CHENNAI: There’s a special joy in being honoured on a platform that one has performed on, for decades. And this happiness was evident on the faces of all the awardees at the inaugural of the Brahma Gana Sabha’s December Art Festival, on Saturday. Filmmaker K Balachander was conferred the Naataka Padhmam, while danseuse Lakshmi Viswanathan was presented the Naatya Padhmam and violinist Nagai Muralidharan was presented the Gaana Padhmam title.Recalling his decades-old relationship with K Balachander, writer Vaali, who was the chief guest of the event, recalled how the ace filmmaker made him an actor in two TV serials and two films. “When I played a poet in the TV serial Kaiyalavu Manasu, there was a scene of me reading out a poem to my wife who is unaware that her son is dead. Later, actor Sivaji Ganesan came up to me and said that scene brought tears in his eyes. KB is responsible for making me act in a way that a legend like Sivaji would applaud, the poet said. Speaking of Lakshmi Viswanathan, he recalled her family lineage and said Tamil film and art world owed a lot to her family, she being the daughter of filmmaker K Subramaniam’s brother. In her acceptance speech, danseuse Lakshmi said she was honoured to be presented this award by a sabha in which she had premiered most of her new presentations. Nagai Muralidharan said he was honoured to share stage with such eminent personalities. Filmmaker K Balachander said he was honoured by this award presented by Vaali, as much as he cherished receiving the Dadasaheb Phalke Award by the President of India. During the occasion, the official website of the sabha www.brahmaganasabha.com was launched. Also present at the event was Nalli Kuppuswamy Chetty, president of the sabha, and vice president A Natrajan.The December Art Festival of the sabha will be held till the end of this month, while the Dance Festival will be conducted between January 1 and 21. The music season will end with the Nadaswaram festival, which will be held between January 22 and 31.
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