Trichur Brothers — Vid. Krishna Mohan and Vid. Ramkumar Mohan — sang for Ramabhyudaya Sabha at Smt. Alammana Choultry in Srirampet on Apr. 25 evening. They were accompanied by Vid. Trichur R. Mohan on mridanga and Vid. Kovai Suresh on ghata.

The first thing that came to notice at the concert was that there was no violin accompaniment for this vocal concert. When asked, the brothers replied that they wanted to try this concert without violin accompaniment.

The evening opened with the Atta tala varna ‘Chalamela’ in Shankarabharana by Maharaja SWati Tirunal. The brothers took some time to settle down with the microphone settings. ‘Siddhivinayakam anisham’ by Dikshitar was rendered with clarity of diction and swarakalpana at two places — one at the beginning of the pallavi and the other at ‘Prasiddha GaNanAyakam.’

‘Sri RAmam RavikulAbdhisOmam’ in Narayana Gowla is a soulful composition of Muthuswami Dikshitar rarely heard in concerts these days. The vocalists presented this in the right speed leisurely which was admirable. ‘Deva DEva kalayAmide sharaNAgata sEvanam’ also by Swati Tirunal in Mayamalavagowla was handled well with a detailed neraval at ‘jAta rUpa nibhachEla’, which was meaningful as the sahitya of these lines means  ‘God,  be pleased and obliterate all my accumulated sins, with blessings and mercy and protect me, as you vanquished the asuras and their clan, In support of the greatly oppressed devas, Who took refuge in you.’

The brothers were conversational throughout. They got plenty of request slips from the audience which they heeded to. So their original plan of the concert had to change. “Bhuvaneshwariya nene mAnasave’ by Muthiah Bhagavatar was one such request to which they obliged. The ragalapana was brief after which they presented the composition followed by swarakalpana. It was surprising how the artistes with their immense concert experience and practice missed the tala more than twice during the swarakalpana. ‘Mokshamu galada’ in Saramathi was the next request for which with no elaboration the vocalists allowed taniyavartanam, which was rather early. The taniyavartanam was energetic and resonant with their father Mohan’s mridanga and Kovai Suresh’s ghata. After the tani, the concert got more interesting with an RTP in Bahudari. Both the ragalapana and the tanam were shared by the brothers. The sahitya of the pallavi was ‘Krishna Nee Begane Baro’ (which they could have converted to RAma nee begane Baro’ as it was a Ramnavmi concert) set to Adi tAlam.

Both neraval and swaras were expanded in ragamalika in Saveri, Behag, Shanmukhapriya, Vasanta and Sindhubhairavi alternately. After the pallavi, a Ram Bhajan was presented in which the audience were also made to participate. The lyrics of this bhajan ‘Ram BhArat kA AdhAr hai Ram BhArat kA vichAr hai…’  is an excerpt from our beloved PM Modiji’s speech at Ayodhya on the occasion of Ram Lalla’s Pratishtapana.

This bhajan set to tune by the brothers in Desh was sung with vigour and the audience participated in it wholeheartedly. The brothers concluded the concert with a set of requests from the audience, singing a bit of all the compositions ‘AkhilAndeshwari raksha’ by Dikshitar. ‘Enta muddu’ in Bindumalini by Tyagaraja, ‘Raga sudharasa’ in Andolika by Tyagaraja and ‘NArayaNa ninna nAmada smaraNeya’ in Shuddha Dhanyasi by Purandaradasaru. The concert closed with Muthiah Bhagavatar’s popular nottu ‘GmmrgP rgS, Nsn dnRsdP’ of Madurai Mani Iyer fame.

—Dr. Padmavathi Narasimhan