5 A Devi Kriti for Rama

 

If you stumbled upon this post, reading this introduction might help

 

I was in Trichy on work. I had to troubleshoot and rectify a DC drive at BHEL. For some reason, which I don’t remember now, I had to stay over there on an intervening Sunday. I went to Srirangam and visited many temples. One of them was a small temple of Rama in an otherwise large temple complex. I entered the quiet dark temple and was mesmerised by a gentleman singing a devi kriti in Harikambhoji. He stood ramrod straight in a white dhoti and white, full sleeved shirt, with an angavastra tied around his waist, hand folded and eyes closed.

 

I stood at a distance and listened to the excellent singing in the temple acoustics which enhanced the sound quality. When he finished he did deergha danda namaskara to Rama. When he got up, I approached him and told him that I enjoyed his singing immensely and asked if it wasn’t Harikambhoji. He was overjoyed that there was a listener with some knowledge of music. He thanked me profusely. I told him that I was surprised that he was singing a devi kriti in front of a Rama in a Rama temple. Smiling, he pointed to an oleograph of a devi that hung from the wall above a door right in front of the garbha griha. “I wanted to sing something and when I saw that, I thought if Rama is looking at her, why not a song in her praise!” Why not indeed.

 

We walked out of the temple and I learned that he was called Tanjore Shankar and he was a teacher of music in a college of music in Tanjavoor. He insisted that I have a coffee with him at a street side kaapi kadai and we had a “metre kaapi” and went our separate ways.

 

Much later I looked for Tanjore Shankar on the net and came across Tanjore Shankar Iyer – vocalist, veene player, composer, teacher. I wonder if it was him I met and did not know? No way to know now.