Our series of day-by-day reports of the entire Convention can be found here.
By Isha Bhallamudi, Aroon Narayanan and Nithyanand Rao
Early Morning Yoga
Today’s yoga sessions continued from yesterday, only, this time, taking place in the original venues. Dr. Kiran Seth, the founder of SPIC MACAY, also took a class for Naada Yog, populated by slightly sleep-deprived enthusiasts. The Hatha Yog session was also conducted successfully.
After a break for breakfast and ‘personal time’, the participants headed to the venues allotted to them for their intensives at 9 am.
Highlights from the Intensives
The intensives carried on from yesterday. Volunteers kept track of the participants in every intensive and ensured that no switching or mixing up took place. Even most of the participants who did not get their allotted intensives reportedly enjoyed those that they did get, very much.
While some intensives progressed very quickly, others took on a slower pace. Some gurus set particular conditions for their students and built on the foundation created on the previous day. With some intensives such as Bharatanatyam, participants were divided into groups, depending on whether they had learnt the dance form before. Most of the crafts, however, required no prerequisite practice or knowledge, as did niche arts such as Mohiniattam.
The organizers and volunteers strived to attend to the littlest of things, from making sure the gurus had everything they needed to ensuring that the shoes placed outside the classrooms were aligned neatly! We must say that the efforts looked like they paid off.
Bhagavatamela — Afternoon Sessions
World’s famous Melattur Bhagawatha Mela performs @spicmacay #intercon14. pic.twitter.com/RNz3iUKBxA
— Veejay Sai (@veejaysai) June 10, 2014
The afternoon bhagavatamela session was scheduled for 1 pm but began only around 1:45 pm, becoming the first in a series of events that led to increasingly delayed sets of performances. Melattur S. Natarajan & Group performed beautifully, depicting the story of bhasmasura. It was a two-hour performance, ending at around 3:45 pm.
The next session, a series of selected demonstrations by intensive gurus, started without a break from the previous performance. Specifically, these were demonstrations of mohiniattam, odissi, kuchipudi, veena and dhrupad. They went off beautifully, delighting the audience, although the demonstrations stretched on till 6 pm, shooting off the scheduled concluding time of 4:30 pm by over an hour.
Deen Dayal Photo Exhibition
The photo exhibition and the crafts mela, or bazaar, have been open in the SAC foyer and SAC first floor since yesterday, and will be ongoing until the close of the convention. (More on the crafts mela in tomorrow’s report).
The exhibit features the work of Raja Deen Dayal, a prominent Indian photographer whose career peaked in the late nineteenth century and who served as official photographer to the sixth Nizam of Hyderabad, and later, to the Viceroy of India.
The works, which are not marked or labelled, even with the date of capture, are haunting. They mostly feature individuals — children, women, men, couples, groups; rich and poor. One photo that stands out is a wall of animal skins, with a man (presumably the superb shot who took the animals down) standing underneath and a rifle pinned up against the wall. You can identify the animal skins — tiger, chiral, alligator — and the mounted skeletal heads that are also put up along them. The photo is eerie and stays with you.
Evening Concerts — Chitraveena and Hindustani Vocals
The Chitraveena, also known as Gotuvadyam, has become, of late, one of the more prominent Carnatic solo instruments, due to its presence in Indian-fusion world music and Hindustani–Carnatic jugalbandis. N Ravikiran is the grandson of Gotuvadyam Narayan Iyengar, who was one of the most recognizable proponents of Chitraveena in south India. A highly decorated performer, Vidwan Ravikiran is also a highly versatile composer and those assembled at the concert here at IIT Madras were fortunate enough to witness him playing one of his own compositions.
He began the concert with a varnam in Saveri raaga set to Adi talam. Being a fretless instrument, the Chitraveena sounds delightfully similar to a vocalist singing, and Vidwan Ravikiran remarked playfully that the audience could hence sing along with his rendition. Next, he played Rama Nannu Brovara, a Thyagaraja composition in Harikaambodi raaga set to Roopaka tala, followed by Devi Brova, a composition by Shama Shastri in the raaga Chintamani, a derivative of Shanmukhapriya. All this while, his percussion accompanists — Vidwan Patri Satish Kumar on the mridangam, Vidwan S. Karthik on the ghatam, and Vidwan B. S. Purushotham on the kanjira — gave him excellent support, finally breaking into a scintillating jugalbandi that left the audience applauding wildly.
Thunai Purindarul, a Papanasam Sivam composition in raaga Varamu (also known as Shuddha Hindolam), was next. Here, the Chitraveena and the violin, played by Vidushi Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi, performed out a splendid passage, with both artists complementing each other perfectly. The whole troupe seemed to enjoy themselves immensely, inspiring awe in the audience with the love they displayed for their art. The concert concluded with a Thillana in raaga Behag, the composer of which Vidwan Ravikiran called a ‘suspense’, by which it was immediately gleaned that this was one of his own compositions. Again, the accompanists stepped up to his level and by the end, the audience was in total rapture, rewarding the performers with a well-deserved standing ovation.
A standing ovation for Shri Ravi Kiran and his party. @spicmacay #intercon14 pic.twitter.com/c5Re2x1Ach
— The Fifth Estate (@t5e_iitm) June 10, 2014
The day’s concert drew to a close with a soothing Hindustani vocal concert by Pt. Ulhas Kashalkar, accompanied by Pt. Suresh Talwalkar on the tabla, Ustad Sarwar Hussain on the saarangi, and Pt. Ravindra Katoti on the harmonium.
