Time for double celebrations

A three-day-long high-profile cultural festival called Sangeetha Natyaotsavam was arranged at the Guruvayurappan Temple at Vashi, sector 29, from April 12 to 14. The main aim of the festival was to raise funds for the construction of a Guruvayurappan temple, for which a budget of over Rs 1 crore has been charted out.

The occasion also served a dual purpose celebration - ie, Vishu 2008 (Malayalee New Year). The gigantic project is expected to be completed by next year, said V K Narayan, the secretary of Guruvayurappan Bhakta Samaj.

“Since the inception of the construction work of the temple was two-and-a-half years ago, we have come up with various socio-cultural religious programmes in the upcoming temple structure. This seems to be the biggest cultural show we have arranged so far. Our intention is to create awareness among the Guruvayurappan followers about this temple’s existence.

This is the one and only Guruvayurappan temple in the cyber city. We also intend to entertain music buffs of the city through the celebration of Vishu and raise funds in the form of impromptu donors, who will help us accomplish the challenging task,” explains Narayan.

The temple stands on a plot measuring 550 square yards. It will have a marriage hall to accommodate over 1,000 people. A conference hall has been featured in the blueprint, where subjects dealing with spirituality will be taught to the young kids.

“Fine arts and musical contests will be held at regular intervals. Meritorious students from the city will be given scholarships every year so that they can pursue their higher studies. We appeal to the devotees to lend their helping hands in completing the noble project as soon as possible. The credit for taking up this initiative goes to Girish Nomboodiri, a priest, for his selfless service right from day one,” states Narayan.

The musical programme, which includes Carnatic vocal music, began on April 12 with eminent performers displaying their talents. The well-acclaimed Carnatic musician Hari Shankar (Gautam) gave a performance that stretched for over an hour, thus mesmerising the audience.

He was accompanied by Savita Vishwanathan on the violin and Narayan Swamy on the Mridagam. Their performances were a rich tribute to the lord, which left the devotees spellbound. The gatheringwas treated by a good number of compositions.

The day two witnessed a scintillating performance of renowned violinist, Sarada Murali. On Sunday, she performed a solo during the early evening hours, in which over 2,000 music lovers attended the show. She happened to be a key crowd puller through her rendition. Then came the Mohiniattam Jugalbandi staged by disciples of city-based classical dance teacher, Guru Sushama Gopinath, who heads the Navrasa Dance Academy, Nerul.

Her senior students, like Anjana Nambiar, Sanjana Nair, Suja Menon,Nitu Nair, Dipti Tendulkar and Sanchita Nambiar, demonstrated their talents by depicting the famous Dashavataram and Krishnaleela ballet, which eventually stole the show.

“The sequences of Mohiniattam were well-choreographed and the performers did equally well. It was a brilliant presentation and was well liked by the audience,” said Divya Janardhanan, an amateur dancer.

The finale had a Bharatnatyam performance staged by dancer-duo from Nrithyodaya Dance Academy, Mumbai, that offered obeisance to the gods with a variety of dance recitals characterised by the style of Dr Padma Subramanian. Anjana Mohan and Prapti Iyengar, who are the senior disciples of Guru Jayashri Rajagopalan, displayed a flawless composition, which involved a spectrum of movements and sequences in solo and duetforms. Both the dancers received thunderous applause from the spectators.