Happy Birthday Raja Sir
Today is Ilayaraja’s (Raja Sir) 80th birthday and while we listen to him everyday, just wanted to share a special memory with the readers today.
music
Bappi Da … Chalte Chalte
A personal tribute to Bappi Lahiri who passed away yesterday. I always liked him for being a non-conformist and living life on his terms !
Lost Friendships
Just yesterday I saw the legendary singer S P Balasubrahmanyam participating in a music program on Vijay TV – it was the Super Singer junior program and he had come as the celebrity judge. There is something magical in his voice and all my favourite songs in Tamil have been sung by him. Almost all … Read more
Uneducated Boors
Last night as we started to sleep we heard sounds of someone hammering away. We thought it might be somebody in the penthouse which is the very next floor above us. They sometimes shift furniture and we thought it might be that. Strangely enough Amma could not sleep at all as the sounds didn’t stop. … Read more
The master story teller
I started this post on Jan 8th and so many stories intervened in these 2.5 months that the story of the master story teller got missed !! This year, 2016, started off on a great note for us. We had an awesome lunch at the Gnanambiga mess at Narada Gana Sabha. Earlier in the day … Read more
The Flute piper
We spent the last day of 2015 under a spell. His concert was scheduled for 4 pm at Narada Gana Sabha and we had the tickets already since we had come early in the morning to get the tickets for this concert and the next day’s concert. We went out for a walk to the … Read more
Memorable – Twenty years later ..
He is Hareesh’s favourite violinist and Krishnan and I had attended his concert live with Hareesh some 20 years back … In the intervening 20 years, Hareesh is married and his son will be in college soon.. We both don’t live in Chennai any longer and while parts of the city remain the same, it’s … Read more
The Veena’s new synonym
My all time favourite Veena player is (late) Dr. Chitti Babu. I probably still have the cassette which had his album named “Temple Bells” and then another one where I forget the name but it had the “cuckoo” composition. I was fascinated by the “cuckoo” composition and loved to hear Dr. Chitti Babu’s rendition of … Read more
The lineage shows …
Her maternal grandfather is Palghat Mani Iyer and her paternal grandmother is D K Pattamal … Her genes ensured she had a great voice and the environment at home ensured she trained hard and diligently. The result is Nithyasree Mahadevan, with a voice that can sing in any octave and can move hearts. Nithyasree is … Read more
What a treat … Thanks Sanjay Subramanyam !
Yesterday in the morning, we were listening to Dr. BalaMuralikrishna singing the Pancharatna Kritis on Apple Music and were commenting that his voice equals 10 people singing together !! It was a good prep for the 4 pm treat that was in store for us. While marking the various concerts that we wanted to attend, … Read more