Margazhi is an auspicious month of the Tamil calendar which falls between Mid-December and Mid-January according to the Gregorian calendar. This is the month where people go on spiritual pursuits to attain the Lord. Women wake up early on the day of Paavai Nombu to take cold baths, draw rangolis made of rice flour to feed the ants and decorate the entrance of their homes and pray for the well-being of their husbands. People pray to Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu by fasting and chanting the Thiruppavai and Thiruvempavai which are two poems written by Andal, the female Alwar poet. During this time, Carnatic concerts are held on a large scale by famous singers and people flock to the venues and sit on the ground for many hours at a time, just to listen to the artists’ devotional renditions. People who can’t make it to the concerts watch broadcasts on television while enjoying prasad.
To capture these divine moments, SIFAA organized its own Margazhi festival in Zurich on 2nd and 3rd of December 2023. Just like in India, many people from different backgrounds with different interests participated in this event as part of the audience or gave various music and dance performances or held talks about spirituality and divine wisdom.
The performance themselves were stunning. It was great to see each and every artist take pride in the art form they practiced and present their renditions gracefully on stage. Approximately a hundred artists performed individually and in groups, sometimes showcasing multiple art forms simultaneously. The audience witnessed Bharatanatyam, Mohiniattam, Carnatic and Hindustani vocal and instrumental renditions in pure bliss. Artists came from far and wide to perform. Some travelled all the way from Germany just to attend the festival. There were many local artists like Shreyas Joglekar, Mano Vyas Rao, Uma Kumar, Pranita Kamath, Purnima Venkatesh, Swati Gaikwad, Sharmila Rao, Aniruddhan and Abhinav Balakrishnan and so on, just to name a few. (Click on the link to see the full list of artists.) Music and dance schools took this event as an opportunity to allow their students to perform and showcase their talent on stage. The peak highlight of the event was Sumanth Manjunath’s violin performance, which was simply electrifying, just like his father Mysore Manjunath. The audience didn’t just have an opportunity to discover different kritis, but also interact with Sumant-ji, which is a very rare case.
Many people anchored and introduced the performing artists to support the event. Other people supported the event by welcoming the audience and performers, taking pictures and videos of the performances and ensuring that everything was running smoothly. Apart from that there were many food stalls serving food from different parts of India throughout the day. The city was covered in a thick blanket of snow and the air was crisp throughout these two days, which only added to the beauty of the festival. As the majority of the audience enjoyed the performances, some took the opportunity to embrace the stillness and soak in the fresh air and to interact with the artists and meet new people.
The aim of the Margazhi event was to recreate the blissful moments that people experience when they are in India during this auspicious month, and rightly so, to educate the current generation, to provide a platform for artists to proudly display their talent and skill, and more importantly, to bring a piece of India, a piece of culture and tradition to Switzerland. The Margazhi event was a humble attempt by the SIFAA team to fulfil these aims and will always strive to do so for many more years to come.