Book wall

The Hindu's "LitForLife 2017" kicked off today at the Sir Mutha Venkata Subba Rao Concert Hall. It was quite a full house today, with Dr. Shashi Tharoor on stage; after his session, a large chunk of the crowd followed him outside, to the author pavilion where he was signing copies of his latest book. 

On the way back after getting the autograph, spotted this book wall. Couldn't help thinking it would have been better with people - kids, especially - standing up close and reading these. And then, we saw that there were spaces at the Hall where you could sit down and read, and in fact, swap books for the day. 

That's nice - look forward to being back there tomorrow!

Quiztime, again

Saturday afternoon, and it was probably the last big event of this year's Madras Week celebrations. The Murugappa Madras Quotient Quiz for school kids was held on the 6th. The Sir Mutha Venkat Subba Rao Concert Hall was packed - teams from over 250 schools took part in the quiz. 

The kids seemed to be having a good time. That's one of the enthusiastic team captains jumping up to get the answer sheet for her team!

Concert

Chennai's music season is drawing to a close, and as usual, I have missed every concert that was on offer. Of course there was some kind of a list that was drawn up, of where to go to listen to who, but it just remained on paper. All the greats - legends as well as contemporary idols - of Carnatic music performed at the usual spots. 

One of those spots is the Ayyappan-Guruvayoorappan temple at Mahalingapuram. The "gaana gandharvan" of Carnatic music, Padma Bhushan K. J. Yesudas. Since 1974, he has not missed his annual performance at this venue even once - I remember that I first saw him singing here in 1977. Over the last four decades, it has ceased being remarkable that a Roman Catholic unfolds a plethora of devotional, as well as other songs at a Hindu temple. We had landed up at the temple without knowing that it was the Yesudas evening; the only spots free of audience were in front of the sanctums. All attention was focused upon the man with the divine voice. 

I don't think anyone was disappointed that evening. Except us. We had to preserve our 100% record of not attending any concert this season; we were unable to spend any time to listen to the man. But he will be back next year, and Deo volente, so will we!

Curtain raiser

It is the newest of the city's concert spaces, but it is more than a just a stage. With a grand semi-circular frontage, Sir Mutha Venkatasubba Rao Concert Hall offers a great venue for performances. Within two years of being open to the public, it has become the venue of choice for not only concerts, but for art exhibitions and any kind of performance in general.

The superb acoustics of the hall are complemented by the excellent equipment. Comfy seats let you enjoy the performance without having to twist and turn for that correct positioning. And there is adequate space for parking - the advantage of being able to use the space of the Lady Andal School after hours.

And though I haven't had a chance to see one such yet, the hall has a provision for providing 'surtitles' - projected on the stage, above the performance space - to enable translations of plays into another language, should it be required!

Stage presence

The Tamizh month of Margazhi (Dec 16 - Jan 14, roughly) sees a buzz of activity in all the concert / performance halls across Chennai. The true impact of the 'music season' in Chennai is quite immeasureable: older Chennaiites around the world plan their holidays to coincide with as much of the 'season' as they can pack in; newspapers have daily supplements devoted to the concerts and the performers.

Every year, despite all my intentions of attending 'quite a few' performances, I end up going to none. But not this year. A friend was singing at the Sivakami Pethachi Auditorium and I made sure I was there. I understand he was on stage after a very long hiatus, but his singing did not reveal that - well done, Raj!