One song at a time - 50.Manasilunaroo

-

Our festivals and music are highly interlinked. One cannot miss the festival music, even if you want to. For, the nearby temple will be blaring out the songs from those tinny loudspeakers. Ganesh Chaturthi is one festival where you get to hear songs in most parts of India. In Hyderabad, along with Ganesh Chaturthi, we have the Mahakali jatra time. The Mahakali festival itself stretches over more than a month. During this time every small Mahakali temple will celebrate and you get to hear songs day in and day out. Especially during the weekend, as the festival will be celebrated on Sundays. Added to these loud speakers, you also have the 'potha raju' and the famous live 'teen maar' of Hyderabad. All I have to do is type, 'dha dhanakur dhan' and the rhythm will immediately start playing in any true Hyderabadi's mind. So embedded is this 'teen maar' in our mind. ( I have not analyzed it but I have a feeling that 'teen maar' probably is equivalent to the tisra nadai in classical music. ). Live music, recorded music, dancing, are all part of many festivals and jatras.

It is music time during the Navaratri pooja at my house. It is during Navaratri that potential singers get a chance to display their singing skills in as many houses as possible. This attachment with music is not surprising given that the most important day of Navaratri is the 'Saraswathi Pooja' day. Afterall she is the one who gives us knowledge and our artistic success depends on her benevolence.  Navaratri, to many, means the 'golu' (dolls arrangement), sundal and song. I always look forward to people coming to my house and singing. And many a times they have surprised me by singing some rare krithis. My friend Bala's wife, Sharanya, sang a rare Dikshitar krithi in Mangala Kaishiki ragam, 'Sree Bhargavi', superbly. It was during one such Navarathri that I heard the lovely Sahana Divyanama Sankeertana krithi of Tyagaraja, "Sree Rama Sree Rama", as also a lovely Marathi bhajan on Krishna. Some sing as soon as they are asked to and some sing reluctantly. Some sing well, some not so well, but it doesn't matter. For it is not a concert that they are singing and you are reviewing. They are just sharing the joy of singing. It is during Navaratri that you get an idea as to how deep Carnatic music has permeated into our lives. 

Given that we are in midst of Navarathri, let us take up a song which invokes the spirit of singing during the Navaratri time. There are many songs in different languages for this occasion but I like this song the most. Composed by Dakshinamurthy Swamy, this is a excellent ragamalika, sung by Jesudas and Janaki at their peak. A song about Navaratri and Saraswati. What more can you ask for? I have always held that Dakshinamurthy Swami is one of the greatest when it comes to composing a ragamalika and he proves that in this song again. Each raga is lovingly dealt with. I am not going to give you the component ragas but ask you to listen to the song and let me know the ragams. Let's now listen to 'manasilunaru ushasandhyay'

Comments

sachin said…
oh yeah, I can figure the Raaga out,,,,now guess what I guessed? ;0)

As far as teen maar rythm - I think it is a primal rythm and exisits in many folk songs around the world - African, European, etc. Some anthropological basis for some primary rythms....
September 30, 2011 at 6:27 AM
Suresh S said…
Thanks for the comment Sachin. I will not hazard a guess as to what you guessed :)

I too feel some rhythms are very primal in nature. You can make out many of the rhythms you hear in different genres of music.
September 30, 2011 at 7:00 AM
Ramki Krishnan said…
Thanks for this lovely Ragamalika, Suresh. This movie - Marunaattil oru malayaali - was pretty ordinary, but had some fantastic songs, including "Asoka poornima..." (Kharaharapriya) and "Govardhanagiri..." (Charukesi). One of Dakshinamoorthy's best works. Thanks for bringing back the memories.

If you want to listen to another nice "Navarathri" song, check out "Nakshathradeepangal thilangi" by KJ. Another ragamalika, music by Jaya-Vijaya.

Cheers,
Ramki.
October 1, 2011 at 3:40 AM
Suresh S said…
Thanks for the comment Ramki. I will also check out the ragamalika suggested by you. I can see that Malayalam film music has lot of ragamalikas.
October 1, 2011 at 5:11 AM
Ramki Krishnan said…
And also, congratulations on the half-century of "One song at a time"! Great going.

Happy Navarathri to you all the readers of this blog.

Regards,
Ramki.
October 1, 2011 at 5:30 AM
Suresh S said…
Thanks Ramki for the wishes. This 'One Song at a time' has helped me post so many songs and yet it is not even a drop of the variety we have in Indian film music.

A very Happy Navaratri to you and your family.
October 1, 2011 at 5:38 AM
Raj said…
Navaratri is a great occassion to socialise with friends and relatives musically.

A nice post and a great song(ragas- Poorvi Kalyani, Saranga, Abhogi,Mandaari).

That Dakshinamurthy SwamigaL is a genius par excellence is a well known fact.He is a also a master of Ragamalikas.

Thanks for sharing..
October 1, 2011 at 5:43 AM
Suresh S said…
Raj,

You are very correct. Dakshinamurthy Swamy was a genius and I am amazed by the way he used the ragas and also the way he constructed ragamalikas.
October 1, 2011 at 5:46 AM
Vignesh Subramanian said…
Dear Suresh:
Shruti is rendu kattai (D)
The involved Raagas are:
1. Poorvi Kalyani
2. Saaranga
3. Sri Ranjani (Kai Tholunnae when Prem nazir starts is dns dns) and lastly
4. Amrutha Varshini.

Same words of Pallavi starting in all the 4 raagas is a touch of genius.

Great to listen to such pristine rendition of Janaki

With Love
Vicky
October 1, 2011 at 8:23 AM
Suresh S said…
Vicky,

Thanks for the comment. I did not notice that the ragas start with the same pallavi words !! Thanks to you I heard the song again.
October 1, 2011 at 8:59 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

M S Subbulakshmi : Who misunderstood her?

-
Image
In the October 1st 2015 issue of Caravan, Vidwan T.M.Krishna wrote a lengthy article about M.S.Subbulakshmi titled, 'MS Understood' with the subtitle 'The Myths and Misconceptions around India's most acclaimed musician'.  This is a long read and spans 10 pages. You can read the complete article here Krishna, as his wont, makes lot of sweeping generalizations and hand waving arguments. I just want to react to a few aspects of his article. First, Krishna starts with a straw man, with some unknown singer stating that MS was a hoax. Then Krishna goes on to elaborate on how critics never considered MS to be a great singer and thought that she was just a singer with a ‘good voice’.  Krishna then traces MS’s origins and talks about how her music changed, how the society affected her and how she could not realize her complete potential and so on. You can read all that in the article. Once you have read the article you will understand what I am saying here more cle...
Read more

One song at a time - 24. Naadamaya E Lokavella

-
Image
(Dr.Rajkumar) "Does Rajkumar sing?" asked the assistant. The music director nodded, "Muthuraju? Yes, he sings." "So why don't we ask him to sing this song in the movie?" suggested the assistant. The music director wasn't sure but the assistant persisted. Finally the music director agreed, Dr.Rajkumar sang in that movie and as the cliche goes, the rest was history. The music director was G.K.Venkatesh and the assistant went by the name of Rasayya. He would later be rechristened by Panju Arunachalam as Illayaraja!!! During my school days I had a classmate who used to love Rajkumar's voice and would tell us that Rajkumar was a great singer. It was not until I moved to Bangalore that I first heard Dr.Rajkumar's voice and the first song that I heard was a stunner. That was 'Nadamaya E Loka'. Later I came to know that this song won Dr.Rajkumar, affectionately called 'Annavaru', the National Award for the best singer. T...
Read more

SPB: A Musical History - Part 1 : A Legend called Ghantasala

-
Image
Ghantasala Venkateswara Rao (Photo source: Quora) I plan to do a multi part series on SPB, tracing his music career in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada film music. I will not be concentrating on other aspects of SPB like his acting or dubbing career. I will occasionally be making reference to some of the singing shows he did for different TV Channels. You must be surprised as to why the first part of this series is titled, ' A Legend called Ghantasala'. The idea is to give you a picture about the Telugu film music scene when SPB made his appearance. He recorded his first song for 'Sree Sree Maryadaramanna' in Dec 1966 (according to Wiki). The movie is listed as a 1967 release. So we can say that people heard SPB first in 1967. In 1967, the leading stars of Telugu films were N T Rama Rao (NTR) and Akkineni Nageshwar Rao (ANR). Actor Krishna was making his mark. The popular music directors included K V Mahadevan, S Rajeshwar Rao, Pendyala Nageshwar Rao. Other music directors li...
Read more