One song at a time - 33. Anthinta Hennu

(Kalinga Rao)

When I had sent him the link to my blog post about Rajkumar's wonderful 'Jeevana Chaitra' song, my friend Kiran replied back with a suggestion of his own for a future post. It was P.Kalinga Rao's singing of Mysore Narasimhaswamy's 'anthintha heenu nee nilla'. 

I first heard Kalinga Rao in the tape titled 'Doni Saagali'. As I had stated in an old post, this tape had songs which were based on famous poems of great poets like Kuvempu, Da Ra Bendre, DVG etc. In this list of poets there were poems of Mysore Narasimhaswamy which were tuned as film songs. Mysore Narasimhaswamy's most famous poems collection is 'Mysore Mallige'. Given that these were love poems, is it any surprise that our film directors wanted these to be tuned for movies? That tape also had another Narasimhaswamy song sung by P B Sreenivas, 'avalu yaaru'. Another nice melody.

P Kalinga Rao was the only unknown name in that album. So I checked with my relative and he told me that Kalinga Rao was very famous for his 'lalitha sangeetham' or 'sugama sangeetham' and was a pioneer in this area. I then chanced upon a tape of his titled 'baarayaa beladhingale' and bought it. I could see that Kalinga Rao had varied tastes. There was light music, there was folk and there was semi classical numbers in that collection. I particularly loved his take on Purandarasa Dasa's compositions, wherein he gives it a folkish tinge sometimes. Somehow I have a feeling that Purandara Dasa himself would have approved of it. Very recently a set of 9 CDs of Kalinga Rao got released and I immediately bought them. (Have listened to 3 of there. 6 more to go.) Kalinga Rao has a nice voice and sings wonderfully.

With the advent of the satellite channels, 'sugama sangeetham' or 'light music' must be facing major challenges. In earlier days, AIR and Doordarshan were the major backers for this type of music. You had programs for 'light music' those days. Nowadays I am not sure if such programs exist at all and even if they do, if anyone watches it. Especially given that most people tune into the myriad song based TV programs and to the FM Channels blasting out non stop nonsense. Given that I have seen some kids going to learn 'sugama sangeetha' in Bangalore, I feel Karnataka has probably withstood this assault better than TamilNadu and Andhra. I am not sure about Kerala. Once upon a time, music directors like M G Radhakrishnan created some magical tunes for 'lalitha sangeetham'. Other very talented music directors like Jaidev and M B Sreenviasan also composed light music during the AIR / Doordarshan heydays. Light music, 'lalitha sangeetham', 'sugama sangeetha', call it by any name, was a nice alternative to film music. Nowadays film music is English pop music and the alternative is the same!!! 

Enough of my crib. Let us now go ahead and listen to this wonderful tune of Kalinga Rao. My sincere thanks to my friend Kiran who forwarded this link.

If Kalinga Rao's voice and singing impress you, then head to this link. I would suggest you hear 'baarayaa beladhingale'. (I feel Illayaraja got his inspiration for the chorus part of "raman anadalum", 'Mullum Malarum' from this song.) Also listen to 'yaru hitavaru' and 'naguva baruthide'. Wonderful take on Purandaradasa's compositions.