It was a dancer in fine fettle during Malavika Sarukkai’s Bharatanatyam recital. The performance adhered to the Margam tone with a Tanjore Quartet varnam as centrepiece including some of the dancer’s own compositions.
Striking a combined meditative/assertive note, was Trayodhbhavam with homage to Creation presided over by the Trimurti — Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, with the life-sustaining Ganga descending to the Earth.
The movements were based on Tansen’s Hamsadhwani composition ‘Shiva Jatha Mata Ganga’ in the Dhrupad style. C.V.Chandrasekhar’s musical composition in Revagupti and virutham in Tamil by Professor Raghuraman, wherein the devotee saluting the divine forces prays that they fill her being with the light of clarity.
The well-known Ragamalika varnam, “Saami Nine Korinaanura” in its sringar/bhakti interlacings, in Malavika’s interpretation acquired an all-pervading expanse and largeness of presence, whether in the over-powering Linga in the monumental temple, or in the feelings of the nayika whose devotion is like the expanse of the Ganga, the towering Linga and the temple pinnacle reaching up to the skies.
Through the statements set to Todi, Shankarabharanam, Pantuvarali, Atana, Kalyani and Bhairavi sung with fervour by Murali Parthasarathy along with tuneful interventions on flute/violin by J.B. Srutisagar and Srilakshmi Venkatramani, with the nritta interludes providing the strong links in S.Srilatha’s nattuvangam and Nellai A. Balaji’s mridangam, not to speak of the dancer’s own joy in pure dance, the varnam was the highpoint in the recital.
A composition created a few years ago by the dancer, the real life story of “Saalu marada Thimmakka” (as she is referred to in Karnataka) who single handedly enabled the greening of her area, by planting 247 banyan saplings , assumed special resonance in the present situation in Chennai with so many trees destroyed in the cyclone. A childless woman sorrowing over her barren womb has her entire life changed when she suddenly comes across new life springing from under the earth.
And her mothering nature finds fulfilment through planting banyan trees. Revisiting the composition, the dancer made a persuasive statement – the music in Subhapantuvarali and Yamuna Kalyani composed by V. Seshadri and Meera Seshadri, with evocative touches like the violin strings plucked to convey stirrings of new life underneath, adding a special emotive throb.
