This snap is not from this year- I miss the Sanjay Subrahmanyan who used to pose 🤣
I often hesitate to write about a Sanjay Subrahmanyan concert. Not because there is nothing to say—but because I have already said so much. Perhaps too much, for some. Such writing is easily dismissed as predictable, biased, or clichéd. And yet, how can I not write? Because every time I attend a Sanjay concert, something within me shifts. I leave changed. I leave having learned something—about music, about listening, about myself.
Lately, I find myself tired of fitting these experiences into AI-powered tweets and neat social-media fragments. A Sanjay concert does not fit into fragments. It needs time, space, and thought. You never leave it the same way you entered it.
The last three concerts—two at Sanjay Sabha and one at the Music Academy—made this especially clear. In the first, the Mallari itself set the tone. That jumpy, energetic Mallari—when Sanjay sings it, you can almost feel the air lift. There is a lightness, a physical energy in the hall.
And then came Anandavalli. The Neelambari alapana before it left me suspended, as if gravity had softened. Just when you are fully inside that stillness, he brings you back on your feet with a chuckle-filled Anandavalli, changing pace with ease and playfulness. Anandavalli may be a repeat—heard many times—but it is never the same experience twice. Much like Bhogindra Shatinam. That is precisely the magic.
The RTPs—Madhuvanti, Begada, and today’s Hamsanandi—felt like a living conversation between Sanjay Subrahmanyan and Varadarajan. Varadarajan, already known as a genius, seems to be playing at another level this season—those sudden flashes of something beyond technique and predictability.
Navasiddhi was a revelation for me; I heard it for the first time. There is a special joy in encountering a composition for the first time through @sanjaysub—a sharper attentiveness, a clean kind of listening that only a first hearing allows.
Today’s Shankaracharyam deserves its own reflection. I began listening almost absent-mindedly. In my own mental list of Sanjay’s Sankarabharanam pieces, I had long placed Buddhi Radhu, Akshayalinga, and Muthukumarayyane at the top—compositions that feel closely tied to his musical identity. But Shankaracharyam woke me up completely. It changed me. By the end, it stood above the others I had instinctively favoured. This, again, is the Sanjay effect: hearing a composition for the first time through him reshapes one’s listening forever. Many compositions I now carry within me entered my life this way.
Joy, too, runs through these concerts. Avan Seyal, whenever he sings it, carries a clear brightness. That joy came through strongly in the second Sanjay Sabha concert on December 25, where the Murugan theme ran through the evening. Father and son—Shiva and Murugan—moved through the concert through clear viruttams, careful diction, and a bhakti that comes through whether he consciously brings it forward or not. The audience was visibly moved. Standing ovations did not seem to end.
There was also a quiet thoughtfulness in today’s choices. Choosing a Subbarama Dikshitar composition over the more expected Muthuswami Dikshitar felt like Sanjay’s own way of acknowledging the elder Dikshitar. As a Dikshitar devotee, this choice, along with Sami Deekshita, felt deeply satisfying—measured, respectful, and generous.
At the end of all this, my neighbour’s college-going son asked me, quite simply, “How do you even attend concerts?” How do I explain that one does not merely attend a concert—you attend a Sanjay Subrahmanyan concert? That it wakes you up on every level: physical, mental, emotional. That it brings peace but also makes you think. That it holds mastery, excellence, and reflection all at once.
That is why we keep going back.
And that is why, no matter how much we have already written, we cannot stop writing. Who cares what anyone thinks? 🤭