One song at a time - 4. Dakshinarmurthy's Begada
(V. Dakshinamurthy Swamy and K J Jesudas) In Indian film music, one of the biggest challenges for the music directors of yesteryear was how to tune in classical ragas for film music. In early days, they didn't try changing the classical flavor much and the old Tamil songs for example, are almost like classical krithis. When film music turned more 'modern', the music directors put in an effort to modify the raga, to make it more 'lighter', give it a different flavour so that it can reach a larger audience. This is probably easier said than done for not all ragas are equal in this respect. Some, like Mohanam and Kalyani, are eminently suitable for this modification as innumerable songs based on these ragas prove. Some others like Begada, Bilahari, Yadhukula Kambhoji do not shed their classical cloak easily and it requires a genius to transform their image to suit the film music needs. And in V.Dakshinamurthy or Dakshinamurthy Swami, as he is called now, Malayalam...