Sikkil Gurucharan - Article in Deccan Chronicle for Music Festival 2010

Sikkil Gurucharan today literally has the crowds swaying to his tune. He started his career at age six and now, in his early thirties, he is much sought after. From child artiste to full-blown professional and crowd-puller: what a transition! But he feels differently, ‘for me there has been no real transition in those terms, though of course the musical sense has deepened! I like to feel I am in competition with younger musicians, it keeps me on my toes. Yet, technically, a transition happened about 2–3 years back: large audience, papers write about you and secretaries put you on their list. These things push you to the next level’.
He enjoys the pressure, the press interviews, attention and publicity, ‘it’s all enjoyable. Readers sometimes keep track of what you say so there’s a need to say the right things. This pressure even transforms into positive energy on stage’.
Gurucharan has experimented with new concepts. The Anil Srinivasan–Gurucharan duo has hit the records many times, but he does not feel there is a need to innovate, as ‘people come to the concert to hear traditional Carnatic music for what it is’. His collaborations with Anil Srinivasan have brought in a whole set of new listeners, from North India and outside India, who were more into Ravi Shankar or Pop and Rock.
Gurucharan is usually noticeably sensitive to his audience’s mood. How does he manage this, with sabhas asking for predetermined lists of songs to be sung? How does he manage to be spontaneous in this? He says, ‘The list is useful because it saves the audience from accidental repetitions by subsequent performers, but it is not so rigid and can be slightly modified to suit the mood of the singer and the listeners’.
He draws inspiration from the stories his grandmother, Sikkil Kunjumani, used to tell him. For example, about how Semmangudi ‘mama’ used to engage the audience. ‘When the audience looked slack or vague, he would change the tempo with a brisk krithi carrying his trademark kalpana swarams. It is necessary, and even very important, to be in tune and respond when the audience looks vague or looks away’.