A big Hi to all Kutcheribuzz readers! At the outset, I'm thrilled to share my experiences on my recent trip to the U.S.A.

America truly is a visitor - friendly country, a land of opportunity and freedom and a melting pot of various cultures. I am always amazed at the facilities and infrastructure this great country offers and it is no wonder that every American can say, like Martin Luther King, "I have a dream" and work for it and achieve it.

I landed in Washington in the last week of April 2004, for my concert at 'Nadatarangini' for their annual three day festival devoted to Purandaradasa and Tyagaraja. Organised by Smt. Usha Char, the driving spirit behind Nadatarangini, the festival, in collaboration with Sri Siva Vishnu Temple (SSVT) was held within the temple premises in its auditorium at Lanham.

This temple has a unique 'saannidhyam' and as always, it was a special experience to sing for the large turnout of appreciative rasikas.

At this point I cannot but feel absolutely astonished at what the Indian diaspora in the USA have achieved. The early Indian settlers have built several Hindu temples in New York, Pittsburgh, Washington and many other places. Primarily built as centres of worship, these have also developed as meeting places for social interaction and cultural activity. The temples help the younger generation of Indians, born and brought up in the USA, to foster their Indian roots.

The cafeterias, run mostly by volunteers and serving such delicacies as idly-sambar, dosai and curd rice, attract young college-going students from nearby Universities during weekends. The temples also have an organised listing of puja schedules to celebrate New Year's Day, Mahasivarathri, Krishna Jayanthi and the modern Thanksgiving Day.

I enjoyed singing at the Murugan Temple of North America (MTNA) auditorium in Washington, where among other items, I included a ragam thanam pallavi in Kharaharapriya on Lord Muruga, as also Tamil devotional songs.

Sri Venkateswara Temple, built on a hilly terrain in Pittsburgh, the Tirupati of the USA, is also a prime attraction for visitors from India on par with New York City and the Niagara Falls. The winding roads leading up to this S V Temple remind the visitor of the similar approach to the Lord of the seven hills in India.

The acoustics of the auditorium was very good and it was inspiring to invoke Lord Venkateswara with songs like Terateeyagarada, Shriman Narayana and Kuraiondrum illai. The audience included Americans and some Maharashtrians too, who particularly appreciated the abhangs in Marathi.

The Gandhi Memorial Center in Washington D.C. exudes a special atmosphere where the spirit of the Mahatma seems like a living presence. Srimati Kamalaji, a dedicated American lady is the minister who presides over the Center and has authored a number of books on Mahatma Gandhi. Kamalaji is doing yeoman service to help promote Gandhian philosophy and practice in the USA, and is a disciple of Swami Premananda who founded the Lotus Temple at Bethesda, Washington.

The Gandhi Center is adjacent to this temple, which invokes an eclectic spirit, the ideals of Hinduism, Islam, Jewish, Christian and other faiths. For my concert, in addition to the classical repertoire, I included devotional pieces dear to Mahatma's heart, like Hari tum haro and Maitreem bhajata. I must thank my accompanists, the talented husband and wife team of Sandhya Srinath (violin ) and Srinath Bala (mridangam) and Krishna Ramdas (tabla) for making the concert a success.

At Boston, my musician - friend Sandhya Kathavate and I performed a jugalbandi concert in Hindustani and Carnatic styles of music under the banner of Learnquest Academy of Music. The concert was part of their Spring Music Series and attended by Hindustani music enthusiasts as well as Carnatic music rasikas. It was an informal atmosphere where the audience sat crosslegged and listened with rapt attention to our programme.

We explored parallel ragas like Yaman and Kalyani, Malkauns and Hindolam in the khayal and kriti formats. Sandhya sang a tarana in Raga Abhogi composed by her guruji Prof. Babanrao Haldankar and I sang a thillana in Raga Valaji composed by my guruji Sri. Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan. We also sang items from each other's repertoire like abhangs, bhajans and Tamil compositions.

The Learnquest Academy has teachers for Hindustani and Carnatic music, both vocal and instrumental, on its faculty and is wellknown in the Boston area. Pandit Ajay Pohankar conducted a three week workshop during May and visiting musicians from India like Prof. T.R.Subramaniam and flautist Mala Chandrasekhar also performed under its auspices.

A family friend from Bombay, Dr. Rajoo Ananth who is the anchor person of 'Saptaswar' - a FM radio channel in Worcestor invited me to do a live phone - in interview. I had fun replying to his various queries on music and the interesting bit was that there were many listeners tuned in, ready to ask me questions too. I had requests to sing compositions on Muruga and Devi, songs in ragas like Charukesi, Bowli and Anandabhairavi. Dr. Mohan Somasundaran, the other anchor person too joined in and the allotted time of one hour stretched on for two hours!

I had the pleasure of giving a few house concerts also, in the Washington and Boston areas, one of them completely devoted to abhangs and bhajans.

Together with our daughters Aditi and Shruti, my husband and I made a memorable trip to New Orleans, the birthplace of Jazz. After an eight hour drive from Atlanta, we reached New Orleans, checked in to our hotel in the French Quarter and explored the environs.

New Orleans has an old world charm and with its French signboards, one is reminded of Pondicherry. We were treated to exquisite jazz music at Preservation Hall as well as in street corners and roadside cafes. Listening to CDs of jazz musicians like Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, I found that jazz and carnatic music resemble each other very much in the improvisational aspect.

The fact that the musicians here perform without a score and give free rein to their imagination is a departure from western classical music and as a carnatic musician, I was able to appreciate the tremendous versatility of the saxophonists and drummers as also the robust and full throated singing of the vocalists...

While it was good to catch up with family and friends during our US visit, the icing on the cake was our five - day stopover at Srilanka before we landed in Chennai. When my husband and I landed at Bandaranaike airport in Colombo, we stepped out to a cool 25 degree celsius atmosphere and idyllic scenery like Kerala, the lush greenery earning the nation the name of 'the emerald island'.

We visited Kadirkamam, which is famous for its Subramanya temple, Kandy that houses the Buddha's Tooth Relic and Nuwarelia, a lovely hill station with vast tea estates.

But it was great to be back finally in good old Chennai again and to see and hear the familiar sights and sounds of India.

Yours musically,
Geetha Raja

You can contact Geetha Raja at : Ph:2499 3939, email:geetha@geetharaja.com

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