D. Sesha Chary and D. Raghava Chary known as Hyderabad Brothers presented a beautiful concert replete with bhava at the Keefe Technical Auditorium on Saturday Oct 30th under the auspices of Soundarya Lahiri. They were accompanied by S. Varadarajan on the Violin and Patri Satishkumar on the Mridangam.

The event began with a welcome address by Annapurna Krovi who described the activities of  Soundarya Lahiri. “We are a group that is actively involved in promoting spirituality and education based on Hinduism. We also render community service particularly to the poor and needy in our homeland, India” said Krovi. The education involves teaching people various Hindu texts and traditions. The group organizes regular Satsangs every Friday at the Sadhu Vaswani Center in Dracut, MA where they chant Lalitha and Vishnu  Sahasranamam. They also conduct several traditional poojas like Devi Kalyanam and others where everyone present is trained on the right method to do the pooja. “Our Guruji Subbarao Kompella, makes sure that every one understands the meaning of all the shlokas and the various rituals” said Krovi. Their goal on the community service front is to adopt a few backward villages in different regions of India ,
catering to the needs of education, health and the basic well being of the residents of the villages. As the first step towards this goal, Soundarya Lahari has distributed warm blankets to the homes of a village in Andhra Pradesh.

 “We also have “Bala lahiri” where we teach Hinduism to children and “Kala Lahiri” that promotes music and dance which is an integral part of spirituality in India” said Krovi. Srinivasa Bala, a Soundarya Lahiri volunteer presented a beautiful invocatory prayer which was followed by the main recital by Hyderabad brothers.

The  brothers are known for their music which has great strength and appeal. As in all duos, one brother, Seshachary revealed himself to be the strong anchor. Both in terms of richness of voice and in the kalpanaswara segments, Seashachari excelled. Rangachari provided excellent support. Perhaps trying to cater to the predominantly Telugu audience, they made Telugu compositions, particularly Thyagaraga kritis as the focus of their recital.  Rather than laying emphasis on technical wizardy the concert aimed create a  pleasing and emotion laden presentation.

Whether it was Thygaraga’s  Sadhinchane in  Arabhi,  Manasuloni in Hindolam, Pahi Ramachandra in Yadukulakambhodi, or Ksheera Sagara Vihara in Devagandhari the presentation was able to create the devotional feeling that Thyagaraja intended. With their knowledge of Telugu they were able to break the words appropriately without any loss in musicality. One was able to understand the pieces which enhanced the presentation considerably. The recital also included a Dikshitar Kriti Kashi Visalakshmim Bhajeham in Purvikalyani which was rendered with the dignity in deserves.
The alapanais were short but beautiful. The violinist, S. Varadarajan did an admirable job particularly in the alpanais which brought a lot of “Balle” from Sheshachary. The tani by Patri Satishkumar was brisk and the fast paced rhythms drew a lot of applause from the audience.

Subu Kota, CEO of “The Boston Group” was the chief guest for the evening. “I go to Hyderabad so often, but I have never had the opportunity to listen to the Hyderabad brothers until now. The recital is very enjoyable” said Kota.

Devi Kalyanam is the next event that is being organized by Soundarya Lahiri. For further information please check out their website at www.srimeru.org
 

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