A musical album titled Anbenum Peruveli, an exploration of Ramalinga Adigal’s (popularly known as Vallalar) poetry by Carnatic vocalist Sanjay Subrahmanyan, was launched at an event held in Asian College of Journalism (ACJ) here on Tuesday.
Launching the Anbenum Peruveli website and the six songs, whose lyrics were chosen from Vallalar’s poetry by journalist A.S. Panneerselvan and set to music by music director Sean Roldan, ACJ Chairman Sashi Kumar, said Vallalar was a secular saint and tried to secularise Saivite philosophy. He challenged the Dharma Sastras.
Mr. Subrahmanyan said it was during the pandemic that he started questioning himself. As a singer, he had remained inside the world of Carnatic music and had not ventured out, though there were opportunities. This opportunity to sing Vallalar’s verses was an experiment, and as his teacher used to say, had been tried out not bothering about it being a success.
Mr. Roldan said they treaded carefully while working on the project as they did not want to offend anyone. A lot of thought went into each note, and he tried his hand at old folk rock music for these songs.
Mr. Panneerselvan said like how Avvaiyar had written poetry saying vendaam – things we shouldn’t do – Vallalar wrote verses giving a list of things he wanted – vendum, and these complement each other.
Vignesh Sundaresan, founder-director, Onemai Foundation, said Anbenum Peruveli was an initiative for art and technology to co-exist and function in tandem. It will store digital markers as memory registers on the blockchain. Rafiq Ismail, film director, K. Narendra, artistic director, Onemai Foundation, and Krishnapriya C.P. were present.
