bahula panchami

I listened to all the pancharatnakritis on dd podhigai yesterday morning, the bahula panchami day. The event was broadcast live from thiruvaiyaru, near Thanjavur, Tamilnadu where the saint, composer musician sri thyagaraja swamigal has his samadhi. I was wondering how a telugu musician happened to have his samadhi in tamilnadu and whether thyagaraja festival is also being celebrated in andhra pradesh. I was told that the division tamil and telugu is a recent(!) origin and earlier it was madras presidency and both tamils and telugu speaking people were coexisting peacefully earlier.So there is nothing unusual about thyagaraja living in thiruvaiyaru.

I have been hearing the pancharatnakritis on bahula panchami days for as long as i can remember.Which means the festival is being held in thriuvaiyaru for a number of years. Usually the top vidwans used to congregate there as a mark of respect to the great musician. No concert is complete without a number of thyagaraja songs being sung. Not only that even a novice learning music will be asked to sing a thyagaraja kriti ; only then is even a pass mark considered!

But over the years there has been controversies over which musician dominates the show; the ranking game had seeped into this event also.Hence we saw that the top musicians of the day were not seen at thiruvaiyaru, which was a pity. It was then that kunnakudi vaidyanathan the great violinist stepped in and started rallying round all musicians and made it a mass movement that i saw yesterday.It is no mean tribute to him that he was the leading light of that programme for a number of years. I missed seeing him centre stage, gesticulating widely and exhorting the musicians and devotees to join in the mass singing programme .His colourful and vibrant and enthusiastic presence used to lend an aura to the morning. Carnatic music is a personalised and individual expression and to bring such musicians together for a couple of hours is no mean achievement. He will be remembered for long for this contribution.

One spotted sudha raghunathan, she has been a regular for quite a few years; I could recognise gayathri girish as I had recently heard her performance in margazhi maha utsavam on jaya tv; anuradha krishnamurthy was her resplendent best;there were a couple of very very senior woman singers who were singing with great bhava and gusto; one spotted n ramani on the flute and also his son; umayalpuram sivaraman on the mridangam has quickly shifted stage from chennai sangamam in besant nagar , straddling totally different genre of music, theme and mood!Sasikiran was very pensive and in deep contemplation and was singing with total concentration; i spotted o s arun also singing with a lot of verve. Women singers outnumbered men ten to one; not only that there were more women singers singing without looking at the books than men singers!

I was remembering the significance of pancha ratna kritis in thyagarajas life. It appears he was accused of composing and singing very simple songs full of bhakti and melliflous tune no doubt but totally devoid of any attempt at showcasing his scholarliness. He cannot ignore such criticism and it is good for us that he did not. All the five kritis are detailed and scholarly exposition of the raga and all its swara combinations, no doubt in wonderful sahitya and melliflous tunes.

It is in the fitness of things that the sriraga kriti , entharo mahanubhavulu anthariki vandanam' is the last one, paying tribute to all great people.

I paid respects to thyagaraja and sang one of my favourite songs, hethsariga ga ra ra, full of emotion as my tribute to the great composer and devotee of Rama.