Win-win

Sunday was supposed to be an interesting sketching event and I was sick at home. Over and above that, I was upset that I hadn't found time to try anything I had learnt the previous week at Dhruba's workshop.
Now my house sits right opposite a Kalyana Mandapam (Community wedding hall) and this is another source of constant irritation. Loud music and drums at 5 am, firecrackers bursting at 11 pm, clean-up trucks and water lorries honking at 2 am and terrible double parking and traffic congestion year-round. You can build anything anywhere in my city if you grease the right palms.
So Sunday morning, when my frustration at missing the sketching event was getting compounded by loud drum beats coming in from across the street, I decided to cut my losses and did a quick pencil sketch of this guy standing in the portico of the Mandapam. The drum is not a mridangam. It is played standing up and accompanies a Nadaswaram. It sounds pretty good when its not 5 am.

Sketching at a Kutcheri

The December music season is firmly under way and some of us have been approached to cover the concerts live through our sketches on location. I chose to start off by attending a Ranjani Gayatri concert last saturday at the Bharatiya Vidya bhavan. The place was packed to the gills and overflowing and here's the view from my seat. The sisters were kitted out in perfectly matched two-colour alternating sarees as is their usual style.

I also realised that the concert before it was a Veena recital by Geetha Krishnamoorthy. That was a bonus as two back to back vocal concerts would have been a little repetitive to sketch. The Veena is such a beautiful instrument.

I got in before the Veena recital and got a central spot and started off. It was really enjoyable as sketching and listening to Carnatic music are both pastimes that I enjoy so much! Inquisitive mamis to my right and left kept leaning over exclaiming over my sketches. It was fun! And as the evening wore on my hand freed up and I dashed off a study of H. Sivaramakrishnan, the Ghatam accompanist as well.

The sketch right at the top was actually my last and was thrilled to find it featured in the kutcheribuzz season blog . I hope I can squeeze in a few more such evenings.

Madras Margazhi sunday

This year I have eagerly looked forward to the december music season, promising myself a lot of concerts. And so far I haven't let myself down. Sunday was a particularly musical day starting early in the morning. We went to hear Vedanth and Bindu sing songs based on Kabir's poetry. It started at 7 am at Nageshwara Rao Park. It was a beautiful morning and the green outdoor venue was perfect for the songs being sung.

Initially the audience was huddled in front of the stage but slowly as morning walkers and joggers passed by they paused, listened and the crowd grew on all sides of the stage. Here is one such mama in a veshti with a fanny pack who strolled by and decided to pick up a plastic chair and sit himself down near me. He stayed till the end and listened with rapt attention.

The concert wrapped up by 9 and a lot of people including me made a beeline for the canteen at Music Academy after which I went on to attend two more concerts there - a vocal by T.N. Seshagopalan and in the evening Ravikiran on the Chitraveena. One more sunday well spent :)