Day 2 - Durga

Dear Valued Readers, Patrons and Friends of the Temple of Fine Arts,

Yesterday, October 13th 2007 was the 2nd day of Navarathri. Prayers went on as mentioned in the earlier post (it will be the same format for all of the 9 days).

Throughout the day, Annalakshmi served many customers sumptuous meals for lunch as well as dinner.

It was a very blissful and pleasant evening which was enhanced by the love offerings of the students. They showcased their talents and were very enthusiastic.


Deepa Darishini, a Stage 4 student in Veena, played the Veena and sang at the same time. Her performance marked a historical moment in TFA Penang as this was the first time a student played and sang simultaneously. We were overwhelmed with her splendid performance.

We were also honoured to have 3 students of the Nandikeshwara Dance Academy, under the tutelage of Guru Shri Chandramohan who is a disciple of Padmashri Adyar Lakshman, perform a bharatanatyam repertoire for us. They were Kogilavani Krishnamoorthy, Anthiri Ramachandran and Loshini Vijayakumar. These three talented artistes performed 7 pieces for us.
The repertoire began with a Mallari by Loshini Vijayakumar followed by the famous Shri Chakra Raja by Kogilavani Krishnamoorthy. Next was Shivagama Sundari by Loshini and Anthiri. Then came Valli Kanavan which was a traditional piece performed by Kogilavani Krishnamoorthy. This was followed Nandhi Chol by the whole group and Kuyile by Loshini and last but not least Govinthan Kuzhalosai by the whole group again. The dancers entertained all of us with their graceful, and upbeat steps. We hope they enjoyed performing for us as much as we enjoyed watching them. We would like to take this opportunity to extend our gratitude to the dancers of Nandikeshwara Dance Academy for their beautiful love offering.

The procession

Please come and join us again tonight for the last day of Durga Pooja. Prayers will commence at 6.15pm and the love offerings will begin at 7.15pm.
The love offerings this evening will consist of a Mridangam ensemble by our very own Mridangam talents. We will also be featuring a vocal performance by Shri Karthik Chakravarthy, a Stage 5 carnatic vocal student of TFA.

Our guest artist for this evening is Shashidharan Nair, an accomplished carnatic violinist who is a disciple of the late Shrimathi Valaambikai Rajagopal. On completing his arangetram, Shashi furthered his practice under the tutelage of the world renown Kumari KanyaKumari.

We hope you will join us this evening and experience the essence of this beautiful festival.