V. Deepika with her sweet and pliant voice and acumen in framing a concert with choicest kritis and ragas has established herself as a dependable vocalist .
In her concert for Narada Gana Sabha Pre-Music Festival concerts, Deepika’s Vandanadharini was more appealing than her main course, Bhairavi; the reasons could be easily identifiable. Deepika handled her Vandanadharini essay with enough attention to distinguish the raga from its close associate Hamsanadam by touching upon the special nuances of the former almost in all phrases she deployed. In Bhairavi, she relied more on the methodical approach. No wonder, her singing was devoid of the features that bring out the melodic quality of Bhairavi. The major part of her treatise depended on fast-moving brigas than restful karvais.
In Vandanadharini, Deepika presented G.N. Balasubramaniam’s ‘Sudha madhurya bhashini’ with chittaiswaram. She made her presentation bristle with energy with a firework of swarakalpanas. In Bhairavi, Dikshitar’s eminent ‘Balagopala’ and the mandatory niraval and swaras on ‘Neela neerada’, centered on panchamam, were dealt with competence.
Energetic swara segment
Deepika’s repertoire included ‘Jaya jayananda’ in Nattai (Purandaradasa) with energetic swara segment, which came after the opening ‘Ninnukori’ varnam in Mohanam, ‘Hiranmayeem lakshmim’ in Lalitha (Muthuswami Dikshitar), ‘Sarasa samadana’ in Kapinarayani (Tyagaraja), ‘Payum oli nee enakku’ (Bharatiyar) set to tune in ragamalika by Charumati Ramachandran, ‘Palukuthennathalli’ in Abheri (Annamacharya) and ‘Radha sameda krishna’ (Misra Yaman).
M. Vijay Ganesan on the violin and Palayamkottai Guru Raghavendra on the mridangam are young and enthusiastic like Deepika. Vijay Ganesan presented his raga essays of Vandanadharini and Bhairavi with insight while Raghavendra provided a thunderous thani even without a percussion partner apart from bolstering the concert with his able percussion support.
Post Script: The sound system was off kilter and too loud for the mini hall.
