Music season 2!!

Christmas day in Chennai was not too Christmasy although a few Indians remembered it was Christmas when they saw my white face, and wished me a merry one. there were also some really scary santa mask/hat sets being sold by street kids (in replacement for usual colouring books an Q-tips). I’m not joking about the masks being scary. They were the scariest looking santa hats I’ve EVER seen. We were in a restaurant, and one of the greeting staff was dressed up like santa. He made a little girl cry, and she could not be convinced to go near him. I would cry too if I was 5, and that was my first impression of santa!

Another sign of Christmas was a couple over the top neon christmas light church’s (which I unfortunately did not get a picture of). Christian church’s here have definetly been influenced by hindi temples. I have never seen so much color in the name of a christian god.

We celebrated Christmas this year with concerts. The concerts got really good around that time. On Christmas eve we saw Lalgudi Jayaraman’s (the violinist whose sound brought be here) son and daughter play accompanied by a Trichy sankaran (a great mridangam player based in Canada!). On christmas day I went to see a senior violinist I haven’t seen (TN Krishnan) play with his 2 children. They were good, but not my style TN Krishnan seemed to me like the vivaldi of carnatic music. A beautiful tone, and flashy technique, but too much repetition for my taste. The trio played a carnatic version of jingle bells……(no comment). 

Christmas afternoon I went to see my teacher’s Vittal Rammamurthy, and Padma Shankar. I was pleasantly surprised that my friend Meera was accompanying on tamboora. Meera is a student of Padma Shankar. The tamboora is an instrument equivalent to the base, but since carnatic music doesn’t change chords the tamboora does not require a great deal of training to play. It is common for students of carnatic music to play the tamboora behind their teachers in order to have the opportunity to observe them up close at a concert. Meera is a little bit of a Tom boy, so she looked extra beautiful in a sari because it was such a surprise. After the concert she was anxious to go home and change! I could relate. 

After my teachers concert we met my friend Shankar (my cooking teacher), and visited an ashram across the street. I was attracted to it because it was a wide open green space, and there are few of those in Chennai. Shankar gave us a lesson on local plants including their traditional and medical uses. He seemed to have a wealth of knowledge in this area. There were lots of kids around, some just wandering (and asking for candy), others involved in a cricket game. We asked about the children. Shankar told us that this was also and orphanage. It seemed such an unusual thing in this big noisy unfair city —- a beautiful orphanage where the kids are clean, and fed, and have lots of space to run, and games to play, and quiet if they want it. We wondered were the money came from. We guessed the ashram. India is full of contrasts. This was a very pleasant one.

In the evening we met my friend Shailesh for dinner and what was supposed to be a poetry reading by the beach. The dinner was good. We broke the vegetarian habit, and enjoyed shrimp. 

The location of the “poetry reading” was unique. It roofed building with incomplete walls, seating all around the sides, and cushions on the floor. It seated about 40 people, so it was pretty cozy (only 20 to 30 attended). It appeared to be part of a larger grounds with other low key venues for performing arts. It was the least conservative place I had been in since my arrival in India. I later found out that it was infact a complex of buildings dedicated first to dance, and then to other performing arts (specifically those on the fringe). It was founded by a dancer who had died, and it was being perserved by her students, and others interested in the arts.

We were happily greeted with a contemporary dance performance followed by a really great fusion set. Embar Kannan (one of the violinists we had seen performing in the carnatic concerts) was playing in a completely different context. His group (violin, ghatham, and keyboard) used carnatic concepts, and concepts from pop music, but it wasn’t cheesy (or just plain bad) as I have found most fusions here to be. The stuff drawn from carnatic was primarily complex rhythmic patterns (which is what I find most interesting about the music), so I found this group very compelling. I later found out that Embar Kannan is trained in western classical music as well as carnatic music. I think that has allowed him to access beauty in both domains. 

The dance and the concert as well as the venue was a really refreshing break from what I have started to be aware of as a very conservative music scene. It is funny how different things seem the more you understand them. Don’t get me wrong. The music is great, and there are wonderful things to be derived from it. It’s just that conservativism in any form wears on me after awhile.

The following concerts I saw the woman who has now become my carnatic music hero: Kanyakumari multiple times. Once solo, and once accompanying a saxophonist. Kanyakumari is a tiny woman with short hair, a wicked sense of time, and precision, and brimming with melodic and rhythmic ideas. I was completely blown away by her performances every time I saw her. I later found out that she has devoted her life to music (ie. chosen music instead of of mairrage). This seemed to be a complicated thing when I talked to people about it ie. some people don’t look well on it. It is not a conservative choice.