When ragas evoke the spirit of a festival

Chennai-based Sruti magazine recently organised an event to capture the spirit of Holi through art. Chaitrra Sairam, a disciple of Bombay Jayashri, put together a unique set of ragas to portray the festival of colours. Apart from working with children with autism, she teaches music in rural areas in Tamilnadu.

Chaitrra chose appropriate ragas to create a visual imagery of different colours. She presented Muthuswamy Dikshitar’s nottuswaram to denote white. The music of Western bands had inspired Dikshitar to compose the Sanskrit verse, ‘Shyamale Meenakshi,’ (Sankarabharanam). Her young students Shakti and Priya sang along with Chaitrra. She next depicted the colour yellow with ‘Tunga tarange’ (Hamsadhwani, Sadashiva Brahmendral). The sheen in her voice came to the fore in this song. 

The highlight of Chaitrra’s session, an attempt at grahabhedam (shifting the tonic note to another in the raga and arriving at a different raga), won her appreciation from the audience. Starting with Mohanam, she shifted the base note to rishabam (ri to ri) to reach Madhyamavati. Shifting the base to Gandharam (ga to ga), she sang raga Hindolam, and later shifting the base note to dhaivatam (dha to dha), she landed at Shuddha Dhanyasi. In this colourful array of ragas, Chaitrra came up with a string of melodies: ‘Swagatam Krishna’ (Mohanam), ‘Govardhana Girisham’ (Hindolam), ‘Narayana Ninna’ (Shuddha Dhanyasi) and ‘Karpagame’ (Madhyamavati). 

The penultimate piece was ‘Kaakkai siraginile nandalala’, where Mahakavi Bharati sees Nature’s colours in the dark-skinned Krishna. Her students sang along too.  Chaitrra concluded with a Meera bhajan, ‘Holi khelata hain giridhari.’ 

Srivatsan on the keyboard, and Ayushmaan Sairam on the mridangam offered good support.

Sundaresan’s artistry

The next 30-minute saw Bharatanatyam dancer P. Sundaresan showcase his versatility. He trains in abhinaya under eminent dancer Bragha Bessell. He is a trained Kalaripayattu artiste too. With a Master’s in Bharatanatyam, Sundaresan teaches dance and  choreography. 

His first presentation ‘Holi ayee re’ described Krishna playing Holi in Brij with Radha and the gopis. Sundaresan effused confidence and good technique. He next presented Sant Chokhamela’s popular abhang ‘Abhir gulaal udhalita rang’, taking us on a journey to Pandharpur to show how Holi is celebrated in the town. Sundaresan, who began learning dance under Dhanalakshmi Shankar and later trained under V. Balagurunathan, was able to evoke the joy as Panduranga dances amid colourful powder strewn in the air. However, the artiste would have done well by evoking bhakti bhava more in this presentation. The dancer concluded with a Kuntalavarali thillana. 

After the performances, the artistes and the audience played with colours.