MY FESTIVAL
It was like taking lessons in music
How can I forget those cold December days of the early 1950s when I would stay put at the P.S.High School pandal (that is where the Music Academy festival used to held before the building came up), from morning to night with my parents.
Despite the chill, inside stalwart musicians and revered musicologists generated much heat with the display of their vidwat and debates. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to refer to them as walking encyclopaedias.
Rasikas would sit engrossed for hours together, listening to these vidwans speak on various fascinating aspects of the art. One just needed to keep his/her eyes, ears and mind open to absorb the flood of information. That was the time I had turned a serious listener and was being groomed by the genius Mudikondan Venkatrama Iyer. So being at the festival was like taking lessons in Carnatic music. Until then, attending kutcheris was just a routine. I would accompany my father, who was a member of the Thyaga Brahma Gana Sabha.
Unlike now, you could count the number of sabhas on your fingers and the festival would be on for just few days.
The artistes would perform at their own pace. Some kutcheris would stretch to almost four or five hours. Yet, you could hardly see anybody leaving half way through a concert.
None of the concerts, including the morning and afternoon sessions, went without an audience.
My guru was a prominent personality at the festival. And I thoroughly enjoyed involving myself in the preparations along with him. I would particularly take keen interest in his presentations at the lecture-demonstrations.
When artistes and organisers get over-ambitious, it spells disaster for the art. Changes are inevitable and there is no cause for panic because satyam is bound to succeed.
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