Meeting with Ilaiyaraaja - Part 2

All the songs on the previous playlist “Women in Turmoil” were being played on my CD player with one hand on the wheel one hand on the CD player and my eyes taking frequent fleeting glances of IR who is seated on the middle row. IR is telling me to see the road and drive and I’m like “sorry no way”, this was my once in a lifetime opportunity to discuss my favourite music with its creator, and keeping my eyes on the road right now was my last priority.

I was telling IR that I constantly argued (and picked fights) with anybody who cared to discuss music and one of the aspects was how IR had used different ragams for a similar situation as in the “Women in turmoil” playlist and conversely how he uses the same ragam to explore its multiple facets in different situations. I didn’t have a playlist with me at that time, to illustrate my point, but luckily for me IR didn’t ask me to expand. Ravi jumped into the conversation and said how “Raghavan’s most recent argument was in an Infosys music-distribution-list” on a discussion about Charukesi. In a post to the Infy music-DL an author had taken up the ragam charukesi. Cutting and pasting that conversation here (since it is a mail-trail it might be better to read it bottom-up).

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Hi XXX,

Usually there is a very condescending attitude towards movie songs (the context unfortunately is such – dingchuk music).

However once in a while you will come across artists who transcend the medium (movie music) and do gymnastics that a more hardcore musician (???) wouldn’t dare to do. Strictly my opinion, rarely accepted and also rarely countered (typical).

I’d like to be countered on my opinion, rather than being told the varnashrama-dharma line of “untouchables are not allowed to enter the temple”.

Over to you! Let the controlled flame-war begin. I’m glad we’re not doing it in the full public glare of the music-DLs J

Raghavan Subramanian

From: XXX Sent: Friday, May 07, 2010 10:46 AMTo: Cc: Subject: RE: Raaga of the Week - Charukesi

Hi All,

Basic idea of mentioning the cine songs is that we can get to that raga more easily. But I think this discussion is getting too much into cinema line. Isn’t it?

Thanks and Regards,
XXX

From: YYY Sent: Friday, May 07, 2010 10:43 AMTo: Cc: Subject: RE: Raaga of the Week - Charukesi

Hi,

And “Aadal kalaiye devan thandhadhu” from Sri Raghavendra also Charukesi… ?

Thanks

YYY

From: Raghavan Subramanian Sent: Friday, May 07, 2010 10:33 AMTo: Subject: RE: Raaga of the Week - Charukesi

Hi Raghu,

Nice compilation. There are a few more movie songs that I want to highlight, songs that somehow manage to escape the predominantly “karuna” rasa of Charukesi.

Disclaimer: The below content is more easily relatable for a Tamil-Film-Music (TFM) audience, but non-TFM music lovers might still be able to search these songs in YouTube and enjoy the musical aspect of the below observations.

1. Kaadhalin deepam ondru – Thambikku endha orru – Ilayaraja
2. Nandhavanam poothirukkudhu – Illam – Ilayaraja
3. Manamaalayum manjalum soodi – Vaathiyaar veettu pillai – Ilayaraja (Superb 1st interlude)
4. Sakkara katti Sakkara katti sandhana petti – Ulley Veliye – Ilayaraja
5. Thoodhu selvadhaaradi – Singaravelan – Ilaiyaraja

Almost all the above situations (except song 3 which is sung by the hero at his sister’s marriage) can be bracketed as “cute puppy love” situation and its associated rasa.

Manmadha leelayi is another song that escapes the Karuna rasa stereotype, while amma nee sumandha pilla (annai oru aalayam), Chinnanjiru kiliyey (Mundhanai mudichu), uyirey uyirin oliyey (En Bommukkutti ammavukku), Nalladhor veenai seydhen (Marupadiyum) all by IR and Udhaya Udhaya urugugiren (Udhaya – A R Rahman) all conform to the karuna-rasa stereotype.

Enjoy.
Raghavan Subramanian

From: ZZZ Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2010 2:00 PMSubject: Raaga of the Week - Charukesi

Dear Friends,

A raaga or melody in the Indian classical music (Scale as it is called the Western classical music) is the arrangement of groups of swaras or notes, which, by being rendered in a special way, gives the raaga it personality or swaroop or bhava. Without the raga bhava, the swaras or notes by themselves are ineffective in presenting the personality or edifice of the raaga. To get properly acquainted with the swaroop or bhava of a raaga, it is necessary that one should listen repeatedly to the raaga being rendered by great artists.

This week, we are discussing the Raaga Charukesi.

Raaga: Charukesi
Brief
· Charukesi is the 26th Melakarta raaga in the 72 Melakarta raaga system of Carnatic music.
· It is the 2nd raaga in the 5th Bana Chakra. The mnemonic name is Bana-Sri.
· Charukesi is known to incite feelings of pathos and devotion in the listener (Karuna Rasa).
· It is a sampoorna raaga - a raaga with the following ārohana -avarohana:
ārohaṇa: S R2 G3 M1 P D1 N2 S
avarohaṇa: S N2 D1 P M1 G3 R2 S
· It is the Suddha Madhyamam equivalent of Rishabha Priya
· Charukesi's notes when shifted using Graha bedham, yields 3 other major melakarta raagas, namely, Vachaspati, Natakapriya and Gourimanohari
· The equivalent name is the same in Hindustani as well.
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After listening to all this IR began to open-up for the first time. He said “Karuna rasam is relative and not absolute”. For a murderer, not killing is karuna rasam while for a sankaracharya it was completely different. He joked how the ragam mugari doesn’t cry and it is only when the listener listens to a rendition does it evoke crying. He was laughing out implying that the listener crying was an unintended side-effect, of the bad singing?. He said rasam was not buried inside the ragam. Rasam was waiting to be discovered. I couldn’t accept that opinion completely, so I replied saying that I had had similar discussions with a carnatic-musician and asked the carnatic musician to give me a happy song in Shubhapanthuvarali. Vaigarayil is one song in Shubhapanthuvarali that sticks to this raga-streotyping



I told IR that he had tried Shubhapanthuvarali for an unusual situation (love duet as opposed to complete sorrow) in the only Visu-movie for which he scored the music, Getti melam. The song goes “Dhaagamey undaanadhey” (Sorry this one is really rare and not available). I was telling IR that this song was not popular, but unfortunately we couldn’t discuss it any further as IR was on the phone with the hospital staff and we had almost reached there (While I write this blog I’m reminded of his Aayiram thaamarai mottukkaley which is Shubapanthuravali-Dhenuka and Alaigal midhakuudhu from Andha sila naatkal which is also Shubhapanthuvarali)



I parked the car and since I had child-locked my car, I had to come and open the door for IR to exit. Ravi and I were alone for the next 15 minutes and I was checking with Ravi and ensuring that I wasn’t doing anything stupid. Ravi said I was ok and that IR wasn’t getting irritated or anything like that.

IR comes back into my car and I start driving (with my eyes barely on the road) back. En Ullil engo was playing in the background and IR said that according to him this song was no less meditative than his many other songs which were composed for meditative-situations. I told IR that I had heard him attribute a Shankar Jaikishen song as the source of his inspiration for this song.



I also mentioned that my friend Rajkumar, schoolmate and college mate who now resides in Santa Clara, and I thought “Oru ganam oru yugam aaga” showed a lot more of the influence from that particular Shankar Jaikishen song.



I also mentioned that this was not featured in the movie like many other fantastic songs of his which explains why for both these songs there are no visuals. I told IR that we guys pay more attention to the prelude, 1st interlude and the 2nd interlude (the industry refers to these as BGM for back-ground-music) rather than the lyrics or the vocal sections. I was telling IR that my friend and I often compare our opinions, one that establishes the similarity and honesty in our tastes. We basically play a song and rank the interludes (I was overjoyed when IR completed my sentence by saying “varisai paduthuveergakla?”) and most of the times we rank it identically.



Before I discuss the next song, I request you to listen to the song aurally before seeing it visually (even on Youtube) to relate to what I’m saying. The context of the song is that of a police officer who is in love with the heroine of the movie. The policeman’s busy life comes in the way of him spending quality-time with his love. IR’s visualization for this song is stunning. The interlude begins with a cute love theme, which he abandons completely to take up a theme depicting a police-life (an almost business like tune). Having depicted these romantic and professional aspects of policeman’s life, the interlude will now proceed to counterpoint these 2 tunes to show the travails of a policeman in love. Listen to this a few times before you see the song-visualization.The song is “Pon maaney Kobam yeno” from Oru kaithiyin dayari. Both the director Bharathi Raja and the actor Kamalahaasan would have wasted the creative possibilities that have been explored by IR musically. I remarked to IR that visualization could have been as simple as a romantic beginning followed by routine police duties by Kamalahaasan followed by showing Kamalahaasan romancing Revathi wearing his police uniform. I was thrilled to bits when IR replied encouragingly.



My next remark was on how I have been able to detect a director’s favorites from IR’s compositions. Like the observation that director Sunder Rajan (Payanangal mudivathillai, udhaya geetham, vaidhegi kaathirundhaal etc) likes Abhogi and supported my claim by pointing out pagaliley oru nilavinai kanden (ninaivey oru sangeetham), indraikku enindha aanandhamey (vaidhegi kaathirundhaal), kaalai near poonguyil (amman koyil kizhakkale)









I also felt Sridhar liked Madhyamavathi





Bharathiraja liked Shanmugapriya where the latter song, while scored by Devendran, is definitely in the style of Ilaiyaraja.





IR smiled and said sometimes the directors were themselves unaware of their likings since they approached music from an intuitive perspective. My focus was not on driving at all. In all this excitement and positive acknowledgement from IR I took the wrong route and almost started ascending a flyover (IR is always used to being driven by a guy who know where he has to go, so it must be unsual with me). Anyway I rammed the brakes and took a sharp 80 degree turn (don't worry it was at a really low speed) to go from the flyover to the service road.

Next up was my remark on how IR was capable painting pictures using sounds. In this song again IR paints a fantastic visual imagery, one where in the start of the prelude he first makes a peacock spread its feathers and then make it sway its spread from left to right and back. I told him how I have discussed this and many other songs with my younger cousins/nephews (no nostalgia value for them, since they didn’t grow up with these songs, they have a purely aural value) and how they were able to observe the imagery achieved through orchestration. IR remarked “Neenga merattura merattallai avangalaala vera enna solla mudiyum?”. The song is “Mazhai varuvadhu mayilukku theriyum” from Rishimoolam (watch it from 1:16 seconds to 1:20).



Rest in my next blog.