Songs with heart and soul

YESUDAS WOULD perhaps have forgotten the number of times he has stepped on and off a stage; but for the audience at Radisson, last night was different. For the singer too, if one takes into account the careful selection of classical music that was rendered.

Many who took the trouble to drive down that far (to a hotel near the airport), negotiating the late-Thursday evening peak hour traffic, were treated to an hour of extraordinary music, which again went to show why the singer is still popular, despite he being around for so long.

The MC for the evening, Anita Ratnam, who said she played the role of a `traffic cop,' thought that the opening, invoking Ganesa and later, `Bismillah...Allah' rendered in Ananda Bhairavi stood out. ``Yesudas had taken care to ensure that his selection went down well with the varied audience drawn from a cross- section of society, comprising cancer-survivors, donors, volunteers, artists and medical practitioners,'' she says.

Music was not the only agenda for the CAN-STOP evening. Actor- Kodeeswaran Sharat Kumar handed over a souvenir to Yesudas while the small screen `Chitthi' Radhika lighted the traditional lamp to mark the third anniversary of the organisation. Artist Totta Tharani, was another `regular' who was spotted enjoying the fare spread by Yesudas.

The message part was kept out from the concert. That job was left to Dr.Vijaya Bharathi Rangarajan, founder CAN-STOP.

``We work with little people whose destiny has tapped them on their shoulder and changed them forever. We work with men and women, some abandoned and some not. Our major goal has always been to give emotional succour, by continuing to give counselling services and help them deal with cancer and its related problems,'' she said.

By R. K. Radhakrishnan

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Section  : Entertainment
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