Maestro,Music and Maargazhi utsavam

Well ‘Maestro’ is one title that gets tossed around frequently but when it comes to Ilayaraja There is no arguments at all,absolutely. Raja has revolutionized Music in Cinemas with his unique blending of carnatic ,Western classical,folk and some Rock too. The way in which he uses the orchestral Violin is simply Sheer genius in the mould of a bach , Mozart,or a Beethoven as also the Profoundness and aptness of his background scores which are magical to say the least. We have had so many legendary and good composers who have enthralled the masses with their brilliant music like the Burmans, MSV, ARR, Jatin-lalit, Ismail Durbar, Ravindran, Shankar-ehsan and Loy to name a few but somehow they all appear to me to be content with accomplishing the important part which is satisfying the audience,and giving musical hits , they don’t push to the next level and precisely this is where a Raja differs from the rest he does the important “job” and more , he transcends the mundane to brilliant to Genius (a territory beyond mortals reach) in his countless numbers which will just leave you gasping and out of the world. Somehow I think Raja has not received enough recognition from the Wider Indian public and this is best illustrated in the fact that he has bagged a paltry 3 National Awards even after scoring music for more than 800 films primarily coz he has done the bulk of his compositions in Tamil. Agreed Music is beyond Language barriers but this is one major reason why most of his numbers remain largely unheard beyond TN , On the contrary ARR enjoys a massive following throughout the country largely coz he has successfully translated most of his popular numbers into Hindi and also has considerable Genuine Hindi numbers under his belt. Recently I happened to listen to Raja’s 1986 album “How to name It” and must say who better than him to give a tribute to Bach and Thyagaraja??. Raja in his long career has Dealt so many classical Ragas imaginatively and perhaps my good friend Ram gopal is best suited to shed more light.

This being Margazhi ,the only month when carnatic music shows some signs of revival,all the sabhas will be busy with concerts.The modern day concert spanning an average of 3 hours and in many cases even less is more of a 20-20 affair, people just don’t have the time and patience anymore.The performer is under pressure to wrap up his alapana pretty quickly and has to cede to popular public demands which can often lead to repetitive numbers.”Thani avarthanam” long thought to be an integral part of any concert has now become the default break-time during which the phonies take their time off to launch into Canteen food, who gives a damn for a bunch of percussionists blaring away anyway? A handful of Rasikas still do and they maybe the reason this margazhi festival keeps happening year in and year out. So when do these Phonies actually return? They comeback just in time for the Thillana, Thukkadas in the end and promptly give a standing ovation at the ‘mangalam’ still munching away at their pottalams,Bravo! Its appalling how much Madurai has changed from say 30-35 years ago when people had the luxury of attending concerts at more than 6-7 sabhas not to mention the ever happening concerts at the temples , we are not so fortunate anymore in that we barely have any choice at all.. Thanks to the Patronage of the TVS group Lakshmi sundaram Hall and Sruthi arts academy in TVS lakshmi continue to be the glorious exceptions. This coming from the city that has produced so many stalwarts and legends of classical music such as Madurai Shanmugavadivu Subbulakshmi, Madurai Mani Iyer, TN Seshagopalan among others presents a truly grim picture indeed.

So it is Recession time and What are the hot jobs currently?Catering could be a profitable option especially at sabhas,The intensive,and increasing security checks that IT professionals are subjected everywhere means Security personnel is also another viable option.Con artists (ever an option) in Bangalore always have the last laugh and like SriRamachandra murthy says “Muruga indha naata enna maadhiri mutalgakitta irrundhu kaapaathu”