THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Henceforth, Yesudas and Jayavijaya will not be the only ones serenading Lord Ayyappa in Sabarimala. The Lord will be treated to the famed numbers of popular Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi and Sanskrit devotional singers, too.Iconic singers S P Balasubramaniam, Seerkazhi Govinda Rajan, Veeramani and Narayana Reddy, thus, will be heard for the first time in Sabarimala. For decades, the practice was to play Yesudas’s Sanskrit devotional ‘Vande Vigneshwara’ in the mornings. And in the evenings, when the ‘nada’ opens, the Jayavijaya number ‘Sreekovil Nada Thurannu’ is played. Now, instead of just the Yesudas song, a CD containing five other songs in Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi will be played. In the evenings, too, along with Jayavijaya’s Malayalam devotional, five other devotionals in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi and Sanskrit will be played.Yesudas will, however, retain the sole right to lull the Lord to sleep. His legendary rendering of ‘Harivarasanam’, as usual, will be the only song that will be played when the temple closes its doors for the night. The decision was taken by the Travancore Devaswom Board at a high-level meeting presided over by Board president M Rajagopalan Nair here on Monday. The idea was mooted by Sabarimala Special Commissioner Judge S H Punjabakeshan. “The majority of pilgrims reaching Sabarimala are from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. When they hear songs in their language in Sabarimala it would lead to national integration and also kindle nostalgia. This will definitely help in raising the levels of devotion,’’ a Devaswom Board release here said. The release also stated that the musical innovation in Sabarimala would give other-state pilgrims the kind of high a Malayali who travels to another state would experience when he/she hears the sound of Yesudas or Chitra.
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