Hassan Concert - 22nd, January 2010

Violin: MS Govindaswamy
Mridangam: VS Rajagopal
Ghatam: MA Krishnamurthy

1. odi baarayya - bhairavi - adi - purandara dasa (S at 'mangalaathmaka')
2. apa rama bhakthi - pantu varali - rupaka - thyagaraja (R,N,S at 'lakshmi devi')
3. ksheera sagara shayana - devagandhari - adi - thyagaraja (R)
4. bhogindra shayinam - kuntala varali - khanda chapu - swati tirunal (S at 'padmanabha')
5. mari vere dikkevarayya - shanmuga priya - adi - patnam (R,S at 'sannuthanga')
6. nagumomu - abheri - adi - thyagaraja
7. enduku dayaradura - todi - misra chapu - thyagaraja (R,N,S at 'thyagarajavinutha')
8. tukkudas

This trip was one heck of an adventure!!!
First of all, my accompanists had a TV recording earlier in the day and hence we could leave Bangalore only by 3 pm.
The drive to Hassan was pretty quick and we reached the hotel at Hassan at 6:30 pm.
I have sung many times in these surrounding Iyengar villages and hence I was pretty sure that the concert would only start by 8 pm.
But this one took the cake!!!
The concert began at 9:45 pm!!!!! Clearly a personal record for me.
I wrapped up the mangalam by 1 am!!!

Since I had to leave for Madurai the next night, we decided to drive back to Bangalore immediately following the concert and so began our trip back at 1:30 am.
The drive back was uneventful except when we entered the outskirts of Bangalore - there was a traffic jam awaiting us at Nelamangala and hence by the time we reached home it was 7 am!!!!

The drive was made interesting by the mridangist VS Rajagopal - a 74 year old veteran who regaled us with printable and unprintable anecdotes from Old Mysore.