Music Club IIT Madras

9th Feb 2004

Smt. Ramani Narayanan - Veenai
Sri. Madirimangalam Swaminathan - Mridangam
Sri. T. V. Vasan - Ghatam

Probably a partial list...

varnam - darbAr (2 speeds)
gajAnanayutam - vEgavAhini - MD
sarasIruhAsana priyE - nATTai - puliyUr duraisvamI iyer
sOgasu juDa tarama - kannaDa gauLa - T
Nanmuralakinchi - dhanyAsi - vINai kuppaiyar
kOluvaiyunnADE - dEvagAndAri - T
mAmava mInAkshI - varALi - MD
padavi nI sadbhaktiyu - sAlaga bhairavi
tanayuni brOva - bhairavi - T
tani
vEnkaTachala nilayam - sindhubhairavi
paras jAvaLi
charnanu charnanau - sensuruTTi - anaiyya
pavamAna - saurAshtram - T

It was an exciting evening. the darbAr varNam gave a good start and set a nice tempo. vEgavAhini was beautiful and the nATTai kriti had nice crisp kalpana swaras. It was delight to hear sOgasujuDA tharama. The first elaboration was dhanyAsi. The kriti was a very rare vINai kuppaiyer kriti. I m not sure of the pallavi lines. (I later came to know that the chitta swarams to this kriti were composed by SangIta
kalanidhi karaikudi sAmbasiva iyer, guru of Smt. Ramani). The dEvagAndAri alapanai, though short was a vintage to hear and gave a good mood for things coming up.

By the time, she started playing varALi, it was expected to be the main piece, the sancharas where beautiful and mAmava mInAkshI was greatly rendered. But with the tani not being played, it was confirmed that there is something more to come.

The main piece, bhairavi Alapanai was just superb. Well that was not all, the tAnam in rAgamAlika (bhairavi, nATTai, gauLa, Arabhi, varALi, srI) was even more enjoyable. The kriti rendition was again one which reassured that the artist was a veteran and gave a great experience. The tani by the two stalwarts was one of those which was something those who had left just before should feel for.

venkatAchala nilayam was also beautiful. As remarked by some people in the concert it was not rendered in sindhubhairavi. May be some closely related rAgam i guess. The paras jAvaLi was again one more to the list of all rare pieces played in the concert. The ultra short and sweet senchuruti Alapanai and the kriti after a request were again so good that I did not want to kutcheri to end, but it did immediately with pavamAna. It was a good fodder to all the IITians who are not only in permanent thirst to knowledge but also to good carnatic music.

The concert on the whole had a great "sowkyam". The Veenai playing had a distinct punch of the karaikudi bani and the azhutham in the meetu was felt all thro' the cutcheri. Smt Ramani had some problems with the sruthi as the auditorium was airconditioned, it had led to problems and she had to keep tuning the strings all thro' the concert.

Later, I came to know that the artist felt good in the atmosphere of CLT, IIT Madras to give a kutcheri.

The following is the comments of somebody who came with Smt. Ramani to the cutcheri.

"The concert went very nicely in the gracious presence of the intellectuals of India the one and only IIT Students, it was like a sadas which kindled the memories which went back to the 1950 where Ariyakudi and maharajapuram viswanathan iyer will attend the music sadas of music academy, it was a very warm and nice audience who actively participated. It is really proud to see such a good audience are there from IIT, which gave additional encouragement to the artists."