The 'First Sunday' without the Kutcheri
Early morning practice
The rain in 2009 could not stop the Sunday Kutcheri but the Virus has in April 2020
Shwetha posts a video message and a song
It is just past 7am on Sunday (April 5), the morning
of the first Sunday of the month when the chess square at the Nageswara Rao
Park has for the last 13 years been bustling with musical activity. Sipping a
hot coffee, Kutcheri buffs and music connoisseurs are seen encouraging the ‘Star
of the Day’.
A Platform for Budding Artistes
Since February 2007, Sundaram
Finance has been organizing a mikeless kutcheri for children aged below 15years
on the first Sunday of every month. Over 200 such mikeless kutcheris have been
held at the park. 11 years ago, even the rain on one of the Kutcheri mornings
could not play spoilsport, for the personnel from the company held umbrellas
atop the artistes so she could present the one hour Kutcheri.
Arul Priya from Dubai presenting the Kutcheri in the rain
This morning turned out to be one
of the very few occasions when the Kutcheri has had to be cancelled.
Promise Fulfilled
13 year old S Shwetha, the great grand daughter of Mridangam Vidwan Palghat Mani Iyer, was all excited when she was informed about her selection and the opportunity to perform at the April edition of the monthly mikeless kutcheri. In September 2015, her elder sister, Sowmya had performed on the same stage, a kutcheri that Shwetha watched
(https://sundaykutcheri.blogspot.com/2015/09/palghat-mani-iyers-great-grand-daughter.html). She enjoyed it so much that she promised to herself that she too would perform one day at this prestigious platform for budding artistes. Her sister, who first performed at the Sunday Kutcheri in the Park, has now moved on and become a graded artiste at the AIR.
Promise Fulfilled
13 year old S Shwetha, the great grand daughter of Mridangam Vidwan Palghat Mani Iyer, was all excited when she was informed about her selection and the opportunity to perform at the April edition of the monthly mikeless kutcheri. In September 2015, her elder sister, Sowmya had performed on the same stage, a kutcheri that Shwetha watched
(https://sundaykutcheri.blogspot.com/2015/09/palghat-mani-iyers-great-grand-daughter.html). She enjoyed it so much that she promised to herself that she too would perform one day at this prestigious platform for budding artistes. Her sister, who first performed at the Sunday Kutcheri in the Park, has now moved on and become a graded artiste at the AIR.
Since this was to be a kutcheri
sans mikes and speakers, her Guru Palghat Shri TR Rajaram directed her to practice early in
the morning so the voice comes out better. And leading up to the kutcheri, she
had been practicing each day for 2 hours in the wee hours of the morning.
And then came the call from the
organisers that the Kutcheri was being cancelled given the extraordinary
developments worldwide ‘I was initially a bit disappointed at the cancellation.
But when I thought about it, I soon realized that this was understandable as
the decision was being made as a precautionary measure.”
She is now looking forward to
performing at the same stage sometime in the near future once things get back to
normal. While external circumstances forced the cancellation of her first full fledged Mikeless Kutcheri, her mind was all on what might have been. And in a symbolic token gesture, Shwetha has put out a video with a few lines of a song
that she would have presented between 7am and 8am at the Nageswara Rao Park
this first Sunday of April.
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