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Does the violin accompanist repeat every little turn of the phrase sung by the vocalist or the main artiste? As the singer keeps moving with his raga, his previous sangati is played by the violinist; the listener needs to be able to follow the two different ideas simultaneously often making it difficult to follow the main artiste’s ideas.

Cricketers and film stars are most sought after normally, for their autographs. At the Music Academy, after her full house Sunday evening concert, Sudha Raghunathan was mobbed by her rasikas belonging to all age groups for autographs and photographs, which she obliged with a smile. She then had tiffin with the president and a couple of office bearers of the Academy at Kondithope Padmanabhan’s canteen and paid rich compliments to the newly installed sound system during her conversation with them. Next was an interview to the waiting ETV Telugu channel crew. Onlookers were struck by her fluent and chaste Telugu. She left after spending more than one good hour, unmindful of the gruelling concert schedule extending into the new year.

Here was this woman, who was busy adjusting her hairdo and applying colour on her already smudged lips using a small mirror. All in the middle of an afternoon concert inside the Academy’s auditorium, while the vidwan was trying her best to impress rasikas with her Khambodi. Is the concert hall the right place to fix one’s make-up?

A surprise visitor to the Music Academy, probably for the first time, was actor Meera Jasmine. All, just to get engrossed in the mandolin concert of Shrinivas and Rajesh on Sunday night. She went into a meditative stillness all through the concert, sitting in the first row.

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