Rewind to Chaya Constructing, Parsi Colony, Dadar, Mumbai.
Every morning as the primary rays of the daylight filtered via the window of our small house, I might take a look at the picture of Kalinga Narthana Krishna hanging above my mattress.
His divine kind crammed the room with a presence each highly effective and playful. I typically discovered myself in dialog with him, sharing my fears and joys. At occasions, his gaze appeared intense, nearly overwhelming, however at different occasions, he appeared as a mischievous little one, taking part in with a serpent.
After being absolutely awake, I might flip to the gorgeous shrine in a nook of the room, the place Radha and Krishna resided, their types bathed within the mushy glow of the morning gentle. My mom would include a glass of milk, singing Mira’s bhajan, ‘Jago bansi wale, jago extra pyare’. She provided the milk to Krishna, a ritual of affection and devotion, leaving it at his toes. I puzzled whether or not he drank it, and stored checking.
Pt. Bhimsen Joshi’s rendering of ‘Teertha Vithala Kshetra Vithala’ grew to become Aruna Sairam’s favorite abhang.
| Photograph Credit score:
The Hindu Archives
My first abhang expertise
It was a Sunday. The home buzzed with power. That night, Shri Mohan Pai and his abhang mandali had been to carry out at our home. We awaited the arrival of fellow devotees, kindred spirits who shared our love for Panduranga.
I used to be significantly excited with the considered becoming a member of the refrain and chanting ‘Vithala, Vithala’ . As nightfall fell, the room echoed with Vithala Nama and sure us all in its power. Years later, Pt. Bhimsen Joshi’s rendering of ‘Teertha Vithala Kshetra Vithala’ grew to become my favorite abhang.
An enormous portray of Srinathji occupies a wall of Aruna Sairam’s residence in Chennai
| Photograph Credit score:
R. RAVINDRAN
The midweek melodies
It was a Wednesday, and my mom’s buddies arrived for his or her weekly Meera Bhajan Mandali session. Once I returned from college, the home reverberated with their voices. My mom gently beckoned me to hitch them. I knew she would ask me to sing ‘Maadu meikkum kanne’ on the finish, a convention I cherish to this present day.
There’s something indescribably stunning about gazing at Krishna’s kind as I sing for him, feeling a connection that transcends the music itself.
Balamma’s divine dance
Balasaraswati mesmerised the viewers together with her efficiency of ‘Krishna Nee begane baro’
| Photograph Credit score:
The Hindu Archives
I used to be at school 5, and we had been at a dance efficiency by Bala Saraswati, who was affectionately known as Balamma. We eagerly awaited for her rendition of ‘Krishna nee begane baro’. As she stepped onto the stage, her eyes remained fastened at simply two toes above the stage. It appeared as if she was taking a look at little Krishna. All through the music, her gaze by no means moved. I used to be mesmerised by the love, music, and dance that unfolded earlier than me. Balamma’s efficiency was not simply dance; it was a dialog with the divine.
Studying from Brindamma
Guru T. Brinda, from whom Aruna learnt Dikshitar’s ‘Chetashree Balakrishnam’, which later grew to become one in all her favorite compositions.
| Photograph Credit score:
Courtesy: Aruna Sairam
As a teenager seated amongst a small gathering of senior singers, I felt particular. Brindamma started instructing a brand new composition ‘Chetashree Balakrishnam Bhajare’ and I adopted alongside as greatest as I may. Some phrases had been too intricate for me, however I lingered on the phrases and the tune, particularly the road that started with ‘Nalina Patra Nayanam’. I requested Brindamma what ‘Vata Patra Sayanam’ meant, and she or he defined that it referred to an limitless expanse of blue water, with a small Banyan (aalilai) leaf floating on it, upon which lay little Krishna, all curled up, sucking his toe, a smile on his radiant and alluring face. In Tamil, we name him ‘Aalilai Kannan’. As she described it, I received misplaced within the lyrics.
The festive Gokulashtami
It was Gokulashtami and the preparations had been underway. Footage of Krishna’s numerous leelas had been reduce and pasted on a cardboard and punctiliously organized round our little Radha-Krishna shrine. I heard somebody sing the viruttam ‘Nalliravil pirandu, nadi kadandu, valiya pillai endru emmai aala vanda tavame’, adopted by ‘Karuttil niraindai kannil maraindai Kanna’ (the latter composed by Tiruvarur Ramamurthy Bhagavatar).
An opportunity encounter with the divine
An illustration of Krishna by Keshav.
A few years later, maybe in 1994, throughout a go to to Tiruvarur, my father’s birthplace, we attended the Mummoorthigal Vizha, carried out exceptionally by Lalgudi Jayaraman sir. A fellow rasika, Chandrashekhara Raja, accosted us and provided us a treasured recording — a cassette of Kalinga Narthana thillana rendered by Needamangalam Krishnamurthy Bhagavatar. He wished us to repeat it instantly and return the unique. Again residence, after I lastly performed it, I used to be moved to tears. This was the music that I had carried in my coronary heart since I used to be 10. I had heard Needamangalam Bhagavatar sing this thillana via his two-hour upanyasam. He would cease at each line and narrate a Krishna story.
Later that 12 months, I travelled to Switzerland for a live performance tour the place I discovered a cow shed close to the home of my buddies and hosts, Eva and Oti. It was there, with a cassette participant in my hand and surrounded by sturdy Swiss cows, that I relearned the Kalinga Nartana thillana. That weekend, I carried out it for the primary time. From that second, it has belonged to Krishna and to all bhaktas and rasikas.
Oothukkadu Venkata Subba Iyer will need to have had a imaginative and prescient of Krishna on Kaliya. To me, this thillana is pure sound born out of a transparent imaginative and prescient and emanating from an unconditional love for Krishna — a life in Krishna’s melody.
