Concert Haridas’ recital in Kochi showed his mastery over the santoor.
Master performer: Haridas
Learning the violin in the North Indian style for 10 years has helped Haridas when he performs on the santoor. The musician who is based in Alankode in Malappuram district showed his class at a recital at Durbar Hall Kalakendra in Kochi. His recital proved that he has progressed by leaps and bounds in mastering the ‘shata-thanthri’ veena or the veena of 100 strings.
Tryst with destiny
The musical instrument was liberally used by Malayalam cine-music directors like Devarajan,Baburaj, Dakshinamoorthy and the like in songs like ‘Urangikitanna Hridayam,’ ‘Pranasakhi,’ ‘Kaarkunthal Kettazhinju’ and so on. It was a lucky meeting with Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma at Kottakkal that helped him become a disciple of the santoor maestro. Haridas had started learning the instrument, and impressed by his self-made virtuosity, Shiv Kumar Sharma accepted him as his disciple.
This teacher of chemistry has been performing on the santoor from 1994 and also staging Jugalbandis with Surendran (carnatic violin) and with Murali Menon (Mohana Veena).
Haridas’ concert was held in connection with an exhibition of photographs and paintings by Vijayaraghavan and Mohan Alankode respectively. The instrumental format (Thanthra Kari Ang) of the North differs from the Gayaki Ang (vocal format) and a North Indian instrumentalist has more of flexibility by way of beginning with Alap, Jhod-jhala and Gath, when the percussion artiste starts accompanying the main performer. In other words there is more variety in such a concert when compared to a South Indian instrumental solo. That was substantiated in the manner in which the South Indian raga ‘Jyanthasree’ was unfurled by Haridas.
His affinity to infinite improvisations was evident when he built the raga edifice through jhod-jhala (thaanam) keeping in mind Tyagaraja’s ‘Marugelara.’ The effortless manner in which he transformed it into a ‘migrating’ raga invested with lustrous ‘gamaks’ was admirable indeed.
The first part of the ‘bandish’ was set to Mat thal of nine beats in vilambit and Madhya lay. Then followed a Dhruth sequence in Theen thal.
The ‘sargam’ (swaram) gave an opportunity to the musician to portray colourfully woven rhythmic combinations. Dean Mohan from Palrivattam, played the tabla.
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