Aruna Sairam was at her imaginative best, as she remembered MS in song and word, writes Mihir Balantrapu

What makes Aruna Sairam so popular? It is probably in how she rouses her listeners with her open-throated singing. How she loses herself in the emotionality of her own resonating tones. How she reaches out and somehow breaks the barrier between the proscenium and the audience.
All these dynamics prevailed at the YGP Auditorium as she performed for Bharat Kalachar. The memory of M.S. Subbulakshmi was rife in the air as Aruna Sairam's set-list was full of songs associated with the legend. The artists were visibly overcome with emotion, punctuating the songs with reminiscences of the singer.
Aruna Sairam chooses her ragas with great thought to suit her style best. The swarakalpana at 'Balakanaka' for 'Ela Nee Daya Raadu' was both energetic and rich in the classicism of Atana.
‘Nannu Vidachi’ was as melodious and meditative as Ritigowla gets. Given the beauty of her rendition, there was cause for her to have perhaps built the alapana into a more substantial edifice.
In ‘Sada Saranga Nayane’, Aruna eschewed acrobatics for elegance. Footnote: her gamakas can tend to sound bedraggled as though they are mired in molasses. Whether this is a compensation for a difficulty in hitting the nokkus forcefully or simply a matter of depth in style, it epitomises Aruna Sairam’s stamp. The Mysore Yoga Narasimhan kriti was rounded off with well-structured kalpanaswaras, and palpitating upsurges from M.A. Krishnaswamy, K.V. Prasad and Trichy Murali.
As is becoming a consistent dynamic this season, the microphone feedback once again interjected in perfect resonance with the sruti, as though fine-tuned and let loose intentionally.
While rendering Muthuswamy Dikshitar’s ‘Ehi Annapurne’ in Punnagavarali, Aruna once again betrayed a struggle to enunciate gamakas sharply. But the madhyama-grama sruti was so contemplative that all was well.
Gopalakrishna Bharati’s ‘Tiruvadi Charanam’ was a pleasant insertion after the intensity of Ranjani and Punnagavarali. Khambodi was elaborated on for around 20 minutes, during which Krishnaswamy tastefully tickled the raga’s nooks and crannies. Aruna’s ‘molasses’ aesthetic was visible here as an interesting phenomenon: her kalapramanam is impeccable, but squinting at her hands revealed that they slapped her leg just a fraction after the tala’s pulse.
Niraval at ‘Aduttu vanda ennai’ rose and fell in steps, lending a clear architecture to her melodic construction. Pausing between phrases to ideate the next gave her kalpanaswaras a sense of organised creativity. The thani avartanam was a varied exercise in phrases of heavy kanakkus and rumbling teermanams.
Then came, of course, a string of mood elevators. ‘Neeradasama’ Jayantasri and a Sahana padam gave way to the Maand abhang ‘Pandhari Nivasa’, which culminated in a flurry of ‘vittala-vittala’. The occasion mandated that ‘Kurai Ondrum Illai’ was sung, and a tillana in Gambhira Nattai, sung at the insistence of the 90-year-old matriarch Mrs. Y.G. Parthasarathy, topped off a perfect evening.