Rendezvous with a Prince

A rendezvous indeed. I had first seen him for the Thuriyam Sageeth festival in Payyannur. We were late, and my husband had to bear with my rumblings till we reached the venue and we just managed to get a seat at the back.  Concert was unique and he took us through the less explored lanes of music. A description about the composition, left us a little more enlightened at the end of the day. I was lucky to be on the veranda when he left the venue. I went to him and asked him whether I could contact him for programmes. Immediately, he gave me his card.

 I remember seeing him on The NDTV Good Times  Royal Reservation, where they had done a feature on all the princely  families of India. and after all the glitter and glamour of the Northern States, our wooden palaces and our Princess clad in  a simple mundu veshti with  a plain black border struck a stark contrast. On the culmination, they had a get together of all the royal families, and of all the royal families he was the one who kept the evening melodious as the  champagne flowed, wine glasses tinkled, solitaires burned bright, silks rustled, and the lights shimmered. His simple black kurta set ablaze the royal lineage in him, when he sang Rama nee…I did feel proud of him then, as our brand ambassador, dignified and distinct from all the others, by his starkness,.. and now, here I am bringing him to Cannanore. Little did I think that I  would have a chance to be associated with him. Thanx to Ashrayam.

Time for us to conduct our annual Day celebrations which we combine with a fund raising concert for the school.  Voices were heard asking for Rimi Tomi. She was charging 3 lakhs, and there was no way , we Beenechi, Lasi and myself, the lone threesome rake in such an amount, leave alone make a profit.

So I quipped in.. Why don’t we change our trend and invite The Prince instead? I knew it would be met with reservations, but it was approved in our meeting and lo, I flicked out his card,.. a chance to ring up a scion of the Royal family of Travancore! and rang his number, but could not get through and then… he called me back. His voice was a slice of heaven and he said he would be happy to come, but I appraised him of the musical leanings of Kannur. How much would he charge, I wondered, after all, he is a Prince… I was surprised when he quoted the amount and in my next breath, I told him I will pay him ten more!. He said he would chose songs accordingly and will not elaborate on the ragas. No airs no graces, he asked me about the accompanists. He said he was willing to sing with any accompanists, but the rapport I found on the Payyanur stage would not be there as they were highly accomplished artists in their own right.. I insisted that it had to be the same, so he arranged it accordingly. In the mean time, he used to text me when a song of his was uploaded on the Youtube, or an interview of his would come on t.v.

I started selling tickets and believe me, it was hard, my marketing tools were his princely status, his good looks, and his unique style of deIivering music.  Beenechi’s(President of the school) daughter in law Revathy, predicted that myself and Beenechi would be the only ones present in the hall, and seeing the pace with which we were working, we would end up dozing off!!!.Many offered me money as donations, and politely refused to take the passes, as I c’d give them to somebody who will be interested! It spelt gloom and doom, but I eked out money as donations and gave their tickets to all music schools free.My music master chided me, as tio why I did not ask his advice before deciding. I told him "he interacts well" to which he replied" I wd have given you a person who speaks better if that's what you wanted". Another said IF it was Unni krishnan, we wd have come! I called up aged members of Sangeetha Sabha and asked them to come, absolutely free. I told ladies that he was  handsome, and they could come to just have a glimpse of the handsome Prince, called up the Chirakkal royal family and asked them to come. Finally the day dawned and The Prince was here. His gentle and docile demeanor, made me pray…. Let the hall be at least partially full.  In his introductory speech, he said that he could not be Rimi Tomi, and I had used his princely status as a marketing tool, but he said that he was just an ordinary guy… that endeared the whole crowd to him and I leaned back and lost myself in the strains of his captivating voice. The hall was full and voila! he had earned some die hard fans. He congratulated me on taking such a BIG RISK as HIM and having pulled it offfff…..The reviews were good, they did not have enough of the experience. A good kacheri is a yoga, a destiny, to lose yourself in the music composed by divine sages. The prince, in a nutshell… I asked him how life in his palace was.. He answered that he is never there, and he showed me his black bag, and jokingly said  that all his worldly possessions are in there!. Then he told me that in the family, they are not supposed to sing professionally, they are supposed to promote the fine arts, but he broke the tradition as he is wedded to music. He takes free lessons in the music camps he conducts the world over. He is very concerned about the environment, does not waste a drop of water, and  cannot live without music and chocolates. What impressed me most, was the fact that he took the initiative to allow entry to women in the Navarathri mandapam of Travancore. He handpicked Smt Parassal Ponnammal, the octogenarian vocalist to sing and break the tradition, a custom which was  being followed for three hundred yrs.

Another imprint he will leave on the sands of time is The Swathi Festival which he spearheaded, as a tribute to his ancestor Swathithirunal Maharaj. The 7day long music fest is gaining fast momentum, and music lovers from all over the globe jostle with their duties to be part of this musical journey.

Pure Joy... Gopala Gokula.

The night before his arrival, I asked him his food preferences, and I expected sambar rice, but he shocked me when he said he was a carnivore.. He said he knew that my opinion of him w’d have crash landed, but he has to be true to himself, and not put another face for courtesy sake. I also saw him wipe many a tear when the children of Ashrayam performed.

  The child in all  of us have long left us, but not so for this Prince, it blooms in the jokes he keeps on sharing, the notes he keeps on humming ,

the bubbles he blows with his students at Veena Vadini school, in the concern and care he showers on the underprivileged and the strains of joy he spreads through his students. On the rugged pathway, that is life, we come across multitudes of people who, creates varied impressions on our minds. His Highness Prince Rama Varma .. Is he a whiff of lavender or the musical note itself? I wonder. God Bless him.