VEENA NAVARATHRI FESTIVAL

Words are not enough to describe the enthusiasm with which septuagenarian Shri Raghurama Ayyar organizes these veena-centric events one after the other. The first ‘Veena Navaratri’ festival was held in Chennai, from September 11-19. The festival was jointly organised by the Veena Foundation, New Delhi, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, Narada Gana Sabha, Sri Krishna Gana Sabha, Sri Parthasarathy Swami Sabha, Kartik Fine Arts and Sri Tyagaraja Vidwat Samajam, Chennai.

We performed on the 16th of September. It was heartening to see the glint of happiness in Shri Raghurama Ayyar’s eyes, when he remarked in his speech that he was particularly happy about the crowd attendance. As vainikas it gives us a lot of pleasure to place on record the fact that the invaluable support of rasikas is definitely one of the things that keeps us going.