An evening with carnatic music

Acafe in Banjara Hills hosted the ‘Unexpectedly Carnatic’ concert on Wednesday. If you are wondering what was so unexpected about the concert, it was the singer. The rasikas were treated to the traditional South Indian music performed by a Chinese singer, Chong Chiu Sen, accompanied by the younger singers, Agastya and Sruti. While Chong let the young ones take centrestage first, he then proceeded to entertain the audience in an hour-long presentation of keerthanalu and other classical numbers.After singing a composition by Papanasam Sivan, Chong took a break from singing to give a bit of a background to the song he was going to sing next. “I wasn’t allowed into a Shiva temple in Mylapore for not being a Hindu. But I was stubborn and I sang this song in front of the temple,” he said before singing the krithi Kapali. With such anecdotes and mesmerising Carnatic music, Chong kept the audience engaged till he ended the concert with the Telugu song, Shankara Nada Sareera Para.