Breezy Sunday evening it was, when we reached a pleasant, cute little area amphitheatre in Apollo Hospital. Cute because it was a compact one having the occupancy (stairs) of may be just 100 people. The venue did not disturb any other architectural aroma of the well-built hospital. I reached to see my students already seated grabbing the staircases. It was highly embarressing. Anyways, I greeted, wished everyone: met and encouraged my students and of course praised them as they all were in Sarees (girls) and Kurta-pajama (Males); wished Vani ji-the main person behind all this (Founder of Bharatiya kala Samskruti) Met and selfied with Snehal Ji my co-performer. The tabla person, Shobha Ji-another volunteer of BKS and my friend, I met Vinaya Mam whom I invited for lighting lamp. I think thats when the program started by we (Dignitaries, me and Snehal) on stage, presenting and receiving fruits and lighting lamp.
Program started with a beautiful Saraswati Vandana by two talented girls -Srijitha, and Srijanya, followed by an interesting Sanskrit play by the kids of BKS which had a great significance. I loved the interest and accuracy of pronunciation with which the students were performing. After Vande Mataram by everyone, Snehal and I started the Jugalbandi recital by Raga Multani followed by raga Maru Bihag.
Raga Multani
Raga Maru Bihag
I am highly overwhelmed to perform not only because I thought sane very well but more because I was enjoying while singing without even a speck of thoughts shifts on audience, lights, incorrect stuffs by me etc. however, the tabla pitch did not seem matching but I continued as it was of no use. Table person thought he is CORRECT 🙁 Anyways, the point is I had a great time overall and in addition, I got a lot of applauses later which is temporary I know (So that’s not an elating factor).
Segment-2 was the students or group performances by our students. After Snehal’s students performed, my females students group started off with raga Bihag which went absolutely superb and beyond my expectation. It was again an ecstatic moment for me because the students are not at all the kids who are good at grasp or who are always in touch with their practices or controlled by parents. They are the IT-professional who spent most of the time, even late nights, in their offices. The only aspect which got them their was their immense interest and guts to learn music after prolonged hectic schedules. Moreover, they are adults of course, so its anyways harder to grasp the classical music stuffs. STILL THEY REALLY WORKED HARD AND PERFORMED….SO HUGE ROUND OF APPLAUSE TO THE GIRLS!!!! BTW, it was their first time on stage!!
Raga Bihag
Another recital was by the boys, who presented raga Bhimpalasi. It went very well but lacked in practice. Shubhrajyoti, (the black kurta) performed really great and I was overjoyed by the fact that he will really flourish in music.
Raga Bhimpalasi
Last but not the least was the performance of my two favourite tiny lil students, combination of utter mischief, intelligence, innocence, cuteness, musical-ness, GEETHA & ARJUN. I do have many kids-students but not so serious and dedicated like them. I liked the way they first introduced what they had to sing and started off. There was not even a pinch of nervousness on their faces. They recited Raga Bhupali and raga Yaman. GOD BLESS 🙂 Here is the performance: