Every year, vocalist K.J. Yesudas performs to a packed audience at the Ramaseva Mandali concert in Bengaluru; it is his sole performance in the city. Last year, over a thousand people attended the concert and his 2018 performance on April 8 is expected to be no different.
“Yesudas’s ethics are different. He has never accepted money from us,” said S.N. Varadaraj of the Mandali. “Whenever we go to Chennai to request him to perform, he does not accept a single paisa. As per our practice for decades from the time of Chembai Bhagavatar, the Mandali has been offering ₹10 as a token advance, considered ‘blessing from Lord Rama’, that my father S.V. Narayanaswamy Rao had initiated,” he added.
According to fans, Yesudas’ performance acquires a festive feel. One of the reasons is that he rarely sings anywhere else. He presents pure classical, bhakti-oriented kritis, bhajans and Kannada kritis. “Where else can I get such an informed audience who wants me to sing everything in three hours?” the vocalist has said in the past.
His Q&A session
The 78-year-old makes it a point to explain several portions of his concert to his audience. “When he took up Mohana raga, he briefly stopped and oscillated on the Gandhara and asked the audience what raga it was. The silence pushed him to explain that it was Mohana and not Kalyani, even as he demonstrated the exactness of gamakas in both that gets charactered in the beginning itself. I have never missed Yesudas’ concert only because of such tips,” says Saraswati Nagaraj, a student of music who booked her ticket for Sunday’s performance, three months ago.
Kattassery Joseph Yesudas, with hundreds of playback numbers in all the south Indian languages and in Hindi to his credit, is just as popular on classical stages. He has often told the media, that his guru has asked him to ‘remain a Vidyarthi (student) and never consider being a Vidwan’.
K.J. Yesudas will perform at the Ramaseva Mandali on April 8, at 6.30 p.m., along with S.R. Mahadeva Sarma (violin), T. Bakthavathsalam (mridanga) and T. Radhakrishnan (khanjira).
