St Thyagaraja – Drama by Brindavan Boys…
Tuesday, January 14th, 2014
Pinnacle of devotion exemplified by St Thyagaraja was the theme for the evening when students from the Brindavan campus presented a dance drama entitled “St Thyagaraja” today herein Prasanthi Nilayam.
Thyagaraja’s soul search for his heart’s content, his Love For Lord Rama, had given hundreds and thousands of devotional compositions to the world of devotional music. This evening, when the students came forth with snippets after snippets of Thyagaraja stories, one after one, these songs as well burst forth filling the hall with the sublime feeling of love for God.
Presented with two narrators dwelling on the wonderful life of the Poet Saint, the drama began with the story of young Thyaga Brahmam’s initial tutelage under guru Sonti Venkata Ramanayya.
Continuing his journey of love for Rama with devotional singing Thyagaraja’s relentless pursuit got a boost when Rishi Narada presented him a rare treatise called “Swararnavam’ blessing him to propagate devotional music. Spurning riches and position, caring only for Rama and the role given by Lord Rama, back home Thyagaraj had to endure great suffering from his money-minded elder brother. This rivalry finally prompted his egotistic elder brother to take the worst step, throwing the Rama idol, dearly worshipped by Thyaga Brahmam, into River Cauvery.
Crestfallen, Thyagaraja went on wandering around, searching Rama… every moment of agony of his broken heart, gaping void within him groping around in darkness devoid of direction, every instance of pain, turned out to be a test from His chosen Lord and a boon to the world of devotional music. Every snippet presented in the evening, highlighting golden instances from the illustrious life had one such song to follow….making the evening a most memorable amd musical one. The emotion packed presentation ended on a blissful note with Thyagaraja celebrating the return of His Rama with Sita – Rama Kalyanam.
Some of the interesting episodes shown were the miraculous revival of a young man, fallen into the well, from death to life, darshan of Lord Balaji at the Tirupathi temple etc. The drama intertwined with beautiful songs and dance sequences turned out to be a audio-visual-devotional treat for the august assembly on the Makara Sankranthi eve. The hour-long presentation ended with a group song singing paeans to Lord Sai.
Earlier, the evening programme got off to a thunderous start with a couple of lilting tunes by the Brindavan Brass Band.
Bhajans continued and ended with Mangala Arathi at 1830 hrs.
II Samastha Lokah Sukhino Bhavantu II
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