Song and play

A wide-variety of performance ranging from bhajans to musical concerts and verse drama formed the part of a seven-day celebration of Satya Sai Baba’s 87th birth anniversary at Premsadan in MVP Colony,Visakhapatnam. While most of the musical sessions took place a la Bhajan mode in its entire devotional fervour, P Srinivasan presented a Carnatic classical vocal with verve. He commenced it with Siddi Vinayakam of Muttuswamy Deekshitar in raga Chamaram. Endowed with pliable voice, he rendered Bantu reethi koluvu of Thyagaraj in Hamsanadam, Adamodi in Charukesi, Krishna nebegane baro in Yaman. Vedavati Ganesh on violin, J Saidutt on mridangam, V Kurmanadham on flute, M Pavan Kumar on pads, B Ramana Murthy, K Chakravarthi and I Tirumalarao on table lent support for different sessions. The professional team of renowned thespian Meegada Ramalinga Swamy staged a verse drama titled — Vande Jagadgurum with panache. Scripted and directed by Ramalinga Swamy, who donned the roles of Lord Vishnu and Nakkira, it was a socio-mythological fantasy that highlighted the importance of ethics and moral values in life that elevate the life to a higher plane making the society a better place to live in. The play opened with sage Narada appealing Lord Vishnu to take up a new incarnation to set the things right on Earth for human life slipped into abysmal nadir of self-centred living. The taut narrative seamlessly incorporated teachings of Sai Baba on higher values in life. Spiced with lucid verses and punch dialogues reflecting the flip side of the modern times, the performance kept the audience glued to seats for about couple of hours. A team of 10 artistes took part in it and M Sangam Naidu on harmonium and I Tirumalarao on table lent good support.