Two musicians, a producer and a space artist, believe that the mridangam deserves its day in the sun. In fact, it deserves an entire festival unto itself. And that is what MridangaMela hopes to do later this year. Today, the idea gets launched with two opening performances, by rap collective Ta Dhom Project and Dvita - Dual Elements, a duet of the mridangam with the classical violin by Anantha R Krishnan and Charumathi Raghuraman.

The brainchild of musician and composer Viveick Rajagopalan, Ta Dhoom Project juxtaposes Carnatic classical vocal percussion konakkol with multi-lingual street rap. Talking about the idea, Rajagopalan says, "Konakkol, the vocal percussion form has been around forever. I used to use it to make rappers understand beats better".