Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Veena Sessions

Last saturday, I saw something new... something I had never seen with my naked eye! I saw two Veenas... one of which was actually played, and the person who happened to play the veena happened to be my new friend, and the kritis he played were actually decided by me!

About 4 days earlier, I zeroed in on about 6 kritis for our "veena session" on saturday and handed them over to Mahadev Prasad, a gentle human filled with devotion, hiding an ent-like anger roused only when the relevant topics are brought up. Coming from a Lingayat family, his countenance bears an unusual resemblance to the Three-Eyed One Himself. Every morning in the bus, he reads some stanzas from the "Soundarya Lahari" of Adi Sankara with unbriddled enthusiasm and unwavering perseverence.

He learnt veena for more than 10 years, and he still learns new kritis whenever time permits a hiatus from the research work at the GE John F. Welch Technology Centre, Bangalore. Thanks to my nosy probing, I finally found somebody into classical in GE.

By the way, the kritis he played:

1) Varnam-- Sahana
2) Swarajathi --Kamakshi -- Bhairavi
3) Paripaalayamaam -- Reetigowla
4) Daru Varnam --Maatemalayadhwaja -- Khamas (Yup! see how much I like them??)
5) Kanakana -- VaraaLi
6) Thillana -- DhanaSri (This is the thillana by MSS that I call "bhimpalasi" becasue it feels exactly like it.. Mahadev told me its actually called DhanaSri)

We are supposed to have another session this saturday... cant wait! (though this time, sense prevails and there is only one varnam.. but with nine ragas though!)

3 comments:

Aakarsh said...

boss!! "sahana", " reethigowla" ,"bhairavi" and "khamas" are my favourite raagas (i dont know which are unfavourites..but yes..i have a propensity to lose myself when i listen to these..)
..lucky u!!

Gandaragolaka said...

these days, I wonder if there is something only one of us can do, and the others cant! Too (scarily!) much in common amongst our junta!

Random Walker said...

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