The Mad MadMadras Season

The Sangeet Natak Akademi awards for 2003 were presented on the 12th October 2004 at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi. The President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, presented the SNA awards to eminent personalities in the field of performing arts.

The SNA awards are presented for distinguished contribution to the performing arts and are broadly classified under the categories of Music (Carnatic, Hindustani, vocal, instrumental, creative); Dance (various classical idioms, creative); Theatre; Traditional/Folk/Tribal - Music, Dance, Theatre and Puppetry. There are awards for Scholarship and Overall Contribution in Performing Arts.

There were no SNA Fellowships for the year 2003. The Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards were, however, presented to 33 artists. The following is a list of the awardees in the field of music, dance and allied activities. Sruti regrets the time lag in publishing these but this was due to the delay in receipt of the relevant material. In view of the lapse of time, we are publishing only the photos of the awardees.

A review is generally expected to give the reader, in capsule form, an idea of the contents of the book under review; but this book, presenting twenty separate and brief narratives, does not lend itself to that treatment. All that this review can do is to indicate what kind of book this is, and how useful it is likely to be to someone who is interested in Carnatic music.

It is a generally accepted proposition that the middle decades of the 20th century, say from the 1930s to the 1960s and perhaps the early 1970s, marked the Golden Age of Carnatic music. There was a whole galaxy of musicians performing contemporaneously in those years; a similar simultaneity of great names was not known earlier, and has not been seen since. Nostalgia about the Golden Age continues, and lovers of Carnatic music today would certainly like to know something about the lives and times of the celebrated figures of that period. It is that interest to which this book seeks to respond. It provides brief biographical sketches of twenty eminent personalities of that period (counting duos as one).