Season Imsais - 1

The music season is in full swing here in Chennai. Here are some "imsais" from the first few days ......

• Mrudangam artist keeps his instrument vertical and taps on the right side with the palm of his hand to lower the pitch of the instrument a little bit. A mami in the audience tells her neighbour "Paavam kallu kondu vara marandhu poyittar polarukku"

• A mami in the row before mine was sleeping soundly. Her snores became so loud during the concert that her neighbors decided to pat her to wake her up. Upon waking up, the mami promptly put her hand inside her "jolna pai", brought out a pair of binoculars, pointed them towards the stage and exclaimed:"Oh! Krishna-vaa. Besh. Besh"

• A member of my family told me that she wants me to take her to The Music Academy this time at least on one of the days while the season is on, that too at 1:00PM . I was too happy to oblige and then I heard the next sentence: "I heard that the food they serve in the canteen is out of the world"

• Read this in an internet forum: In a Charulatha Mani "Isai Payanam" concert - "when she was singing 'Autokkaran Autokkaran' (of Sindubhairavi) from a Tami movie, music composed by Deva, one 60+ got up and shouted 'gumukku inna gumukkuthan, achakku enna achakkuthan'"

The sabhas have their share as well. I went to a concert in a sabha that has this really huge hall and a really sloppy sound system. To increase the volume, they placed two extra speakers right in the middle of the hall. The result was that now you could hear everything twice ... once from the speakers near the stage and just after a second from the speakers in the middle. Enna kodumai :-( More imsais will follow as and when I become their victim. Please feel free to share any kodumai that has happened to you.