Salem Gayathri Venkatesan performing at Mudhra’s Margazhi festival 2022.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
In her two-and-a-half-hour concert, for Mudhra, that sounded tentative along several stretches, Salem Gayathri Venkatesan conjured up a sprightly tanam pallavi in Shanmukhapriya. Suddenly, the vocals warmed up. ‘Vaibhave vinave shive’ was the line she chose to further explore the beauty of the 56th melakarta raga. Gayathri kept the arithmetic progressions around the lyrics fairly simple — unlike the scholarly detailing typical of her guru T.R. Subramaniam. Keeping time by soft claps (in place of the usual taps on the lap) was a common feature in her concert.
Gayathri’s alapana for the RTP spanned 15 minutes. Its middle regions brimmed with well-defined frills, suitably interspersed with long-drawn notes. The vocalist’s clarity of brigas can possibly be traced to her tutelage also under Sulochana Pattabhiraman. Yet, Gayathri switched to a false tone towards the upper-most reaches.
Young Mantha Sriramya was far more confident on the violin. Her solo response would have infused the required gravitas had the instrumentalist punctuated her build-up with more silent moments.
Into the second half of her swaraprastara, Gayathri went for a couple of raga alterations. Mohanam and Kanada came fairly easily before she reverted to Shanmukhapriya and let the percussionists venture into tani avartanam. Aravind Srikanth and K.R. Sivaramakrishnan made good use of the expansive two kalai adi talam in their 18-minute mridangam-kanjira conversation.
The RTP scored better than any other in the Karthigai Deepam kutcheri at Mudhra. Even so, Shanmukhapriya wasn’t too wise a selection, given the sub-main was in Neetimati — a raga not very far (60th parent scale) even experientially. The 32-minute suite in ‘Mohanakara muthukumara’ (Koteeswara Iyer, Rupakam) featured a niraval, where the singer trod all the more gingerly.
Ahead of it was a refreshing insertion: Suddha Dhanyasi — a raga not heard often despite its lilting quality. That apart, the essential bubbliness became evident only along the final lap of the swaraprastara that followed the Dikhitar kriti ‘Subrahmanyena rakshitoham’. After Neetimati was Devamanohari (another Karaharapirya janyam, but with a different flavour). Tyagaraja’s ‘Evarikai avataram’ was the concert’s lone piece in the seven-beat tala, Mishra Chapu, but a string of slips marred its course.
Gayathri began her kutcheri with Veena Kuppier’s ‘Intha chalamu’ varnam in Begada, retaining the famed sway around the ‘Ma’ note. One wished she was sharp in the speedier portions. The vocalist had to refer to her book to deliver a virutham right at the opening. Gayathri kept demonstrating this trait in a few of her subsequent songs too — some of them popular. For instance, ‘Arunachala natham’ that followed. She stole glances at the book even as her Saranga oscillations were intact.
The post-tani avartanam session began with a reposeful Nathanamakriya virutham. This segued into Gopalakrishna Bharathi’s ‘Kannale kande’, which had two stanzas rendered in Kapi and Sindhubhairavi. The Purvi thillana ‘Niriniri’ wound up the show.
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