Monday, September 17, 2007

hastivadanAya namastubhyam













Ever since I read Dr. V. Raghavan's rapturous account of this kriti in the NCPA red book I had nurtured a wish to learn it. It wasn't until 1987 that I had the opportunity to learn it from Kalpakam mAmi. I still remember the thrill of taking the book - a new year gift from Appa and Amma - to veena class, going through the index of kritis in that book with her, and checking the ones she knew. Pretty soon every page was plastered with check-marks...

This kriti has been with mAmi for the past seventy years or more, and with me for a mere twenty. It's one of my favorites, and has been a staple inclusion in most concerts we've played together.

The impromptu recording above was made during my most recent class, a month after mAmi turned 85.
Lyrics of this and other gaNESha kritis of MD are available here in dEvanAgari from carnatica.net thanks to Dr. PPN. Also check out Dr. PPN and Vidya Jayaraman's English translation of Subburama Dikshitar's sangIta sampradAya pradarshinI, available on the ibiblio site. The correspondence between the notation (see page 321 of volume 2) and mAmi's version is uncannily close...

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10 Comments:

Blogger bharath said...

i m short of words.
one of my favourite kritis

1:41 AM  
Blogger Musical Scientist said...

This is just too much to take..I just broke down listening to it..havent been able to sleep the whole night..THanks a lot Ramki. And I do a sAshTAnga namaskara in front of kalpakam maami. Dikshithar is GOD!!!

1:15 PM  
Blogger hamsanandi said...

Very nice to see this post - and listen to the kriti.

Is the book shown the "Red Book" often talked about?

-Ramakriya

5:12 PM  
Blogger hamsanandi said...

Wonderful!

5:13 PM  
Blogger Quintessential Critic (Sudhir Narayana) said...

Hey there! Isn't it time we chatted a bit? How have you been? I'm still waiting for your number to arrive.. What are you waiting for? The mailman to carry it for you???

:-)

12:01 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

rAmakrI,

this is not THE "red book" -- the "red book" (the term "set afloat" by yours truly on rmic, among others) is the book published in 1989 by Kallidaikuricci A.Sundaram Iyer's son Venkatesan. It has the lyrics for 479 kritis of Dikshitar plus other meta-musical items.

-Srini.

5:05 AM  
Blogger Quintessential Critic (Sudhir Narayana) said...

Dear Ramki:

Missed wishing you on your b'day. Hope it was wonderful! Belated wishes and many apologies too

10:59 AM  
Blogger L. Ramakrishnan said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

12:41 AM  
Blogger L. Ramakrishnan said...

Srini, yes I know and I was not referring to The Red Book (TM) but the NCPA red book ;)

12:42 AM  
Blogger prasAdu said...

Can i have the extract of Sri. V. Raghavan's rapturous account please? Pls mail it to me at sanaatani@gmail.com

10:19 AM  

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