We had the pleasure of enjoying a well planned concert of Dr. Baby at the Music Academy, on 19 December 2019. She was accompanied by Vidushi Padma Shankar on the violin, Vidwan Nellai A Balaji on the Mridangam and Malaikottai R M Deenadayalu on the Moharsing. The morning concert began on the dot at 9 AM, as we sat listening from the canteen - yeah, we were a bit late & had to listen to the first two compositions from there. The clarity was muffled by the pedestal fans and general chatter - so could not identify the kalyANi varnam (probably the aTa tALam varnam) and a popular shrIranjani kriti (the caranam was clearer but hands were busy stuffing the mouth; instead of noting the lyrics on pad / mobile).
We were comfortably seated in the back rows when Baby presented a serene version of the sowrAshTram based kriti 'shrI ranganAtuDE', of Thiru Ponnaiah Pillai. The first detail exposition for the concert was danyAsi, where Baby's delineation was dripping with bhAvAm and followed well by Padma. The kriti 'shOdippadenna nyAyamA' composed by Shri Neelakanta Sivan was sung in detail with neraval and kaplanaswarams to give justice to this choice. Then, after a brief AlApanai in kaNNaDA, Baby sang the rarely heard (at least for me) Saint Thyagaraja kriti 'sAkEta nikEtana'.
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| Dr Baby Sreeram and Team in progress |
ShanmukhapriyA was taken up as the main rAgam for the morning, with a different start off point than I have heard so far. From this and other details displayed in pallavi of the day, it was clear that Baby had planned novelty while sticking to the patantaram and melody of music. After her detail essay, Padma presented a compact version of the rAgam too, followed by the kriti 'mAmava karuNayA', a Maharaja Swathi Tirunal composition set to misra cApu tALam. Neraval and kalpanaswarams were compact too, and then we realized that the laya vinyAsam was going to follow, though it was just about 10:30 AM (1:30 hours into the concert). Both Balaji and Deenadayalu gave a good detail vinyAsam in the misra cApu tALam, with some interesting starting and landing points, as they were not on the samam. In my opinion, it takes quite a bit of practice and vidwath to be able to do that. Looking at the time utilized judiciously by the team, we were sure the next item would be a rAgam-tAnam-pallavi (45 minutes to go in the time allotted).
Baby took up sAvEri rAgam for the pallavi, the rAgam covered in one single stretch. The tAnam was sung & played well by Baby & Padma respectively in alternate phases initially and ending in an complementary sequence. Baby announced that it is a simple pallavi and hence not going to explain - an Adi tALam pallavi in kanDa naDai, which went 'enakkoru varam nI aruL shabEshA, vEriDam Edum illai abhaya'. As the pUrvAngam ended with shabEshA, in one avartanam she highlighted the name of the rAgam by ending instead at "shabE'shA vEri'". After the tri-kAlam presentation she directly moved to rAgamAlikai presentation of the pallavi and kalpanaswarams in each of the following rAgams. The first choice was 'varamu' (shuddha HindOLam), which again she highlighted a bit in one cycle at 'enakkoru varamu'. The other rAgams in sequence were Anandabhairavi, varALi, kAmbhOji and HamsAnandi. Following this she presented the kalpanaswarams in sAveri and then all the rAgamAlikai swarams (one avartanam each) in reverse order. By the end of the rAgam-tAnam-pallavi rasikAs would have definitely understood the nuanced presentation that had been planned and executed. Kudos to Baby & Padma for including this comfortably in the two-and-half-hour concert.
After a short viruttam in HindOLam and rEvati, Baby sang 'ariyAdadEnO umadarumai' in rEvati (kanDa cApu tALam) - could not find the composer in my limited searches. Maybe a composition of her own (or her husband Palakkad Sreeram?). And it closed exactly on the dot, as the clock literally flipped to 11:30 AM.
A scan of the audience showed lot of artists, young-and-old, junior-and-top-grade, etc. From this and a few other indicators (the booklet of all concerts in Chennai showing at least 50+ per day), we are assured that some journalists (writing in prominent newspapers) are either in a cocoon, blind, in denial, or have an agenda of promoting some specific group(s), when they say that Carnatic music's flag is being held high only by the efforts of the specific group(s).
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