New age IR's Raga Choices

[KV]

On Chandrabimbam, skr and I have been discussing about this song's ragam. He tells me that there was a discussion on twitter when it was released but I'm not aware of it. I also listened to a clipping of Vicky explaning this song where he says it is Sriranjani set to Madhyama shruthi. Here's a post I'd sent to skr (in our pm discussion). I thought it'd be a good idea posting it here as we're discussing ragam selection.
sa ni sa Ma Ga
Pa Ma Ga sa
sa ni sa ni da pa
This is the swara that I’m able to map the song to and the rest of the song follows similarly. Here are some observations:
1) There is no usage of Ri anywhere in the tune of the song (to me, at least)
That pretty much rules out Sriranjini. Any standard Sriranjani song has ample Ri usage, because of which I think this song somehow never gave me the feel of Srirajani. It seems tough to discount Ri from Sriranjani and get the same sound.

2) I think the placement of Sa is not really the thing that creates the confusion. Its rather the decision to use a Madhyama shruthi that muddles things. Firstly, why should the scale be shifted from Sa to Ma? Is there any specific reason to omit the original Sa and shift to Ma to make it the starting point of the scale. Why is it inappropriate to assume the original sa as sa and leave the ma as ma!?

3) Theoretically, as per a music teacher, this is done only for Eka sthayi ragams where the whole composition revolves within one sthayi (only sa to Ni, without hitting the upper Sa). He quotes Senjurutti as an example. This song in the charanams goes to the higher octave (konjum maalya ivide line). Would it then be theoretically right to assume a madhyama shruthi for this song?

4) The song seems to operate within S G3 M1 P D2 N2 S and S N2 D2 P M1 G3 S almost fully. With Sriranjani out of the equation for me, the other ragam in contention came up – Bagheshri. This ragam, though shares the same Arohanam, has a vakra avarohanam S N2 D2 M1 P D2 G2 M1 R2 S which also has Ri in it. All the descending phrases/lines in Chandrabimbam seem to have a linear descent with no vakram really. So, it sounds logical to me to assume the avarohanam as S N2 D2 P M1 G3 S. And when I looked up the chart, this combination reads ‘Pravritti’ (god promise, I’m hearing this name the first time!). Now, if Raaja really had this obscure scale in mind or just took up the more popupar Janaka ragam Chakravakam and simply ended up leaving out the Ri in his tuning process, I don’t know how many of us can have the exact answer to that!

5) The song that played in my mind as I heard Chandrabimbam is Adiye Kiliye (Kudaikkul mazhai; only the pallavi). I also had a bit of Mazhai Varudhu mazhai varudhu ringing afar. Adiye kiliye also seems to have had this Sriranjini versus Bhageshree debate (with an Abhogi in the equation as well!). The pallavi actually does not use Ri and Ma at all, which makes it S G3 P D2 N2 S and S N2 D2 P G3 S which the chart says in Valaji. (which when done a bedham yields Abhogi it seems!). This changes charanam onwards though.