However, since it is more closely related to Karaharapriya (sanchara-wise), it might be appropriate to call it a janyam of Karaharapriya, with a reduced daivatham in the avarohanam (from Da2 to Da1). Thus the aroganam is that of Karaharapriya and the avarohanam – Nadabhairavi! Hence you could call it as the janyam of either Karaharapriya or Nadabhairavi. Ilayaraja, who is known for his very minimal deviation from the chosen scale, also seems to enjoy presenting an (expected) vagary of occasional Da2 and Ni3 usage in these songs.īhairavi is a major ‘gana’ raagam. In many of these songs, the music directors tend to present a hybrid by incorporating Da2, and Ni3 usages. A.R.Rahman’s chandralEkhaa ( Thiruda Thiruda) is another fantastic example of the C minor scale.
So, even though one might know thousands of these songs, he might not be able to identify the Nadabhairavi raagam when sung in the classical sadas! Some examples for the songs in this scale would be kannE kalaimaanE ( Moonram Pirai), kalyaaNa maalai ( Pudhu Pudhu Arthangal), engirundhO iLamkuyilin ( Brahma), raakku muththu raakku ( Yejamaan), ennulE ennulE ( Valli – what a song!), then thenpaandi seemaiyilE ( Nayagan) etc…. Ilayaraja has scored countless songs in this scale. Probably one third of all the cinema songs are set in Nadabhairavi scale. But in cinema music this C minor scale is the supreme king. There are not very many keerthanais in Nadabhairavi. The fecundity of Nadabhairavi has been fully exploited in carnatic music to get innumerable janya raagams which are commonly sung, while the parent raagam has become totally ignored. While it is such an important raaga in the western music (the C minor scale), its importance is completely undermined in our music. Nadabhairavi is the 20th melakartha raagam. Of course, there are other few Bhairavis like Ahir Bhairavi (the Hindustani equivalent of Chakravaagam) which are not related to the above said Bhairavi group. In this group we have Nadabhairavi, Bhairavi, Sindhu Bhairavi, Ananda Bhairavi, Salakabhairavi and so on. Unlike the Ranjani group, some of the Bhairavi raagams are indeed genitically related. Ranjani, Janaranjani, Sivaranjani, Karnaranjani are janyams of the 59th, 29th, 22nd and 22nd melams respectively.
Of these, Mararanjani is the 25th mela raagam. We have Ranjani, Janaranjani, Mararanjani, Megaranjani, Sivaranjani, Karnaranjani and so on. For example, the Ranjani group of raagas. But there are some other unrelated raagas that have common last names. In this case, the above said raagas are all ‘DNA’ testified offsprings of Kalyani. Thus you have Mohanakalyani, Amirkalyani, Yamunakalyani and so on. While there is no dearth of names, for some unknown reason, there is lot of repetition in naming the raagas. This mesa helps in identifying the number and position that it occupies in the melakartha scale. For example, Kalyani has a first name (which is commonly omited), and that is, ‘mesa’. Some raagas seem to follow the first, middle and last name system! The only difference is, you don’t give a space between the first and last name. Then, Shanmukhapriya would be called as Dhanmukapriya (as Vibhishanan in Valmiki Ramayanam became Vibidanan in Kamba Ramayanam)! And he may rather to encourage a lower level of idiocy by goading his clan to replace all the Sanskrit sounding sounds like ‘ksha’, ‘jha’ etc in all the raagas to their Thamizh equivalents and then accept the raaga names. Alternatively, Ki.Veeramani may get somewhat sensible and appreciate the high-level idiocy in trying to translate the proper nouns in raaga names.
Maybe, Vairamuthu has some plans like translating all the raaga names into Thamizh as he tried translating Thyagaraja’s ‘nee dhayaradha’ in Sindhu Bhairavi movie as un dhayavillaiyaa (if only Ki.Veeramani was ready to fund the project, from the 5 lakh rupees that he got for perpetrating the deeds of thandhai Ee.Vae.Ra.
Ki.Veeramani is probably very sad about this. Even though there are some Thamizh equivalent names for raagas such as Sankarabharanam, nobody uses them. Most of the raaga names seem to be Sanskrit derivatives. South Indian classical music has got an excellent treasure of superb names. I’ve added links to the songs, so you can listen as you read. This is the 8th of 15 articles titled Classical Ilayaraja appeared on Usenet in the 90s.