I don’t know when I was introduced to the song ‘Endaro Mahanubhavulu’ composed by Saint Thyagaraja. But it was in my childhood that my parents brought home a tape cassette containing all 5 songs of the famed Pancharatna sung by Dr M Balamuralikrishna. Till date this has been one of my favorite cassettes. Although all songs of Pancharatna are melodious, the last of them is for some reason the best of all.
Throughout my life I encountered more and more renditions of Endaro by different people. Mostly vocal but few instrumental too. Notable are the ones in Veena and Violin. My first major assignment as an employee was in a pretty monotonous project and I somehow had got hold of a Veena rendition of Endaro and it was a daily routine for me to listen to it as I went upon with my work. I might have listened daily for many months in 2003.
I soon realized that I won’t always be near my beloved cassette and also realized that the world was becoming increasingly digital. So the first thing I did was convert this cassette player into digital format. It just goes to show how much I must have heard this one song that while the first four songs got digitized without issues, Endaro did not get recorded as good as the other four - probably because this side of the tape seemed to have worn out. So I had to live without it.
Next best hope was Google and Internet. There were many of them and although I liked all of them, nothing gave me the pleasure as much as the one I used to hear in the cassette, until I got this link which is pretty much the same as what I used to hear in my childhood. Finally! After going around in circles finding the right rendition of this beautiful song, I came back to my old love – Dr M Balamuralikrishna’s rendition:
Endaro Mahanubhavulu Andariki Vandanamulu…
Throughout my life I encountered more and more renditions of Endaro by different people. Mostly vocal but few instrumental too. Notable are the ones in Veena and Violin. My first major assignment as an employee was in a pretty monotonous project and I somehow had got hold of a Veena rendition of Endaro and it was a daily routine for me to listen to it as I went upon with my work. I might have listened daily for many months in 2003.
I soon realized that I won’t always be near my beloved cassette and also realized that the world was becoming increasingly digital. So the first thing I did was convert this cassette player into digital format. It just goes to show how much I must have heard this one song that while the first four songs got digitized without issues, Endaro did not get recorded as good as the other four - probably because this side of the tape seemed to have worn out. So I had to live without it.
Next best hope was Google and Internet. There were many of them and although I liked all of them, nothing gave me the pleasure as much as the one I used to hear in the cassette, until I got this link which is pretty much the same as what I used to hear in my childhood. Finally! After going around in circles finding the right rendition of this beautiful song, I came back to my old love – Dr M Balamuralikrishna’s rendition:
Endaro Mahanubhavulu Andariki Vandanamulu…
