Navarasa by Apoorva Krishna

Karmanyevadhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachana....... these verses immediately take us to the epic,that inspires one s way of life and how to conduct oneself.

On the evening of 14 March 2026, Navarasa , The Mahabharata Experience , a journey through the varied emotions, supported by visuals was presented by violinist Apoorva Krishna and a talented group of young musicians in Bangalore.

The nine rasas or emotions have been explored widely in dance and art, but this aspect of relating to the Mahabharata was intriguing and brought many rasikas to the programme.
The audience was taken through the experience of navarasas, bringing out excerpts from the epic for each rasa through visuals on the big screen, created with help of artificial intelligence.

Each rasa began with a narrative by Naman, describing the scene , then the scene played in the big background behind the musicians, a raga chosen for that rasa played for 15-20 mts by all the musicians that beautifully brought out the emotion be it Srinagara rasa or Karunya, Bhibatsa or Veera.

Apoorva Krishna , a well-known violinist and composer, known for having received wide acclaim and accolades, all over the country and abroad, for blending her roots in Carnatic music and global nuances of music, conceptualised and shaped this experience, with a seamless blend of Carnatic and Hindustani classical music.

Her idea to create a landscape of melody, rhythm, visuals as an extension of each rasa, and allow the music , imagery and silence to merge into an immersive journey for the audience , took shape into this production and is being performed extensively in India and abroad in the coming months.

It was intended as a narrative ,a journey through the varied emotions that one experiences while understanding and visualising the scenes from the Mahabharata.

Apoorva Krishna's father Murali Krishna, honoured the Chief Guest, A S Kirankumar (former Chairman of ISRO) , Guest of Honour, Tara Kini (educationist and musician), and Raghuveer Reddy Bandaru (Chairman, Telangana People’s Association of Dallas) .

Momin Khan on the Sarangi, showed great prowess. Malavica Chopra’s (sitar) ease in presenting elaborate ragas were clearly evident. Rakshita Ramesh s talent and hardwork in handling the veena was impressive.

Roopak Kallurkar , the young tabla player gave excellent support, and the well-known Vinod Anoor, held the key moments of the rasas expertly with his knowledge on the percussion
It was an evening of pleasing music blended with varied emotions .