Mellifluous Thundershowers

Last week's rains had given Chennai a fresh, clean makeover, and I was enjoying my weekend lazing out, and admiring the lush green neighborhood. I had not planned anything for the weekend. I made a few attempts to grab a ticket for 'Maestro' - Illayaraja's live concert, but in vain. The weekend was quite eventful, considering that I did not have any plans until Saturday noon. Dad got an invite for FH&RA's(Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Asscoiation's) All India Convention - Golden Jubilee Celebrations. This is a 3 day convention with lectures in the morn and cultural Shows in the evening followed by good dinner from Radisson. Obviously, our area of interest was the cultural show and the good food.
On Saturday, Sivamani was performing live! I've always been awe-struck by his magical hands. I've heard him in cine-music, I've heard him in instrumental albums, but always in combination with other instruments. Being a lover of soft, carnatic genres of music, I really wondered if a drummer could treat my ears for hours with pleasing music!
It was a treat indeed. The very sight of Sivamani amidst his array of percussion gizmos of all sizes and shapes was breath-taking! And, to see him handle them and produce music out of them is amazing! The rhythm and the charm in his hands weaves a roller-coaster ride for you.. It might be easy to play Indian folk, Indian classical, western folk, western classical, heavy metal one by one - But to flow from one genre to another keeping the rhythm and back-ground note the same was astounding..
The piece I liked the most was his Afro-music with a 'Tarzan hoot'.. It really felt like hanging in the vines of a jungle with Trazan and Jane! I was also thrilled to watch him produce music by tapping his mouth! The hall was acoustically constructed, and the sound waves traveled well. The decibels were at the right level. But for a misfitting audience, the show was indeed a mellifluous thundershower, and I enjoyed getting drenched! The top brass of hospitality industry from all over India was indeed a wrong crowd. They enjoyed his music, but wouldn't react much. It was like shunning from a cool drizzle with a black umbrella on a hot summer evening. Mild claps would be the result of a complicated rendition. I strongly feel, the best applause a musician could get, is the audience involvement. That would encourage him to exhibit his talent to the fullest. This audience participation or rather the lack of it was quite disappointing. At the most Sivamani could get out of the audience was a few rhythmic claps in sync with his performance.