Chinmaya Maruthi in Andover is hosting a year long celebration to commemorate the 108th birth anniversary of Gurudev, Swami Chinmayananda. Sudhir Srinivasan, Ravi Taarakaraman,  Ravi Mosurkal, Naresh Parmar, Raghav Ranjan, Rakshit Mazumdar, Madhu Akkihebbal of Swaranjali along with guest artists Vaishnavi Kondapalli and Vinphin Kundukulam presented a musical tribute to Gurudev. The program was held on March 30 at the Chinmaya Mission in Boston. Anil and Abha Singhal, deep supporters of Chinmaya inaugurated the program with the lighting of the lamp. Ajita Bhat, President of Chinmaya Maruti welcomed the audience. 

Titled Samarpanam, this innovative program presented songs on Guru from different languages. The music also spanned different genres. Starting with a musical arrangement of the “Ekdantaya”, it moved to a Hindustani classical presentation of a composition of Swami Tejomayananda. The Guru Paduka Stotram of Adi Shankara was presented as a Ragamalika composition interspersed with English narration. Guru Dhyayee a Marathi folk song, Guru Bramha Roop Jano in Hindi, Sojugada Sooju Mallige in Kannada and Namo Namoji Shankara which a Bollywood number followed. 

Dig Diganth Mein an ode to Swami Chinmayananda, Namami Gange, an ode to river Ganga and a teacher’s day song in Telugu Guru Bramha Guru Vishnu were beautifully rendered. A Sufi composition followed. The famous Puranandara Dasa composition Chandrachuda Shiva was rendered in a unique way. Following a Hindi number Hey Ishwar Le Jana, the program came to a conclusion with a high energy Tamil number, Om Shivoham. 

Padmini served as the anchor for the event and interspersed interesting tidbits on Gurudev’s life throughout the event.The wonderful decorations by Krishna Gorur and  Sunita Mosurkal added a beautiful touch to the event. The Annadaanam team led by Ravi Kumar served a delicious, complimentary meal after the event.  

 It was impressive to see such a beautiful lineup of songs solely dedicated to Guru. It had a nice variation of genres and tempos making the program entertaining and enlightening. We could see much hard work had gone into this presentation. 

It surely was a fitting tribute to Gurudev.