Disciples, family members and admirers of mridanga vidwan Mannargudi Easwaran gathered in large numbers on 11 August 2018 at the Narada Gana Sabha auditorium, Chennai to celebrate his sixty years of service to music. The congregation underscored the affection and regard his peers, disciples and family members have for this vidwan who has embellished the concerts of many senior and junior musicians. The evening commenced with the screening of a documentary on Easwaran, curated by his senior disciple Mudhra Bhaskar.

The documentary had many clippings from various concerts played over decades and included comments from his family members. The videos of the mridangam classes including senior and junior disciples revealed Easwaran’s dedication, sincerity and discipline in his teaching.

Nalli Kuppuswami Chetti, Cleveland V.V. Sundaram, Guruvayur Dorai, Karaikudi Mani, Nagai Muralidharan, Sanjay Subrahmanyan and Rajasubramaniam (elder brother of Easwaran) felicitated Easwaran. Nalli released the brochure on Mannargudi Easwaran and presented the first copy to his guru mridanga vidwan Guruvayur Dorai.  

Mannargudi Easwaran thanked all the dignitaries, music vidwans, his peers, family members, music students and rasikas for making the event a memorable one. Neharika Umasankar sang the invocation, and Radha Bhaskar, senior musician and writer, compered the proceedings in a professional manner.

The function was followed by the concert of Sanjay Subrahmanyan who was accompanied by S. Varadarajan (violin), Neyveli Venkatesh (mridangam) and S. Venkatramanan (khanjira). Although the concert started late after the felicitation function, it was wholesome music for the rasikas.

C. RAMAKRISHNAN