Balabhaskar

Around 5 years back I watched a stage programme in Asianet channel where a young boy maybe 20 yrs old, wearing a jeans and a kurta was performing with Violin. He played the song 'Snehitane.. snehitane...' from the movie Alaipayuthe on violin and believe me I liked the instrumental that he played more than the original song. I could not note down the name of that young boy at that time. Again after a few months I saw him perfoming in another stage programme, a sort of fusion music with drums, tabla, mrindagam. I started getting addicted to his style and his music. I came to know that his name is Balabhaskar. I was used to hearing only carnatic music on violin but it was the first time I was hearing film music played so beautifully on violin.

He composed music for more than a dozen albums and music scores of some movies like `Mangalyapallakku,' `Kannadikkadavathu', `Moksham'. Among his numerous albums, `Ninakkay' and `Adyamay' have been huge hits. He made a album 'Mazhayilaro,' which is based on the theme of rain.

His Band consists of seven artists : There's Nirmal Xavier, the drummer, Prakash Ulliyur on the keyboard, Jossy John on the base guitar, Mahesh Mani on the tabla, Sudhir playing the ghatam, and Prakash Krishnan who is the lead guitarist.

Yesterday my friend Mukesh (a person who has an excellent taste for malayalam music and has a good collection) gave me a CD of one of Balabhasker's stage show. The excellent fusion music, the jugalbandi between the violin, tabla and drums, guitar was excellent. I liked the way bhaskar played the 'thumbi vaa....' song on violin and in between he switches the tune into the Roja title song. The 'uyire uyire' (from Bombay) song and the title song of the movie Akale were also excellent. One more interesting thing about this band is that they involve the audience participation between the jugalbandi. You can know more about this group here.



"IF EVER you are weary of music, rain and love, you are fed up with life," says Balabhaskar, "There is intrinsic rhythm and sruthi in everything and the onus is on the composer to position them in a certain fashion. It takes a large heart to locate beauty in everything,"