ತುತ್ತುರುತೂರೆಂದು ಬತ್ತಿಸ ರಾಗಗಳನ್ನು …..

Whenever I listen to certain Indian flautists (like Hariprasad Chaurasia or S Shashank),  I hear a thur-thur-thur sound in the way they blow.  This normally happens at the drut – or fast phrases. I have no better way of  describing it!   Listen to this short recording of Hariprasad Chaurasia on youtube. You can distinctly hear the sound I am indicating by the phrase thur-thur-thur at several places. As just couple of examples, I would mark around the the  2 min 25 second, and 5 min 6 second  mark, just to tell you what I am talking about.

I was thinking this was a  novelty of some flautists (because I don’t think every flautist uses such a technique).  That was only till I came across a song  that was written more than five centuries ago! Oh boy, How wrong our inferences could be!

This is a song written by Purandara Dasa, acknowledged as a pioneer in Karnataka Sangeetha. The title of this blog happens to be the opening line (pallavi) of one of his songs. It goes like

tutturu toorendu battisa raagagaLannu chittaja janaka tanna koLalallUdidanu

“Krishna, the father of Manmatha,  played 32 raagas on his flute with a sound of ‘thur-thur-thur’ ”

Now do you see why I said this technique could not be all that new? Krishna is described by Purandara as playing his flue this way. Nobody has seen Krishna playing his flute. But Purandara must have see other flautists around his time ( 1480 AD – 1564 AD) producing such sounds on their flutes, and this of course, he has attributed to Krishna. So far so good.

But this song is also significant in other ways. Purandara dasa is said to have composed hundreds of thousands of compositions. Now, we have just over a thousand of his compositions available. Although Purandara Dasa is called as the “pitAmaha of Karnataka sangIta”, most of his original tunes are lost.  There is pretty little information available on how many of his compositions were sung. However, being the musician he was, some of his compositions talk about various musical aspects, although indirectly.  And this song, tutturu toorendu, is one of them.

For a long time, Indian music was supposed to have 32 major rAgas. This has showed up even prior to Purandara dAsa. Basavanna, a social reformer from Karnataka (1134-1196 AD) has this in one of his vachanas (saying):

ಎನ್ನ ಕಾಯವ ದಂಡಿಗೆಯ ಮಾಡಯ್ಯ
ಎನ್ನ ಶಿರವ ಸೋರೆಯ ಮಾಡಯ್ಯ
ಎನ್ನ ನರಗಳ ತಂತಿಯ ಮಾಡಯ್ಯ
ಬತ್ತೀಸ ರಾಗವ ಹಾಡಯ್ಯ
ಉರದಲೊತ್ತಿ ಬಾರಿಸು ಕೂಡಲಸಂಗಮದೇವ!

Here is the text transliterated:

enna kAyava daMDigeya mADayya
enna shirava sOreya mADayya
enna naragaLa tantiya mADayya
battIsa rAgava hADayya
uradalotti bArisu kUDalasangama dEva

And here it is translated:

Make my body the fretboard,
Make my head resonator
Make my nerves into the strings
Sing thirtytwo rAgas
Play intensely, Oh koodalasangama dEva*!

* : Koodala sangama – A place at the confluence of Krishna and Malaprabha rivers in Karnataka.

It is the same 32 raagas which Purandara dasa refers to in this song “tutturu toorendu’ too. – “Krishna played 32 rAgas”. (battIs = 32).  However, he does not list out all the 32 raagas in this song. How unfortunate for us?

First lets see what he says in one of the stanzas of tutturu toorendu:

ಗೌಳ ನಾಟಿ ಆಹೇರಿ ಗುರ್ಜರಿ ಮಾಳವಿ ಸಾರಂಗ ರಾಗ ಕೇಳಿ ರಮಣಿಯರತಿ ದೂರದಿಂದ

ಫಲಮಂಜರಿ ಗೌಳಿ ದೇಶಾಕ್ಷಿ ರಾಗಗಳನು ನಳಿನನಾಭನು ತನ್ನ ಕೊಳಲಲೂದಿದನು

gouLa nATi AhEri gurjari mALavi sAranga  rAga kELi ramaNiyarati dUradinda
phalamanjari gauLi dEshAkSi rAgangaLanu naLinanAbhanu tanna koLalalUdidanu

“When the maidens from listening from afar, the one with a lotus in his navel, played raagas like gouLa, nATi, AhEri, gurjari, mALavi, sAranga, phalamanjari, gouLi and dEshAkShi”

So, we have the following  9 distinct rAgas listed in this song. However, it falls  short of the required 32!

1. gouLa
2. nATi
3. AhEri
4. gurjari
5. mALavi
6. sAranga
7. phalamanjari
8. gouLi
9. dEshakshi

Luckily for us,  there are at least two other songs (that I know of) in which he lists out some of the raagas (melodies) that were vouge in his time.

Here is a stanza from another song that starts as ನಳಿನಜಾಂಡ ತಲೆಯ ತೂಗಿ – “naLinajANDa taleya toogi”:

ಮಾರವಿ ದೇಶಿ ಗುರ್ಜರಿ ಭೈರವಿ ಗೌಳಿ ನಾಟಿ ಸಾವೇರಿ ಆಹೇರಿ ಪೂರ್ವಿ 
ಕಾಂಭೋಜಿ ಪಾಡಿ ದೇಶಾಕ್ಷೀ ಶಂಕರಾಭರಣ ಮಾಳವ
ವರಾಳಿ ಕಲ್ಯಾಣಿ ತೋಡಿ ಮುಖಾರಿಯರಳಿ ವಸಂತ ಬೌಳಿ ಧನ್ಯಾಸಿ
ಸೌರಾಷ್ಟ್ರ ಗುಂಡಕ್ರಿಯ ರಾಮಕ್ರಿಯ ಮೇಘ ಕುರಂಜಿಯು ಪಾಡಲು ನೋಡಿ!

mAravi dEshi gurjari bhairavi gauLi nATi sAvEri AhEri pUrvi 
kAmbhOji pADi dEshAkSi shankarAbharaNa mALava 
varALi kalyANi tODi mukhAriyaraLi vasanta bauLi dhanyAsi 
saurASTra guMDakriya rAmakriya mEgha kuranjiyu pADalu nODi

Now, let me list out the rAgas from here, discounting the ones that have been listed before:

10. mAravi
11. dEshi
gurjari
12. bhairavi
gouLi
nATi
13. sAvEri
AhEri
14. pUrvi
15. kAmbhOji
16. pADi
dEshAkshi
17. shankarAbharaNa
18. mALava
19. varALi
20. kalyANi
21. tODi
22. mukhAri
23. vasanta
24. bouLi
25. dhanyAsi
26. sourAShTra
27. guMDakriya
28. rAmakriya
29. mEgha
30. kuranji

Whew! We are so close to the magical number 32!

Now, to conclude, here is a stanza from the last song – which starts as ಅಂಗನೆಯರೆಲ್ಲರು ನೆರೆದು – ’anganeyarellaru neredu’

ಪಾಡಿ ಮಲಹರಿ ಭೈರವಿ ಸಾರಂಗ ದೇಶಿ ಗುಂಡಕ್ರಿಯ ಗುರ್ಜರಿ ಕಲ್ಯಾಣಿ ರಾಗದಿ ತಂಡ
ತಂಡದಲಿ ನೆರೆದು ರಂಗನ ಉಡಿಯ ಘಂಟೆ ಘಣ್ ಘಣ್ ಘಣ್ ಘಣಿರೆಂದು ಹಿಡಿದು ಕುಣಿಸುವರು

pADi malhAri bhairavi sAranga dEsi guMDakriya gurjari kalyANi rAgadi taMDa
taMadali neredu rangana uDiya ghaNTe ghaN ghaN ghaN ghNirendu hiDidu kuNisuvaru

If you look carefully, you’ll notice there is only one name that has not appeared before.

31. Malahari

So, the internal evidence from these compositions is giving a list of 31 rAgas (probably out of the legendary 32 – this is but my speculation) that were in vogue in the 15th-16th centuries. The set of 32 rAgas was not a static list, and over the centuries, new rAgas gained popularity, and some went outdated. The evidence from these three compositions also shows that the rAga kalyANi, was adopted by composers like Purandara Dasa , although the text writers continued to shoo it away because of its foreign origins, and kept saying that the rAga is not fit for compositions for another two centuries!

But the golden rule in Music is “If it is melodious, it stays“. Kalyani has passed the test of time. Composers who came in the 18th-19th centuries explored all facets of this rAga, and today it has became one of the major rAgas of Karnataka Sangeetha .

-neelanjana

Lakshmanam namaami rasikapriyam!

Wikipedia, as we know,  is a 21st century phenomenon. But in the world of Karnataka Sangeeta,  I think the concept started little earlier. The 80’s and 90’s of the 20th century were witness to the growth of  newsgroups, and other fora about Indian classical music (rec.music.indian.classical, and later other classical music portals such as www.forumhub.com, www.carnatica.net, www.rasikas.org, www.karnatik.com,  and now defunct sangeetham.com)  have been the happening places after the internet became part of everyone’s life after the mid 1990s.

One name has stood out during these last 10-20 years in these  internet karnataka sangeetha circles. This is a name that has been the  musical-sahitya-wiki for anyone who is looking for the lyric of a song. Did you catch a new song in a concert you attended? Do you want to know the composer of a kriti that you have learnt, but have no idea who the composer is? The answer is a few keystrokes away. All you need to do is ask this question in one of the music fora. Depending on where you are located on this planet you will get an answer within 12 hours. Who is behind it? Unlike the wikipedia where there are thousands of editors adding articles, this is work of a single man, who has collected lyrics of songs in several languages (like Telugu, Samskrita, Kannada, Tamizh, Malayalam, Hindi)  that are performed in south indian classical style.

He is Lakshman. Lakshman Ragade. He is an one-man help-desk answering your questions about any song – it’s raga or lyrics, or composer, you name it. Do you need the notation for a song? He might give you that too. Today if there are websites such as www.karnatik.com, and http://www.rasikas.org/wiki/ hosting lyrics of hundreds of compositions, they owe a lot to this marvellouly helpful person called Lakshman.

That’s why I said at the beginning  – Lakshmanam namaami rasikapriyam – “I bow to Lakshmana, beloved of conniosseurs of music“.

Over the last 12-15 years I have posted hunderds of requests about songs, and each time I have got what I wanted very quickly. So have hundreds of music lovers like me.

What do I know about Lakshman? Almost nothing. I beleive he lives somewhere in Cananda. May be in Toronto. I have never met him. I have not even seen his picture. And same is the situation with hundreds of rasikas like me. He has no personal gain from his service  to other music lovers (except may be occassional corrections to the lyrics from people who speak a specific language, if there are any errors in the  lyrics he has posted). But  he has continued to do this service to music. Even when there are repeat requests  I have never seen him to take offense to that.

So when I read the news few days ago that Sri Lakshman received the second annual Rasikapriya award from Sangeethapriya, another forum of lovers of south indian classical music (www.sangeethapriya.org),  I can’t tell how overjoyed I was!(http://www.rasikas.org/viewtopic.php?id=4021).  I am as happy as I would be  if I bagged this award 🙂

I am sure I am not the only one to have these feelings towards Sri Lakshman. But I may be the first one to do a blog post about him 🙂  . Like Lakshmana from Ramayana, who was a shadow of Lord Rama and followed him everywhere, I see Sri Lakshman as the unseen shadow following every rasika on the internet, and provide help whenever needed.

Once again, I have just one thing to say.

Lakshmanam namaami rasikapriyam!

ಲಕ್ಷ್ಮಣಮ್ ನಮಾಮಿ ರಸಿಕಪ್ರಿಯಮ್ !!

लक्ष्मणम् नमामि रसिकप्रियम् !!!

-neelanjana

ಮೀನ ಲೋಚನಿ ಪಾಶ ಮೋಚನಿ

ಇವತ್ತು ನರಕಚತುರ್ದಶಿ. ಇವತ್ತಿಗೆ, ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ ಸಂಗೀತ ತ್ರಿಮೂರ್ತಿಗಳಲ್ಲೊಬ್ಬರಾದ ಮುತ್ತುಸ್ವಾಮಿ ದೀಕ್ಷಿತರು ದೇಹತ್ಯಾಗ ಮಾಡಿ ೧೭೨ ವರ್ಷಗಳಾದುವು.

ತಮ್ಮ ಅರವತ್ತನೇ ವಯಸ್ಸಿನಲ್ಲಿ ದೀಪಾವಳಿ ಹಬ್ಬದಂದು, ಮುತ್ತುಸ್ವಾಮಿ ದೀಕ್ಷಿತರು ತಮ್ಮ ಶಿಷ್ಯರಿಗೆ, ತಾವೇ ಗಮಕಕ್ರಿಯಾ ರಾಗದಲ್ಲಿ ರಚಿಸಿದ ಮೀನಾಕ್ಷಿ ಮೇ ಮುದಂ ದೇಹಿ ಎಂಬ ಕೃತಿಯನ್ನು ಹಾಡಹೇಳಿದರಂತೆ. ಅನುಪಲ್ಲವಿಯ ಮೀನಲೋಚನಿ-ಪಾಶಮೋಚನಿ ಎಂಬ ಸಾಲನ್ನು ಹಾಡುವಾಗ, ಅದನ್ನೇ ಮರಳಿ ಮರಳಿ ಹಾಡುವಂತೆ ಹೇಳಿ ಆ ಸಮಯದಲ್ಲೇ, ಅವರ ಜೀವ ದೇಹವನ್ನು ಬಿಟ್ಟು ಹೋಯಿತೆಂದು ಐತಿಹ್ಯ.

ದೀಕ್ಷಿತರು ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ ಸಂಗೀತ ಕಂಡ ಅನನ್ಯ ವಾಗ್ಗೇಯಕಾರ. ಅವರ ಶೈಲಿಯನ್ನು ಎಳನೀರಿಗೆ ಹೋಲಿಸಲಾಗುತ್ತೆ. ಹೇಗೆ ಎಳನೀರಿನ ಸವಿಯನ್ನು ಸವಿಯಬೇಕಾದರೆ ಮೊದಲಿಗೆ, ಗಟ್ಟಿಯಾದ ಕರಟವನ್ನು ಛೇದಿಸಬೇಕಾಗುತ್ತೋ, ಹಾಗೆ, ದೀಕ್ಷಿತರ ರಚನೆಗಳು ಮೇಲ್ತೋರಿಕೆಗೆ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಗಡುಸು. ಒಳಹೊಕ್ಕರೆ ಬಹಳ ಸವಿ.

ಇವತ್ತು ಮುತ್ತುಸ್ವಾಮಿ ದೀಕ್ಷಿತರನ್ನು, ನಮ್ಮ ಕಾಲದ ಒಬ್ಬ ಹಿರಿಯ ವಾಗ್ಗೇಯಕಾರರಾದ ಡಾ.ಬಾಲಮುರಳಿಕೃಷ್ಣ ಅವರ ರಚನೆಯೊಂದರಿಂದ ನಾನು ನೆನೆಯುತ್ತೇನೆ. ದೀಕ್ಷಿತರ ಶೈಲಿಯಲ್ಲೇ, ಇರುವ ಈ ಸುಚರಿತ್ರ ರಾಗದ ರಚನೆ ಅವರ ನೆನಪಿಗೆ ಸಾರ್ಥಕ ಎಂದು ನನ್ನೆಣಿಕೆ.

ಈ ಕೃತಿಯ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯ ಇಲ್ಲಿದೆ:

||ಪಲ್ಲವಿ||

ಚಿಂತಯಾಮಿ ಸಂತತಂ ಶ್ರೀ ಮುತ್ತುಸ್ವಾಮಿ ದೀಕ್ಷಿತಂ

||ಅನುಪಲ್ಲವಿ||

ಅಂತಕಾರಿ ಸುತ ಮಂತ್ರೋಪಾಸನ ತತ್ಪರಂ
ಆನಂದಾಮೃತವರ್ಷಣ ಕಾರಕಂ ವರಂ
ಅಪಾರರಾಗ ಲಯಾಭಿಜ್ಞಂ ರಾಮಸ್ವಾಮಿ ಸುಪುತ್ರಂ
ಪರಮ ಪವಿತ್ರಂ ಸುಚರಿತ್ರಂ

||ಚರಣ||

ಅಪೂರ್ವ ಪಂಚಲಿಂಗ ನವಾವರಣಾದಿ ದೈವಪರ ಕೃತಿಕರ್ತಾರಂ ಮುರಳೀರವಹಿತಂ
ನಿಪುಣಂ ಗಾನನಿಪುಣಂ ದೇಶೀಯಗಾನ ನಿಪುಣಂ ಮಾರ್ಗದೇಶೀಯಗಾನ ನಿಪುಣಂ

ಮುತ್ತುಸ್ವಾಮಿದೀಕ್ಷಿತರು ತಮ್ಮ ಕೃತಿಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ವಿಶೇಷವಾಗಿ ಉಪಯೋಗಿಸಿರುವ ಶ್ರೋತೋವಹಯತಿ (ಪದಕ್ಕೆ ಪದ ಜೋಡಿಸಿ ಅರ್ಥ ವಿಸ್ತಾರ ಮಾಡುವುದು – ಮೇಲಿನ ಕೃತಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಕೊನೆಯ ಸಾಲನ್ನು ಗಮನಿಸಿ) ಮತ್ತು ರಾಗದ ಹೆಸರನ್ನು ಚಮತ್ಕಾರಿಕವಾಗಿ ಹಾಡಿನೊಳಗೆ ಸೇರಿಸುವುದು (ಪರಮಪವಿತ್ರಂ ಸುಚರಿತ್ರಂ ಎಂಬ ಸಾಲನ್ನು ಗಮನಿಸಿ) – ಈ ಎರಡನ್ನೂ ಬಾಲಮುರಳಿ ಅವರು ಸಮರ್ಥವಾಗಿ ನಿರ್ವಹಿಸಿದ್ದಾರೆ.

ಈ ರಚನೆಯನ್ನು ನೀವು ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಕೇಳಬಹುದು.

ಸೂಸರ್ಲ ಶಿವರಾಮ್ ಅವರ ಕಂಠದಲ್ಲಿ – ಚಿಂತಯಾಮಿ ಸಂತತಂ ಶ್ರೀ ಮುತ್ತುಸ್ವಾಮಿ ದೀಕ್ಷಿತಂ – ಸುಚರಿತ್ರ ರಾಗ

As a tribute to Muttuswamy Dikshita, here is a comparitively rare kriti of Muttuswamy Dikshita in Jyoti rAga, sung by one of my friends:

paranjyOtishmatI pArvatI – sung by H K Shyam Kumar

-ನೀಲಾಂಜನ

When There Is No Yesterday

I remember my maternal grand mother, from the time I was about 5 years old. I was envious of my friends, and my cousins, who got a chance to go to their grand parent’s place during the summer break. This could never happen to me, because we lived right next door to my grandparents. My ajji was a plump lady, with a loud laughter. She was different than other women of her age whom I knew. She was an excellent harmonium player. She had very swift hand movements on this instrument. If you know that the harmonium is a western instrument made for producing harmonic music (such as a piano), and it is not very easy to play Indian classical music (which is melodic in nature), you definitely can appreciate how hard it is to execute the complicated sangatis in a composition in a raga of Karnataka sangeeta. She had a wide repertoire of kritis which she played on this instrument. I was really very young at that time, and I remember only a few. The composition Raghu vamsha sudhambudi  in kadana kutoohala raga, by Patnam Subramaniya Ayyar , still rings in my ears. It is unfortunate I don’t have any recordings of her music now.

After my grandfather passed away, she started forgetting things slowly. Initially it was thought it is the common old-age related problem. (ಅರವತ್ತರ ಅರಳು-ಮರಳು) The first things she forgot were those that were learnt the hard way. Like her harmonium playing.  The swift movements on the keyboard were gone in about an year. Then she started loosing her writing. When she was taken to NIMHANS to see what was happening to her, she was still quite alert, even though a shadow of her former self, and refused to see a psychiatrist! The doctors at NIMHANs told that she suffered from a type of cerebral dementia which had no cure and things may worsen from where she was. 

Later she almost lost her speech.In the following years, she  forgot more and more. By the time she passed away, she had forgotten who she was. She was in a state where there was no yesterday. Yes, she was a victim of Alzheimer’s disease.

Most of us know about celebrity victims of Alzheimer’s disease such as President Ronald Reagan, but what is not known is that this disease is the 7^th leading cause of death in the USA. There are more than 5 million people suffering from this disease in the USA. I  think the numbers, as a percentage of population would be comparable at other countries too. Surely, Alzheimer’s is a silent killer.

A German physician by name Alois Alzheimer was the first one to present a case study of one of his patients with severe memory loss. When he did an autopsy of the patient’s brain, he saw enormous malformations in the brain, dead  cells, and shrinkage. This was in 1906, more than one hundred years ago. Alzheimer’s destroys brain cells, causing problems in voluntary, and involuntary functions of the brain.The effects we see in a Alzheimer’s patient are the results of  abnormal changes are taking place in the brain. Apparently, changes in the brain may start more than 10 years earlier than visible symptoms appear. So it is very important to understand the stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

In the initial phase, is hard to realize that something is wrong with the patient because the symptoms are often confused to be those of normal aging process. When the part of the brain that control language, reasoning, sensory processing, and thought are affected, the symptoms become more pronounced. The affected person may keep telling the same thing over and over again, and also utter some words that are not easily understood. The victim may have difficulty performing daily tasks too. When the ailment gets to the advanced stage, the victim  may have difficulty walking, and they often suffer complications from other illnesses, such as pneumonia, or bed sores. The patient will even fail to recognize family members.

As of now, there is no positive clinical test for Alzheimer’s. Even CAT scans and MRI can not detect the changes in the brain tissue in the earlier phase of the disease.The doctors still have to analyse symptoms, rule out other possibilities, and the come to the conclusion that a patient is suffering from Alzheimer’s. So a thorough check up from a physician and a neurologist are required.

It seems researchers have discovered a protein, which they have named Alzheimer’s Disease Associated Protein (ADAP), in the autopsied brains of Alzheimer’s patients. If one day, they are able to find it in the bloodstream or spinal fluid, may be that will help in easy diagnosis. There is no cure yet, but seems some drugs have shown some promise in delaying the brain damage in affected patients.

When my grandmother passed away, she was totally unaware of what was happening to her. She did not have a yesterday, nor did she have a today. It has almost been a quarter century, but as for as the treatment to the condition, there is not much difference. At least there are reasons to be hopeful.I sincerely wish scientists will find a cure for this killer disease soon.

November is the Alzheimer’s Awarness month. If you know a senior who may show any symptoms, please do not delay seeing a qualified specialist. Get an evaluation as soon as possible. A cure may not exisit today. But if the onset of the degeneration is delayed, it may be possible that a cure is found in the near future.

-neelanjana