New age IR's Raga Choices

[Sureshs65]

Vel/ Kamal/ RR / thumburu

I think we must take a few aspects into consideration when we are talking about usage of rare or not so often used ragas. One is what Vel had remarked about. When he uses it, we do not know about it For example, what ragam is 'kaatu vazhi' based on? I am not sure what it is based but it is a wonderful song.

The second and the more important aspects according to me is the genre he is using. Nowadays he is very much into jazz and you can hear that aspect very clearly in his best compositions, be it for 'Gayam 2' or 'Sneha Veedu'. He declared during the live show that both he and Karthik Raja were learning Jazz from the Hungarian guitarist. That influence clearly shows in 'Snehaveedu' songs as well as the BGM of ASK. Now, in case of Jazz, if you are sticking to some of the grammar there closely, it may be difficult to use certain carnatic raagas as it will be very difficult to set chords for them. One of my friends, a musician himself, was remarking as to how composers try composing Sriranjani in the madhyama sruthi because in the normal sruthi, Sriranjani lacks the 'pa' and it is supposed to be difficult to set chords for a scale which does not have 'pa'. Now, I am no musician and I am just quoting my friend here. (Any musician (amateur or professional) reading this can substantiate or correct this.) So he may be constrained by the genre itself because he is trying out new things in jazz genre. That's why his songs are sounding so fresh. As in 'andala lokam' in Gayam 2 or the songs of 'Sneha Veedu'. Ofcourse we are still stuck in his 'tenral vandu ennai thodu' times that we want him to recreate that magic. The truth is, magic is happening in a different genre and lot of us don't seem to realise that magic is indeed happening.

Ofcouse that is not to say he isn't using rare ragas. 'neeraal udal kazhuvi' is based on 'Punnagavarali', a raga which he hasn't used earlier. As Kamal is mentioning, 'Padithurai' has a song based on Saranga.

We must also take into account the fact that Raja is doing far less movies than what he was doing at his peak. Even at that time you would have got Suddha Dhanyasis, Suddha Saveris etc but given the wide range of movies he was doing, he had enough scope to come up with tunes based on new ragas.

I had earlier also written that as far as "SreeRamaRajyam' was concerned, Raja had understood the need of the market and delivered perfectly. Inspite of that I believe 'Sree Rama Lera' is a terrific composition, not letting us know which ragam it is. Even 'Jagadanandhakaaraka' though based on Suddha Dhanyasi, doesn't have any flavour of his earlier works. Nor does 'Seetha Seemanthamu'.

My personal opinion is, Raja is doing a lot of new things. And as a composer he knows which is new, from his point of view. So let us enjoy the newness that he gets in rather than worry if he has used a new raga or not. The way the same English language, in the hands of a master writer takes a new color, the same old ragas in the hands of Raja glow afresh. Like 'Amrithamaayi' based on Kalyani or 'Chandrabimbathin' based on Sriranjani.