The chess square in the Nageswara Rao Park gets crowded with people on the first Sunday of every month. That is when Sundaram Finance organises kutcheri by young children at the park in the heart of the city, Mylapore. This weekend, on July 6, a group of 20 students from Sri Sankara Vidyalaya Matriculation Higher Secondary School from the city’s suburb Pammal performed at this kutcheri.
What made the school get interested in this program and come all the way from Pammal? “Lots of audience will be able to see our students perform and also it’s a platform for the students to show their talents”, said the Principal of the school.
The kutcheri began with a prayer to Lord Ganesha and moved on briskly with a song in the raga bowli, usually sung in the morning. The students sang popular songs like ‘nee irangaayenil’, ‘dola yamchala’, ‘karpagame kann paarai’, ‘kurai onrum illai’, ‘maithrim bhajata’, an English note, and abhang bhajans like ‘rama bhajana mukthi’ and ‘vedaa vedaa’. The audience thoroughly enjoyed the concert as they clapped while the group sang fast beat songs like ‘thandana naahi’.
Many of the students like the raga ‘mohanam’ the most and the song they liked the most in this performance was ‘sakala kala’. But the principal liked the song ‘Kurai onrum illai’. She said, “We should not always ask God to help us.”
“We took a whole month of practice to make this program perfect!” said the children who were very happy to talk about their performance. “Without our music teachers we would not have been able to do this” said another girl. All of them have been learning music outside the school as well for more than five years.
The singers were accompanied by Saravana Pandiyan on the violin, M. Dhandapany on the flute and R. Bharadwaj and D. Gopalakrishnan on the mridangam. along with a keyboard player.
“We got up at 5 o’clock in the morning to get ready for this program” said another girl while the teachers distributed breakfast to all the students.
At the end of the program certificates and mementos were presented to all the students. There was a smile on everyone’s face as they departed to go back to Pammal with sweet memories.
So if you want to start the day with a refreshing note come and listen to the Sunday park kutcheri every month.
And if you are talented and want to perform a kutcheri at the park, call 94440 40748 for audition.