Under a moonlit ‘motta maadi’ on Saturday evening, Rahman’s songs from the 90s came to life thanks to hundreds of fans. Even as the musicians on stage played the background tunes and beats, the crowd, mostly consisting of 20-somethings, collectively sang superhit numbers like ‘Urvashi’, ‘Jana Gana Mana’ and ‘Jumbalakka’ and lit the night up.
For the uninitiated, ‘motta maadi’ music — an event that celebrates Tamil film songs — puts the focus on the audience. Here, there are no celebrity singers urging the crowd to ‘cheer up and shout’. There are no fancy musical equipment.
Here, everyone’s a singer.
“There are two parts to the magic that happens here,” explains Badhri Narayanan Seshadri, the brain behind the concept, “One is that it is inclusive and there’s no one judging your singing skills. I also feel that as an audience, people were craving for a let-out to their energies rather than just clapping and cheering someone else.”
He has put together 15 such ‘motta maadi’ sessions — all focussing on different themes — with the latest being an evening celebrating the Mozart of Madras. Celebrity singer Haricharan, Naresh Iyer and Aalap Raju were much among the crowd, tapping their feet and singing along, until they decided to share centrestage for a few minutes. “It’s so positive to have so many voices singing a single line,” said Haricharan, even as he got the audience to sing ‘Sonapariya’ with him.
One of them is IT professional Nithin R, who was busy reading up the lyrics and singing the number from Dhanush’s Maryan . He’s a regular, along with buddies Sandhya and Sindhu, who work with an IT start-up. “I went for my first experience after a friend raved about it, and have been hooked since then,” said Nithin, who feels that it is getting tougher to get tickets with every passing show, “My personal favourite was the SPB-themed show because it had an amazing playlist.”
Unlike many other musical shows, here, the organisers encourage the audience to take out their phones and read the lyrics. Once a participant books a ticket, he/she is alerted about the theme of the evening and is sent a playlist a couple of days before. The lyrics’ PDF is encoded to a QR code, which the participant can scan at the venue just before the show kickstarts. “People don’t come thinking that they are going to another show. They think that it’s their own show and a place where they can sing and dance,” adds Badhri, who believes that their Kamal Haasan-themed evening has been their best till date.
The AR Rahman tribute show was put together by Cirkle PRat Chennai Citi Centre. The next ‘Maaditorium’ session will be on July 28 at CAT Fringe Festival at Alliance Francaise.
