After a break during the pandemic, musician “Abaswaram” Ramjhi is back with a new version of his Issai Mazhalai where young talent is identified, trained and performances arranged.
Issai Mazhalai – Naalaya Natchathirangal is more tuned to post-pandemic times and comes in a hybrid avatar with videos of young artists being promoted online on social media first before arranging physical concerts.
“During the pandemic, children had all the time to practise since there were no distractions. The fresh crop of talents that we are seeing is quite good and with a bit of honing they will do well. I have spread word through music teachers and schools and I have been getting short video clips of talents from the age of 11 to 16 and I am picking and choosing from that. So far, I have made three videos of three children each and two of them have been uploaded,” said Mr. Ramjhi.
He said the revival was possible only because of two music-loving Tamils living abroad Ramesh Ramakrishnan and Dubai Hari of Tokyo. They have been sponsoring the professional video shoots. “They upload our videos on their local channels, thus giving more exposure to these children,” he said.
In its earlier version, Issai Mazhalai used to be a big troupe with children being trained in music classes at 14 locations across the city. “It began sometime in the year 2000 since at that time children were not encouraged on sabha stages. But we changed it and at one point of time, we had 115 concerts during Margazhi. I used to rent schools on the weekends and we used to have teachers taking classes. Hundreds of our children have gone on to become stars,” Mr. Ramjhi said.
Videos of the children can be viewed on the https://www.youtube.com/@issaimazhalai YouTube channel.
Published - January 07, 2023 09:39 pm IST
