sanjay sub concert in boston

after a very long time i attended a live concert. usually all i have time for these days is listening in my car.

sanjay started the concert with a brisk sanskrit piece in nArAyanagowla ragam. i didn't recognize the piece or the ragam and only knew what the ragam was because he announced it later. the second one was a tamil krithi siddhi vinAyaganE by kavi kunjara bhArathi with some kalpana swarams around the phrase "siddhi vinAyaganE". then followed a begadA piece. i recognized the ragam but had never heard the krithi. i looked it up later since i wrote the words of the sahityam down - "shrI mAtah shiva vAmAHNkE".  next followed a krithi in a ragam i recognized as sAmA but had never heard before -- maravakavE O manasA by patnam subrahmanya iyer. at this point, with the main piece yet to be sung, some idiot started sending up written requests already! anyway not sure if it was because of a request or because he had intended it anyway, he sang manavyAlakim in naLiNakAnti.

so far the concert was decent but not great, and i didn't much care for the selection of pieces. i like a modest dose of serious carnAtic ragams like bhairavi, kaLyAni, shankarAbharaNam and such. he must have read my thoughts and rewarded us with the piece de resistance of the concert, a wonderful thyagarajA krithi in thodi, endhu dhAginAdO with extended niraval swarams around the line, "alanADu kanakakashipu niNDAru calamu". it was nice to hear this krithi as it's not frequently sung in concerts.  after the niraval swarams there was extended kalpana swaram singing with some highly technical rhythmic stuff which i didn't quite grasp but enjoyed -- he was chopping up swarams in odd and rapid fire patterns with the mridangist and the violinist following closely and with excellent give and take sometimes bordering on the humorous. at the end of this piece we were treated to a fantastic thani avarthanam. at the conclusion of the thani, when sanjay was supposed to rejoin the mridangist and sing the pallavi line one final time, he missed the sama (first beat) because he was busy with his sabhashs to the mridangist, and had wait an entire cycle. while the mridangist was completing the cycle, sanjay chimed in with "intha exit-ai miss paNNa, adutha exit varavaraikkum wait paNra mathiri".

after this was a sweet nilAmbari krithi in sanskrit that i hadn't heard before, anandavalli. i looked it up and turns out to be by swAthi thirunAL the malayali composer king.

then followed an RTP in a rare ragam. ten seconds into the alapanai i thought it was kalyANi, but the next note i knew it wasn't something i had heard before, sanjay helpfully announced it as raga chitrAmbari, which is melakartha 66. the reason for the confusion is that kalyANi is mela 65. after the ragam, he sang a thAnam in a ragamAlikA i didn't recognize the first two, but other ragas in the ragamAlikA thAnam were hindOLam, shankarAbharanam, hamirkalyANi, a lilting but short lived chArukesi, and sahAnA. his explanation for this odd set of ragas in the ragamalika was that the carnatic octave contains 16 notes and he covered all of them in the ragamAlikA. the pallavi was back again in chitrAmbari with the line in tamil, "mAl maruganai, muruganai, shaNmuganai, guhanai, mAmayil vagananai, anudinam ninai manamE".

after this it devolved into a thukkada/request fest with people sending up kids carrying request notes to him. he tried to make people happy, at one point remarking, "avA kathukkara patellam ennai pada solrA" (they are making me sing all the songs they are learning) and "parikshai mathiri irukku" (feels like an exam) at another. during the thukkada fest my attention wandered and i was only jolted back into the concert when he started with a bharathiar song for a viruththam (a song sung without accompaniment) in raga senchurutti -- "thIrtha karaiyinilE therkku moolayile".  this is a bharathiar song that was made famous in the 80s by the movie varumaiyin niram sigappu. it was probably my favorite piece in the concert after the main item which was the thyagaraja thodi.  after the viruththam he continued the senchurutti with another bharathi song, "pAyum oLi nI enakku, pArkkum vizhi nAn unakku" probably one of the most romantic poems bharathiar ever wrote. bharathiar poems always give me goosebumps, and when rendered in sanjay's music, i just melt.

anyway all in all a good concert with some not so great selections for the first half. i'll just leave you with this youtube video which was the same ensemble minus the ghatam. he sings the same bharathiar song i alluded to above with the viruththam lines the same as the krithi itself in this version.



i met him briefly after the concert and urged him not to abandon his podcasts which i thoroughly enjoy, especially the one he did on dandapANi desikar's paddhathi. he made a face and said he'll try but he is really pressed for time these days.