The annual Margazhi Festival, an exclusive Carnatic Music and Classical Dance performance held in the months of December and January in Chennai could be a tame affair this year because of the floods which ravaged the metropolis since November. Most of the auditoriums, known as sabhas in the local parlance, have been inundated due to the floods.
The Margazhi Festival had given Chennai a new name, the music capital of the world. Musicians and rasikas (as music connoisseurs are known in Tamil) from all over the world converge in the capital city of Chennai for the music and dance festival held in more than 100 auditoriums spread across the city.
In a normal year, it would be difficult to get a room in any of the hotels in Chennai as all the rooms would have been booked well in advance by musicians, artistes and rasikas who flew down to Chennai and make it their home from early December to mid-January. The festival is approximately 100-year-old tradition which has given Carnatic music the status of an industry. “If only you perform in the Margazhi Festival in Chennai, you are recognised as a musician,” said Karaikkudy Mani, ace mridungam artiste .
But the 2015 season has dampened the spirit of musicians and rasikas alike. Most of the hotels reported that bookings were down by more than 50 per cent. “More than half of the bookings remain cancelled this time. The Margazhi Festival this year will be a pale shadow of what it is originally,” said Agri, manager, Palm Grove Hotel, a destination preferred by artistes.
With leading performers like Bombay Jayashree and Sudha Reghunathan announcing the cancellation of their Chennai concerts as a mark of respect to the people who suffered a lot due to the floods, the Margazhi Festival has lost its sheen, said Agri, a fan of Carnatic music who has never missed the Chennai concerts in the last two decades.
Ram Narayan, a US citizen based in New York and regular to the annual music festival cancelled his trip to Chennai following the floods . “let’s meet for the 2016 Festival,” he said in an e-mail to The Pioneer. Also missing will be Saketham Ramanathan, a musician from Kerala who has his own fan following in the city.The Margazhi Festival is the only occasion the glitterati in the metropolis get to display their newly acquired Conjeevaram silk saris, designer jewelleries and the Kashmiri shawls.
The annual festivals being organised by Madras Music Academy and the Narada Gana Sabha would take place as per their schedules . But the season will definitely miss the presence of the global Chennaites spread across all the continents in the earth.