One song at a time - 39. Mohe Bhool Gaye Saawariya

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(Naushad)

"Bhairav is so fundamental to Indian tradition that its impaction on the nation's musical soul can never be overstated. Even the unlettered in the land is familiar with its germ in some form or the other. The overlay of Bhairav strains on an early, bucolic Indian morning affords a purifying experience like no other. Verily, it falls to the lot of the noblest of rAgas, deserving of renewal and reflection in the portals of the mind every single day." Thus wrote Rajan Parrikar in his article for SAWF titled "Bhairav - The Primordial Sound" . He was talking about the Hindustani Bhairav whose Carnatic counterpart in Mayamalavagowla.

Mayamalavagowla has been used a lot in Tamil film music. An old gem that I heard is in the movie 'Pattinathar', which starred T M Soundarrajan as the hero. The song was, "nilave nee oru sedhi sollaayo" and was tuned very similar to the Tyagaraja's famous krithi, "thulasi dalamulache". Then we had the Vishwanathan Ramamurthy's classic, "kallellaam maanikka kallaagumaa", which inspired A R Rahman to create "suntha hai mera kudha" in 'Pukar'. With Illayaraja's entry Mayamalavagowla was taken to a absolutely new high. The songs are too many to list. It suffices if I use the Sanskrit phrase, "na bhootho na bhavishyathi" (neither in the past nor in the future) to describe what Raja has done with Mayamalavagowla.

Compared to the Tamil films the usage of Mayamalavagowla (Bhairav) in Hindi films is fairly limited I would say. One Bhairav based song which has been a perennial favourite in Hindi Film Music is the Shakeel Badayuni written and Nauhad tuned, 'Mohe Bhool Gaye Saawariya" from the film 'Baiju Bawra', sung impeccably by Lata. I had written earlier about Amir Khan singing for Tansen in this movie. The movie was a great musical hit with songs like 'tu ganga ki mauj', 'man tadpat hari darshan ko' and 'O duniya ke rakhwale'. In fact you can say that this movie was a show case for Rafi's vocals but I like this Lata beauty the best in this movie.
Mayamalavagowla is a raga with many shades and Naushad uses the sad shade, if I can call it that. The loneliness and sadness of the heroine (the feeling of 'viraha' as we say) is communicated very well by the way the raga is used. Lata, as usual, does a terrific job of getting the right shade of the raga. The melody is lilting and it is no wonder that it has had a long shelf life.

Naushad was one of the most famous music directors of his times. He was well respected for his knowledge of Hindustani classical music and had given many 'hits' during his time. It must also be stated that opinion about Naushad's music is quite sharply divided. There is one group which holds him as the greatest composer in Hindi film music while group feels that his music lacked the imagination and innovation that was present in other music directors like Salilda, Madanmohan and Roshan. I remember reading an article which said that Naushad generally took a 'bandish' in a particular raga and build his song around it and he himself added nothing much to the raga. I probably lie somewhere in between these two extremes. Some of his songs I like but there are quite a few songs which I find quite clichéd. The number of Naushad songs in my playlist is quite less compared to the number of songs he has tuned. 'mohe bhool gaye saawariya' is definitely in my playlist. So let's go listen to it now.


Comments

Raj said…
Though on paper,Bhairav is the counterpart of Mayamalavagowla,there is a world of difference in the feelings/emotions these two ragas evoke.'Bhairav' has that unmistakable tinge of sadness in it while the carnatic counterpart kindles piety and is majestic too..

Raaja gave a new dimension to this raga in film music-as rightly said by you.

Talking about the song which you have taken up, it carries the Naushad stamp throughout and pierces our hearts.

Thanks for sharing!
May 7, 2011 at 4:26 AM
Suresh S said…
True Raj. The Hindustani Bhairav is more tuned towards sadness. The Carnatic Mayamalavagowla has many more shades and Raja exploits all the shades so well in his songs. Raja also seems to use 'Vakulabaranam', a raga close to MMG a lot. Sometimes I don't know if it is MMG or Vakulabaranam!!
May 7, 2011 at 4:31 AM
M V Narasimha Chari said…
The ragam Vakulabharanam differs from Mayamalavagowla in just a single note. While the former uses the lower ni, the latter uses the higher ni. That is why it is not easy to distinguish between the two.
Jago mohan pyare is possibly Vakulabharanam, though I see it under Bhairav lists. This is possibly because there is no equivalent raga in Hindustani, and ragas are often permitted to take foreign notes.

Nice sharing
May 7, 2011 at 8:30 PM
Suresh S said…
Chaari garu,

You are right. MMG and Vakulabaranam differ only in one note. I think one reason why the shape of Vakulabaranam is not so clear to many of us is that Tyagayya did not create many songs in it. There is only on Thyagaraja song in this ragam. Whereas there are lot of krithis in MMG.
May 7, 2011 at 10:36 PM
Anonymous said…
Our Guru Chari rightly pointed out. Bhairav is not equal to but equivalent to MMG. In fact, Naushad provided many background scores in Bhairav. Who can forget the Tippu Sultan serial? SJ used to tune for RK in Bhairav several times. There is a big difference as you listen to a particular raaga and watch the same on video. Videos provide extra gimmicks which a music director might not have thought of. It is the song done first and the picturization at a later stage.
May 9, 2011 at 4:29 AM
Aakarsh said…
This is one of my most favourite songs of Naushad for Lata. Although the best of Lata often features songs of Madan Mohan or S.D.Burman or Shankar-JaiKishan or even R.D.Burman, I think Naushad also contributed enormously. The argument about he weaving a song around a bandish or improvising it stands but we cannot refute the fact that Naushad had significantly used Hindustani Music in Hindi Film Music. And his orchestration was phenomenal. his sense of aesthetics - in terms of western classical style of playing in songs driven by indian classical melodic content - was impeccable. His recording quality too was quite phenomenal - something that perhaps O.P.Nayyar tried to outsmart.
I always liked Naushad's grasp on folk music. The songs of Mother India etc(dukh Bhare din beete re bhaiyya is such a wonderful Madhyamavathi), showcased his talent well.

When it comes to Naushad's songs - feel his melodies were strong. He was one of those composers whose films used to have almost 8-10 songs and almost all the songs used to be terrific. I like his work in albums such as Udan Khatola, Shabab(classic album), Amar, Leader, Mere Mehboob. And his songs used to have fantastic lyrics by Shakheel Badayuni.

And i love the way he has used raagas in his songs. raagas like kedar, tilang, behag, piloo, lalit etc.

Btw, Naushad composed music for a Malayalam film called "Dhwani". Beautiful songs there!
May 9, 2011 at 6:38 AM
Suresh S said…
Thanks Venugopal garu and Kamal. I haven't watched the Tipu Sultan serial. So don't know much about the music in it. I remember there was one movie called 'Love and God' (I think) which got delayed a lot and then released. The music was by Naushad but by that time it was released the music was sounding very jaded.

I haven't heard the songs of 'Dhwani', though I know Naushad did music for that movie.
May 9, 2011 at 7:32 AM
Anonymous said…
Chari garu can clarify something on kalingada raagam which, if I am not wrong, is similar to MMG. In 'Malleeswari' (Telugu-Old classic of B N Reddy), the meghamaala song is in raaga maalika and Rajeswararao used Kalingada in it. Naushad had a strong liking for Sindhu(Mishra) Bhairavi and in each of his films, he used to set one song in this raagam. Suresh, why don't you pick up sometime all those non-Hindi film scores of OPN,RDB,N,SJ,LP,Ravi,SC etc and release to all of us?
May 9, 2011 at 11:31 PM
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