How Sid Sriram loves to hit the high note

Sid Sriram. 
| Photo Credit: AKHILA EASWARAN

Every few years, a musician with distinctive style and signature arrives in the Carnatic scene. One of the most interesting vocalists of the decade is Sid Sriram. He has arguably one of the finest range of skillsets for a newcomer – perhaps he is no more one. The enigmatic mix includes the sufi-style, gay abandon singing of the upper octaves.

The sight of queues outside the venue is a signal of Sid’s rockstar tag. His concert for Brahma Gana Sabha also showed that he has assimilated many facets from trailblazing musicians of the past – the concert pattern of Ariyakudi, the kalapramanam of Semmangudi, the alapana spirit of T N Rajarathnam, the succinctness (chittai in Tamil) of KVN and copious emotive tukkadas that DKJ would have been proud of. Sid’s command over swarasthana at such an early age is to be admired too. The toolbox thus has all the best tools.

Sid Sriram. 
| Photo Credit:
AKHILA EASWARAN

‘Viribhoni’ (Bhairavi Ata Tala varnam) would have been a jolt to new listeners of Sid – it was high voltage stuff at the start of what seemed like a bullet-train from there. ‘Vallabha nayakasya’ with a short alapana and swaras stayed on a similar course. If one wondered how a Dikshitar kriti may have been sung by Tyagaraja, that was an analogous glimpse. Pantuvarali alapana was followed by ‘Sankari ninne’ (Mysore Vasudevachar, Misra Chapu). Pantuvarali in its brightest best was non-chalantly rendered in the brisk kriti and the niraval and swaras, none of which exceed four avarthanas. It was as if each song came with a finishing deadline!

T.N. Rajaratnam Pillai died in 1956, after writing a few chapters of the raga alapana bible. That has served four generations. Sid borrowed a few leaves from his book to essay a cavalier alapana of Karaharapriya. The origins of some of the sangathis were unmistakable. ‘Senthil andavan’ (Papanasam Sivan, Rupakam) was the filler beween the rich alapana and the brilliant niraval at ‘Vadivelan’, with H.N .Bhaskar on the violin joining the rapid stride stroke for stroke. In an era when swarakalpana is considered as the height of manodharma, and therefore employed excessively, Sid chose to keep them short and interesting.

‘Entha muddho’ (Bindumalini, Tyagaraja) and ‘Mokshamu galada’ (Saramati) were kritis rendered as interludes, much like Semmangudi or Alathur brothers, as a means of offering different hues of notes between the big pieces. ‘Mokshamu galada’ needed a more pensive approach and perhaps a gentler gait to reflect the raga and the composer’s intent better. It needs a Rahul Dravid style of batting on a tricky pitch.

Sid then primed himself up to produce a vintage Kamboji alapana. It was as if the venerable Cauvery was in spate around Tiruvaiyaru. ‘Maa janaki’ in a swift tempo with all its high note splendour was done with in exactly three minutes, with no joy missing. Niraval at ‘Rajaraja’ brought out Sid’s full might of sangathis in the upper octaves as the second niraval and a volley of one avarthana swaras and kuraippu were hustled through. Bhaskar stepped on the pedal to deliver engaging responses to the whirlwind vocal output. The tani lasted a relatively short ten minutes and was generally of the gallery stuff, as frenzy fingers took over. Neyveli Venkatesh on the mridangam and Anirudh Athreya on the kanjira assumed the fast pace of the concert.

There was another short segment of classic tukkadas – ‘Poonkuyil koovum’ (Kapi), Dwijavanti thillana, ‘Baro krishnayya’ (ragamalika), ‘Enna kavi paadinaalum’ (Neelamani) and ‘Sapasya kausalya’ (Jhonpuri). Sid got into the spirit of each of these and rendered them with poignancy even while keeping the verve up. This whole segment lasted about 20 minutes and the young vocalist has the grasp of where to linger more for enjoyment.

Sid Sriram’s style may be in contrast to today’s trend of ultra-slow renditions. From that point of view, it is a breath of fresh air. The occasional shrieks are the one aspect Sid needs to watch out for, as he gets to higher echelons of Carnatic music performance. He would perhaps be aware that more work is needed to get to the bottom of lower registers.