The Open Air Theatre at IIMB was as still as stillness could get. .It was 4:30 am. The January chill was well beyond being pleasant. The coffee vendor at the venue could not cope with the long queue of people trying to deal with the cold, sipping sizzling cuppas in quick succession.
The more than two hundred people in the audience stayed rooted to their seats, waiting for Bombay Jayashri. It did not matter to them that they had been awake all night listening to equally lilting music from the Lalgudi siblings and Ustad Wasifuddin Dagar. The cynical side of me said that it was probably the Oscar effect.
All of that cynicism was soon replaced with tearful joy as Nattai was followed by Bhoopalam, Saveri and Vasantha with the grand culmination in Tilang. The ragas flowed with BJ's patent, easy, lazy style that does not sometimes go down well with the aficionados in Chennai.
My love affair with BJ's music started when I turned on the music in my father in law's car a year back. The voice I heard had a languorous sensuality. Yet the kambodhi was pure and chaste. BJ took no liberties with the demanding canons of Carnatic music as the she meandered along the contours of the raga. The aalapanai produced this nice feeling of being gently washed away by a stream as its swirling waters caressed you in a soothing massage.
It is now three days since I listened to BJ on that cold January morning. I still suffer from the dull feeling of a junkie who is savouring the slowly fading hangover from his last high.
As I reflect on the haunting effect that BJ has had on me I wonder what is the phenomenon at work? Is it her music? Or, is it her charm, her poise and elan as a singer? Or, the way she let her hands sway as she lost herself in the song, unfettered by the demands of the tricky taala? Or, all of it in some measure? Does it really matter? If the purpose of art is to delight the audience does it matter whether it is the art, the artist or the ensemble of the two that provides that joy?
Khushwant Singh is once supposed to have said to Bangladesh, Give us Runa Laila and we will give you all the waters of the Farakka Barrage. Clearly he seems to have been as much in love with the singer as he was with her song. After all, Runa Laila's O laal meri itself, did not recognise- was much less bound by - the geographic limits of the modern nation state.
I am not sure I am as clear about what I want - as Khushwant Singh was about what he wanted. For example, as a resident of Bangalore would I offer all the waters in the KR Sagar if BJ were to relocate to my city? I cannot say - only beacuse I dread what the KRRS would do to me.
For now, it is good enough for me to know that I am smitten. I do not care whether it is by BJ or her rendition.
Nanni. Namaskaaram
The more than two hundred people in the audience stayed rooted to their seats, waiting for Bombay Jayashri. It did not matter to them that they had been awake all night listening to equally lilting music from the Lalgudi siblings and Ustad Wasifuddin Dagar. The cynical side of me said that it was probably the Oscar effect.
All of that cynicism was soon replaced with tearful joy as Nattai was followed by Bhoopalam, Saveri and Vasantha with the grand culmination in Tilang. The ragas flowed with BJ's patent, easy, lazy style that does not sometimes go down well with the aficionados in Chennai.
My love affair with BJ's music started when I turned on the music in my father in law's car a year back. The voice I heard had a languorous sensuality. Yet the kambodhi was pure and chaste. BJ took no liberties with the demanding canons of Carnatic music as the she meandered along the contours of the raga. The aalapanai produced this nice feeling of being gently washed away by a stream as its swirling waters caressed you in a soothing massage.
It is now three days since I listened to BJ on that cold January morning. I still suffer from the dull feeling of a junkie who is savouring the slowly fading hangover from his last high.
As I reflect on the haunting effect that BJ has had on me I wonder what is the phenomenon at work? Is it her music? Or, is it her charm, her poise and elan as a singer? Or, the way she let her hands sway as she lost herself in the song, unfettered by the demands of the tricky taala? Or, all of it in some measure? Does it really matter? If the purpose of art is to delight the audience does it matter whether it is the art, the artist or the ensemble of the two that provides that joy?
Khushwant Singh is once supposed to have said to Bangladesh, Give us Runa Laila and we will give you all the waters of the Farakka Barrage. Clearly he seems to have been as much in love with the singer as he was with her song. After all, Runa Laila's O laal meri itself, did not recognise- was much less bound by - the geographic limits of the modern nation state.
I am not sure I am as clear about what I want - as Khushwant Singh was about what he wanted. For example, as a resident of Bangalore would I offer all the waters in the KR Sagar if BJ were to relocate to my city? I cannot say - only beacuse I dread what the KRRS would do to me.
For now, it is good enough for me to know that I am smitten. I do not care whether it is by BJ or her rendition.
Nanni. Namaskaaram
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