When her maternal aunt and guru Padmavathy Ananthagopalan received the Vaadhya Padhmam award from the Vice-President of India Venkaiah Naidu that evening, Jayanthi Kumaresh, the Saraswathi veena virtuoso, who was trained by the veteran was in the audience applauding heartfully.
A hallmark of an outstanding artiste is to take that training to higher levels, which Jayanthi has done through her innovations and smart extensions of her persona as a performing artiste. Her skills find new dimensions in orchestra, symphony, compositions and workshops to name a few.
At the concert that followed the inauguration of the Golden Jubilee celebrations of Brahma Gana Sabha at Sivagami Pethachi Auditorium, Chennai, recently, Jayanthi conveyed the image of a thinking artiste, who reads the pulse of the audience, especially the younger generation, and produces a slick recital despite time constraints.
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In a two-hour concert, the artiste packed all the necessary elements that would make it complete and competent. This writer has always felt that ragas such as Chakravaham could create a melodious kutcheri atmosphere as well as, Pantuvarali, traditionally the opening raga. Jayanthi’s first piece that evening was ‘Gajananayutham Ganeshwaram’ (Chakravaham). Embellished with swarakalpana it aptly set the melodious base for taking the performance forward in style.
Following this was a Pallavi Seshayyar kriti in the rare raga Purvika with its chittaiswaram rendered in a lilting fashion. Coming next, the strains of Begada raga around the lower shadja and mandra sthayi touched hearts.
Jayanti etched brilliant prayogas that were a mixture of karvais and filigree spirals, which highlighted the raga’s beauty couched in the characteristic tara sthayi sancharas around the gandhara. The sense of having heard a completely nuanced Begada was heightened by Ramaswami Sivan’s kriti ‘Kadaikann vaithennai aalamma.’
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This was followed by Jayanthi’s short and crisp RTP (set in Kiravani, Pantuvarali and Sankarabharanam, Adi tala). But to everyone’s delight, this section began with an exploration of Kiravani both in the ragam and the tanam sections.
The artiste took the raga interlude stage by stage to an escalated improvisation in the tara sthayi sancharas. Next, she etched the tanam starting with the keezh kalam, slowly moving to the melkalam. Jayanti explained that the ensuing three-raga exposition was a swara pallavi. That is, there were no lyrics to this pallavi, which was based on swaras alone. She enhanced the appeal by playing the swarakalpana in all the three ragas, giving sprightly finishing touches each time through laser-sharp poruttams, much to the delight of the percussionists.
Neyveli Narayanan (mridangam) and Tiruchi Krishnan (ghatam) proved their mettle during the thani with their sollus, nadais and kuraippu variations, which were lauded by the rasikas.
The concluding piece was ‘Karunai Deivame’ (Sindhubhairavi), presented as an obeisance to Goddess Karpagambal of the Mylapore Kapaleeswarar temple closeby.