“Chittoor V. Nagaiah several decades ago felt the need for an organisation (sabha) to conduct classical music concerts for the benefit of the residents of T. Nagar and its surroundings when one evening, heavy rain that lashed the city prevented him from attending a concert in Mylapore. Thus came into being Sri Thyaga Brahma Gana Sabha founded by him and a few like minded friends. Now in its 67th year of existence in the heart of T. Nagar, the sabha, better known as Vani Mahal, has been doing yeoman service in the field of Art and Culture.
Speaking at the inauguration of the sabha’s third Sri Jayanthi music festival when the Vani Kala Nipuna awards were given away, former Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswamy recalled some moments from the history of the sabha.
Words of appreciation
Presiding over the function, Justice V. Ramasubramanian had special words of appreciation for one of the awardees of the evening, Bharatanatyam artist Zakir Hussain, who has earned a special reputation for his thematic dance productions based on Vaishnavism. Also he touched upon his long association with theatre actor T.M. Subramanian ( Suppini) the other awardee.
Felicitating the title winners, vidhushi Suguna Varadachari felt that competition in the Carnatic music field has made winning such awards tougher. She stressed that such recognition cast heavy responsibility on vidwans to work harder to keep moving forward. K. Arun Prakash (mridangam), Chinmaya Sisters Uma and Radhika (vocal), Akkarai Subbalakshmi (violin), T.M. Subramanian (Suppini, Theatre) were honoured with a citation and cash purse instituted by Preetha Reddy and P. Vijayakumar Reddy.
Revathy Sankaran received the award on behalf of Dr. Zakir Hussain who was away in Sri Lanka. While the recipients spoke briefly about the role of their gurus and parents in their career in their acceptance speech, Suppini was emotional when he reminisced on how his mother used to encourage him to act in plays and send him to watch movies regularly.
Deccan Krishnamurthy, president of the Sabha, welcomed the gathering. The compere C.V. Chandramohan deserves special mention for his spontaneous word play in Tamil.
