NJ Nandini

Hi Friends This padam in Dwijavanthi is one which I hold very close to my heart, because of a Genius - KVN. I happened to perform in this in one of my recent concerts in the December Music Season I have managed to upload it in  Live In Concert There is something more behind this rendition... To describe it in two words, it is - 'An Anecdote' To elaborate - it is an allegory with elements of suspense, drama, action and triumph... Coming Soon... Check this space for more...

How to be satisfied in life? You've got to find what you love, and once you find, just do what you love. This is precisely what keeps the tough going when the going gets tough. Am I getting a bit too preachy here? Not at all. May be I am throwing light on a simple fact which is capable of bringing joy to one's life. All of us know who Steve Jobs is and what he has done. A child who was put up for adoption by his parents, a college drop out, a man who was fired from the company which he started, and of course 'the' man who has changed our lives with an 'i'. Apple, was started by Steve and his friend in his parents' garage, when he was 20. In ten years it became a $2 billion company with more than 4000 employees, with Macintosh, their finest product capturing the imaginations of thousands across the globe. And say what, he got fired from his own company..!!! From the perverted genius he was, he got reduced to a laughing stock. But one thing Steve never...

Dear Friends,  Excerpts of my article published in Brahma Sandesham, September 2011 Edition Note:  Being a Carnatic Music student, recently, I happened to read the biographies of some of the stalwarts in Carnatic music. Among which life history of   Sangita Kalanidhi Sri   G N Balasubramaniam fascinated me a lot. I am sharing some of the golden episodes that took place in his life and musical voyage. Gudalur, 19kms away from Mayiladuthurai- GNB’s ancestors hailed from this village. His father, GV Narayanaswami Iyer was a great lover of music and  had good association with stalwarts of those days. This made him  proficient in “Lakhshana & Lakshya” aspects of Carnatic music.  Later on, he moved to Madras and worked in the Hindu High School, Triplicane. His love for music and his earlier contacts with great vidwans brought him in close contact with Parthasarathi Swami Sabha. Later, he became the secretary of this sabha, and also the headmast...

There used to be a time when this word made me glee, but now the same word makes me cringe - 'Hartal'. I think this is the right time to post about this activity which is quite a 'phenomenon' these days. Two hartals in 3 days in my city doesnt make things easier at all. The funnier thing is that, it has now become anyone's guess that a hartal is around the corner once the prices go up - People can plan their holidays accordingly. There are even people who pray for hartals to fall on either a friday or a monday (like I used to do during my school-days). The parent of this 'spectacle' must definitely be the Non Co-operation movement practised by our beloved Bapu and followers prior to 1947. His aim was to win over the opposition with tolerance and at the same time giving them a polite snub. First, it was practised as a 'Bandh', which was later banned by the High Court of Kerala,. As a result our Political Wizards gave birth to Bandh Version 2.0 - ...

Let me begin with a story... Once upon a time.... Pappu was sitting idle at home, gobbling up some cookies, on a pleasant afternoon. All of a sudden he decided to go to the park. On the way he sees a small kid playing with a toy and gets attracted to it at once. He thought how to make it his own. He snatched it away from the kid and took it home. He could neither make out what it actually was nor did he knew what to do with it. A clueless Pappu showed it to his friends, all of them were amazed and told him to keep it in the showcase. He then asked his teacher, she told him to share it with his friends. He asked his parents, they told him to return it to the kid itself - which was not acceptable to him. The next day Pappu went to the park hoping to see the kid, but in vain. He inquired others at the park and found the kid's home, only to realise that it was a Palace, and even his own house was gifted to his forefathers by them. The kid told Pappu that he never wanted it, and als...

. Hi Friends, I have created a new page in my blog - Live In Concert , for posting links to my live concert performances. To start with, I have posted a piece from one of my recent concerts. Every time I upload a new link, I would make it a point to make a new post to intimate the blog viewers about the latest uploads. Nandini .

 . After a short hibernation, I am back to blogging again...  Finally i manage to find pleasure in something else other than music. It has taken some time coming but better late than never. I cannot in fact recall what actually lured me into literature, but as some say, a couple of good books  often do the trick. Books have become my best companion of late, and have even started eating into my daily schedules. The genre varies from biographies to fictions, and they have instilled a tenacious desire in me to contribute - by writing. Blogging shall be considered the first step in my journey. But what makes me even happier is that the next major step is already work in progress. God willing, I will get some of my articles published in a couple of magazines. One particular topic has been haunting my mind for the last 2 days and hopefully it materializes. .

Two years ago, a december evening, a well wisher and friend of mine gave me a call. I was on the stage, about to receive a felicitation, after winning Ragaratnam which was telecasted in Amrita TV. I couldnt answer the call and convinced myself to call him back once the function was over. After a couple of minutes, another call came from the same number. There was no way I could have attended it that moment. I took the call. Once I heard 'hello' from the other side, I conveyed to him in a brisk manner that I was on the stage and would call him back later. But as usual, by the lapse of time, i forgot the incident till he called me the next week. After initial greetings he told me that, the 'Hello' which I heard the other day, was not his, but of someone else whom i wanted to talk to, ever since I happened to hear his Thillana in Sindhubhairavi; a person who mesmerized me with a korvai in Bhairavi and the finesse with which he elaborated a Rasaali, after listening to wh...

The past week was a horrendous one for me. The frequent travel and engagements had taken a toll on my body and the result was nothing short of a fallacious fever coupled with body pain. The antibiotics took its own time to act and by the time i somehow managed to escape from it's grip, came the demon in the form of severe throat pain and infection. This derailed all my preparation schedules. The more saddening thing is that my beloved gurus had adjusted their plans accordingly for my sake this week, which has all gone in vain. Hopefully this week turns out to be better. The probabilities of it becoming better is high as things cannot take a downward route from this low point.

Finally i was able to pull it off... and in a satisfactory manner. Undoubtedly one of the most memorable tours i have ever had. A big thank you to all my friends, co-artists, organisers and well wishers for their relentless support and incessant love, affections and blessings. The tour was  shaped up in December 2010, when I had visited Mumbai to perform for Chembai Smriti Gana Sabha. After the concert, Smt Radha Namboothiri, a batchmate of my guru, suggested my name to Shanmukhananda ( where i had  last performed in 2008 ). Ever since the deed day was fixed as the 15th of May, I had a lump in my throat which i got over only when the curtains fell at the MS Subbulakshmi Hall at 9.30pm. If Shanmukhananda was all about the classicism and heritage, Vashi Fine Arts was characterised with adventure and frivolousness. I tried my best to include pieces which suited the moods and demands of both the occasions, which i hope yielded the desired results to a reasonable extent. I rea...

This Article Should Have Been Posted On The Mother's Day, But Due To Travel And Other Commitments I Am Posting It Now. ( Its Time To Get A Laptop..!!!) If we manage to put in some time and effort we can find that each of the 365 days in the calendar year shall be special in some way or the other. Sometimes i wonder why should we select a particular day to celebrate certain things. The affection and the personal bond  which each one of us share with our mother is something unique and is certainly not something to be "celebrated" once in a year, but something to be cherished and treasured each and every moment of our life. Then why do we have a Mother's Day? Well.. let me put this way, its simple. They have bought us anything and everything we have ever desired of. But rarely do they accept anything back from us, in my case it is so close to 'never'. This day gives me an opportunity to thrust something upon her forcefully, without being labeled as a sp...

Work hard.... if you do not succeed,work harder...all of us have come across a lot of people who advice this. But this need not work always. I believe working smart pays you more rewards than working hard. Of course dedication is required, but more than that i opine that channelization is crucial to success. A man never reaches his destination if he does not know the path he has to travel. By asking to work smart, i am not in anyway suggesting anyone to fall upon the short-cuts, simply because they never yield the desired result. Even if they yield, they dont last ( just like out thalaivar said, kashtapedama kadaikkarathu...). Smartness here simply means - knowing 'what you can do ' and knowing 'what you do' . Chanakya has said in Arthashashtra that it is smarter to battle against opponents who are meaner than you and not against those who are capable of destroying you. The real meaning behind these words are to make friends with those who are more powerful, gain k...

A bouquet in cadence  http://www.hindu.com/fr/2011/04/29/stories/2011042950110200.htm Endowed with a good voice, N.J. Nandini , a Thiruvananthapuram-based youngster still in her teens, structured her maiden concert in the Capital very impressively the other day. Nandini presented song after song that spoke highly of her depth in Carnatic music. The concert was organised jointly by Gayathri Fine Arts and the India International Centre at the latter's auditorium. The short virutham spanning a couple of minutes which preceded the invocation song on Lord Vinayaka in raga Hamsadhwani provided ample hints of her musical talent at the very outset. Nandini's crisp and fast-paced swaraprastaras that followed “Namami Vighnavinayaka” (Hamsadhwani) was lively. In Swati Tirunal's “Jayajaya Padmanabhaanujesha” in raga Manirangu, she brought out the finer aspects of this raga embedded in the lyrics. Tarangampadi Panchanada Iyer's composition “Biranabrova ide” in raga Kalyani and...

Finally i get a gap of  4 days without much commitments. And say what... it feels good. The past week has re-kindled a lot of thoughts. New projects, new ambitions.... To start with, I had a very prestigious concert to render at a venue where is used to run around when the stalwarts used to perform, Swati Tirunal Sangeetha Sabha, Trivandrum. I felt honoured and humbled to be at that stage once again. Not that I was performing there for the first time, but you get an inimitable 'high' every single time that huge curtain opens..!!! That rounded off my performances for the month of April, and the last week is occupied by a couple of recording sessions and other functions. Now that I am relatively out of concert commitments atleast for the next one week, it provides me with an opportunity to fine tune my skills, learn new compositions and widen my repertoire. Kicked off that process by listening to DKJ rendering 'Thaye Thripura Sundari', a compostion of Periyasami Th...

So.. here i am after a short hibernation..back to blogging ( excuse me for the language used..) After a fortnight of journeys and sleepless nights traveling, it does feel a bit refreshing when you are back home in front of your PC, doing what you love, killing time and at the same time preparing for the sterner tests awaiting you in the coming weeks. The 'Utsavam' season in Kerala is slowly drawing its curtains, and it is indeed blissful to know that Temples still continue to promote our own music which uphold the traditional values imbibed in our culture. Due to the increased number of concerts within a pint-sized area and a niche audience, it is quite a challenge for the musician to avoid repetitions, atleast in the krithis that are rendered, leave alone the raagas that are performed. Here is where the value of a wide repertoire is felt. And this very feeling humbled me last week when i had to perform at 5 different places clustered around a kilometer stretch. I have h...

First of all my congratulations and best wishes to Team India, though i was terribly disappointed at Sachin missing the "Century Of Centuries", I am glad that now he has the chance to fulfill that dream of every Indian, at the Grandest Stage Of Them All, the world cup final, at his home ground, the Wankhede.. Honestly, I am annoyed at hearing all these baseless doubts that the Semifinal was fixed.. And more over it is not coming from the Intelligence Dept / Police, or the Pakistanis who lost the match, or from the ICC.. these doubts come in the mind of Indians. Some times i feel only we can think like this.. ( as Actor Vivek often says.... athu thaan nammala paathu Worlde naduguthu..lol ). What it does is nothing but degrade the charm of our hard earned victory over arch rivals. The doubts have been raised by many of my friends... And these are the reasons they have, to support their 'ridiculous' claim. I have my own answers for them 1. Why did not Pakistan ta...

I wont be surprised if that happens in another 20 years time.... Would anyone have thought in 1970, about a cricket match getting over in about 3 hours??... Today people dont have the patience to go through a 50 over match or a thriller movie spanning over about 2 and a half hours.. Gone are the days of 5 hour concerts.... even i would say 3 hour concerts are a rarity outside Chennai. Fast moving world, even faster people. 1.5 to 2 hour concert seems to be the order of the day. Its quite a challenge for the artist to satisfy all types of audience within this short span of time. But if Rahul Dravid can adjust to T-20, any seasoned artist can rise up to this challenge - but with some compromises. RTPs would become rare species.. (if its not an RTP concert...).. No place for pieces like Divakara thanujam or Chethasri balakrishnam (as the keertanam itself takes the lion's share of the concert duration)...The Mridangist will have to face the frowned face of the Vocalist, if he ch...

The day I entered the TTK Auditorium, Music Academy for the first time is still etched in my memory... not that it happened ages ago, but in this era of slogans like ' Impatience Is The New Rule ' and the likes, people find it hard to recollect things which would have happened mere moments before, its quite an achievement in its own right, to remember events which took place a couple of months ago..... 21-12-2011... around 1:40 pm ... I had just arrived in Chennai the previous day after a draining tour of Mumbai.. ( the return journey to Chennai was indeed a tedious one..). In normal circumstances...only a really good salesman could have convinced me to get out of my bed that day and travel about 6 kms after a sumptuous heavy meal. But the very fact that i had never ever seen the interior of the 'Mecca of Carnatic Music'... was itself the biggest motivation i had... Though i had been giving concerts here and there in Chennai, I never had the privilege to get insid...

Thanks to Jaya TV , Pothys and Carnatic Music Idol... As Seshagopalan Sir mentioned in his address to the candidates, the candidates who participated in the contest are enviable for this one reason - It gives them the exposure that a 100 concerts give, definitely not the experience, but as regards the popularity, it is equivalent to innumerable number of radio programmes. Rasikas recognise us the moment they see us... which can never be attained in such a short span of time through any medium other than the television.. Great to see Jaya TV giving this programme ( which when compared some others aired by the same channel), though having a niche audience (hence a narrower range.. atleast outside Chennai), the prime slot in the morning as well as in the evening. The point I am coming to is that.. thanks to the exposure given by this programme, and by the grace of God and my Gurus, I have been blessed with a bunch of concerts at Chennai over the past couple of months. Thanks to a ...

Dear Friends, I am really very happy to inform you all that i was destined to be the 1st runner-up in the prestigious Carnatic music competition viewed all over the world. I thank all my gurus, well wishers and friends for their blessings, prayers and support. Nandini