Kannada spirit irli...

Sunday morning I got an unusal josh. I went to Jayanagar music store and started looking for Kannada bhavageethe song cassettes and CDs. I found that "Kannada Sahithya Parishath" has released a few songs sung by some of the famous Kannada singers. I picked up a couple of them and went to get it billed. The bill was just 70Rs. I somehow found this surprising as most of the English and Hindi cassettes cost Rs70 each. Then when I was on my way out, I found the instrumental section. I have been always attracted to Kadri and though I have a few of his tunes in CD and added to my kitty another of his cassette. In the afternoon I played all the cassettes and the most happiest person around was my dad. The "Hachevu Kannadada Deepa" collection was very good.

In the evening I went to a cousin's grihaprabesh. There a group of small girls (7 to 10 yrs old) had come from a remote village in Malnad. They were playing and making a lot of noise. An elderly person got irritated by the noise and so asked these kids to do something else. Suddenly they sat in a line and started singing some Kannada bhajans. For 45 mins they sung some 10 songs in perfect coordination. Everybody who had assembled were silently listening. We were all so much involved in the bhajans that we did not realise until 9:30pm that we had to have dinner and move to our houses. It seems that these kids sing in the village temple daily after dark there. They form a perfect group and they have a good sense for music. With no instruments and shruthi box, they sung the songs to perfection.

SPB always says that "Bhavageethe and Janapada geethe" have grown in Kannada more than in any other language. There are singers who just sing these songs (not film songs) for 3-4 hrs on the trot. More importantly they still get good audience. Recently 'C Ashwath' organised a program in palace grounds. There was total traffic jam near the area and all the seats were filled in palace grounds. Newspaper reports said that the number of people who had assembled for this "kannadave sathya" program outnumbered the collection for Bryan Adams.The organisers were taken by surprise.
What is this all about? Just some thots...