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The Narada Gana Sabha auditorium is well-known for its good acoustics. Seats are comfortable and there is none of the snooty behaviour that one sees at other places, from the officials.
However, the sound settings for the concerts by Nityashree and later Sanjay Subrahmanyan on December 5 left much to be desired. The sound during the whole of Nityashree’s performance was greatly muffled. It created a feeling of trying to listen to a concert with a brick separating the performer from the audience.
During Sanjay’s concert, the person behind the controls decided that variety is the spice of life. Consequently, one was treated to sound that varied from tuLasi daLa mulacE to parAkEla nannu and then enta ninnE. The accompanists were also subjected to the same fare and it appeared very often that they were miming away.
One never expects such variations at the NGS, but I guess the system and its operator have their off days.
 I could have, however, listened to the music a lot better had I been blessed with better neighbours. This particular woman took off from where the woman in AP Herbert’s poem left. She had brought with her a dinky little box with a packed dinner in it. What was not so dinky was the plastic cover in which the contraption was stored. She opened the cover (cackle, cackle, cackle, pop, pip, pop) and then having spread it on her lap (tsssch, tssssch, tsssssch), placed the box on it and proceeded to eat with great relish.
The savoury smells and the steady chomping and gurgling notwithstanding, I managed to last out till the end of the mukhAri piece. By then the evening meal was over and so the box was shut. In a few minutes, I thought, she would remove the plastic cover (tssssch) and then put the box back in (pop, pip, pop, cackle). But, alas, no. I did not realise that a serviette was also one among the very many uses that plastic has. The lady began gracefully cleaning her hands on the plastic cover (chchcchchchcchcchchcchch). She appeared to have a Pontius Pilate complex for the hand cleaning lasted a very long time. Then came the crushing-of-the-cover ceremony, whereupon I lost all patience and told her to cheese it altogether. By then, of course, I had lost all interest in the programme and it was time to leave and restore one’s equanimity elsewhere, namely the Woodlands Canteen outside.
But next time there is a campaign against the use of plastic I shall be there, vociferously cheering the campaigners on.
Sriram.V
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