Last month, Tiruchi Carnatic Musicians (TCM), a Facebook-led group with over 200 members, held its annual festival, Vaibhav 2019. Known for the past 7 years as a platform for both upcoming and established artists, the 2019 edition had 22 events featuring instrumental and vocal recitals, besides a group singing of Thyagaraja’s Pancharatna Kritis in commemoration of the 172nd annual aradhana of the saint at Thiruvaiyaru.
Over 100 artistes participated in the 12-hour function held at the Sri Akilandeswari Vidyalaya in Tiruvanaikoil, Tiruchi.
Handling the arrangements of this musical marathon for the very first time, was a team of 8 young volunteers, most of whom also performed on stage that day.
“As performers, we have to concentrate only on how we are going to present our song. But as volunteers, the total thought process is different because we have to take care of everything else. Vaibhav is like a home function, where we have to take charge. We all worked together irrespective of our age and seniority,” says A K Shruthi Ranjani, a trained Carnatic vocalist and violinist.
Besides Shruthi, the group includes her sister Smruthi Ranjani (vocal and violin), NC Ekanath, (vocal, violin and mridangam), VV Ganapathy Subramanian (mridangam), N Hariprasadh (mridangam), R Harish Narayan (violin), SG Venkatraman (mridangam), and N Sivaganesh (Veda recitals).
The youngsters juggle their music lessons and recitals with their college and school studies. They were assisted by R Lakshminayarayan, a person with disability who is a professional violinist and music teacher based in Srirangam.
Exciting experience
The volunteers reel out a list of duties that kept them on their toes throughout the festival: writing out certificates, arranging chairs, welcoming the artistes and audience, and then ensuring a smooth felicitation ceremony for the performers.
It was exciting, they say, to prepare the stage for the performances even as they themselves were expected to be up on it. “It was a real privilege to perform along with the greats of Carnatic music, and get their blessings. If we had outsourced the event management, we could have had a bigger function, but we would have missed the joy of working together,” says Harish Narayan, a Class XII student who has trained under eminent violinist TV Ramanujacharyulu (also the guru of Shruthi and Smrithi) for 11 years.
Moving from being mere spectators to co-performers this year, the youngsters say they learned to fine-tune their work on the go. “It’s very different from a guru’s formal lessons, but equally satisfying,” says Shruthi Ranjani.
While all the volunteers had their initiation into the world of Carnatic music through different means — and by their own admission, often under parental duress — they all have grown to cherish their gurus’ teachings. “Our main aim is to showcase our love for Carnatic music to the public, and events like Vaibhav help us achieve that,” says Ekanath.
For Ganapathy, who is from Varagur, on the bank of the River Kudamurutti famous for its Uriyadi festival where the songs of Narayana Theertha Swamigal are sung, vocal music lessons were mandatory at home, even though he was a reluctant student at first. “I used to make excuses, or sleep off during classes,” he says. “Then I found my forte in the mridangam.”
Staying offline
TCM has been resisting offers to stream the annual event live on social media platforms, says vocalist Kashyap Mahesh, who guided the volunteers along with violinist (and TCM administrator) J Anand this year. “If you put it on the internet, nobody would come to watch the concerts. The whole point of Vaibhav is to for it to be live,” he says.
Diversifying the group’s current programme of activities is also not on the agenda for now. “We are being asked to have monthly concerts and even plays. But the problem is that TCM members get to meet very rarely. Conducting an annual event itself is a very big effort. When we started, we were like these students — now it is their turn to shine. We are getting to be seniors,” says Kashyap Mahesh.