Tuesday, December 24, 2013

A Concert on Traditional Tukkadas

A Concert on Traditional Tukkadas 

Carnatic Music and TUKKADAS - how many of you have heard the word 'TUKKADA' in the context of food?

For those of you who may not have heard, it is a fried snack made from maida, with salt,  chilli powder , aesofotida to add to the flavour and butter for crispness. !! A bowl of tukkada could vanish in less than 5 minutes ( of course if its made well !!)

For all my several years of association with Carnatic music, I'm yet to get a convincing answer as to how the term TUKKADA got associated with a Carnatic concert.

Perhaps it was the genius of some special brain that popularised the word, like we get to hear the term 'MAIN' and 'SUB-MAIN' today or the work of a gourmet also a music lover who drew parallels between food and music !

Whatever be the etymology or reason for the genesis of this word in Carnatic music, it suffices to say that a large part of the audience wake up to the tukkadas. As always, with time there has been a confluence of various cultures, tastes and people resulting in a discussion on the traditionality and non traditionality of tukkadas.

In a day and age when tukkadas have come to mean just a bhajan or may be an abhang, it does perhaps make sense to refresh peoples' memories to the fact that there is something called 'traditional tukkadas' as it was meant to be and this is what was the theme of the concert by Kiranavali Vidyasankar at Arkay Convention Centre, Mylapore on Saturday the 21st  December, 2013.

She rendered the compositions with a small synopsis about the composition and the group classification that it falls into.

Traditionally tukkadas comprised of  Tevarams, Tirupugazhs ( with complex chanda tala patterns), Tiruppavai, Tiruvembavai, Tarangams, Vachanas, Viruttams -(slokas, uga bogas, prabhandams or pasurams sung in a free flowing style with multiple ragas), Padams, Javalis,  Dasar padas, Keertanas ( from Tyagaraja's Divya Nama Sankeertanam or Utsava Sampradaya Keertanams, Annamayya and other composers), Kavadi Chindu, Magudi, Ashtapadis and Tillanas. Slowly bhajans of various other composers like Mirabai, Surdas and other contemporary compostions got added to the list.

Kiranavali rendered the unique and beautiful Kshetragnya padam 'Tamarakshi' in Yadukulakamboji, Oothukadu's Kannan varunginra neram in the Kavadi Chindu format, Viruttam, Tillana, Tevaram among others.

This impressive list not only provided a variety of repertoire that is available for singing in the ' tukkada' section but also threw light on a variety of aspects about the musicality and structure of  the compositions.


Wish more and more performers and listeners appreciate that 'tukkada' is not some easy light melody number, but one that tests the mettle of the performer in all aspects of bhava, tala and creativity, for a boring viruttam or a badly sung padam can be like eating ‘wet tukkadas’ !!