Voices Within ..

That's the title of an incredible book on Carnatic music written by renowned singers Bombay Jayashree Ramnath and T.M. Krishna together in collaboration with Maithili Chandrasekhar, an acclaimed journalist. They describe it as a coffee table book. Coffee table books are rare, and readable ones are rarer still. This is surely one well-researched, well-written and thoroughly enjoyable addition to your coffee table (though you might want to take care not to spill any coffee on it, priceless that it is)
It's a tribute to seven carnatic titans of the last century. The book is steeply priced at Rs. 1900 and I had my initial reservations about buying it. I did not realise its worth until I attended the inauguration ceremony of the book by the authors themselves, at the Bangalore Gayana Samaja. Excerpts from the book were read out, just enough to pique the listeners' interest, but good enough to make them want to possess it. The book also had rare, vintage pictures.
For the first time, Jayashree and Krishna sang together in public. Though they denied the fact, it was a "zabardast - jugalbandi". They sang a favourite raaga / famous song of each of those seven musicians of yesteryears.

My hubby and I are now proud owners of this book.

P.S: - The book, which was released at a private function by President, A P J Abdul Kalam, at Delhi some time ago, talks about seven maestros who changed the course of Carnatic music in the last century-- Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar, T N Rajarathnam Pillai, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, G N Balasubramaniam, Palghat Mani Iyer, M S Subbulakshmi and T R Mahalingam (Mali).