If there is one place to immerse in Carnatic music deeply this margazhi season, it is at the Shrikara Anjaneya Raghavendra Swami Temple in Mylapore.
At this quiet little space that traces its link with a mutt in Udupi, concerts are being held at pre-dawn for the past fortnight and will go on till January 14.
The lights are not switched on here; but the place is lit with dozens of oil lamps. There are no mikes nor speakers; natural sound of voices and instruments float around. The audience has to sit on the floor of a mid-sized chamber.
In short – this is how chamber concerts were held on the old days. Perhaps this practice is still followed in small temples in Kerala.
The standards of the concert performance may be variable but it is the setting and the rapt involvement of the artistes and the rasikas, some 15 or 20 people, that make such concerts impactful.
The “temple” is actually the Shrikara Anjaneya Raghavendra shrine and is the local branch of the Puttige Mutt of Udupi; it is located off Sundareswarar and Salai Street, some 40 metres beyond Lady Sivaswami Ayyar Girls School.
This temple has a beautiful black oxide cement floor, the hi-gloss of the floor nicely picks up the glow of oil lamps and the mellow light of the break of dawn streaming in through the small ventilators.
The space has an intimacy about it and the acoustics are more than acceptable . The artistes sit right in front of the sanctum, their faces lit by the glow from the oil lamps arranged on a wooden frame.
On the day I was here, the rasikas were mostly ranged around the walls of this chamber, some 25 x 35 feet.
That morning, the vocalist was Rasika Kumar, all of 14 or 15.
She is from Philadelphia in USA and is a student of Neyveli Santhanagopalan, senior vocalist and teacher. He visits the USA for about four months each year and teens like Rasika study under him.
- By V. Narayan Swami
