How many of you are familiar with the name Lazarus?
As per the Bible,
Lazarus of Bethany was a great
devotee/follower of Jesus. He falls
ill and though Jesus comes to know
about this, he stays put at his place for some days. Upon reaching Bethany, he is told by Lazarus’ sisters that Lazarus died four
days back. Jesus goes to the Tomb, says a prayer and asks Lazarus
to come out. Lazarus rises from the
grave alive!
The Bible
quotes Jesus as saying "I am the resurrection, and the life. He that
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth
and believeth in me shall never die".
This resurrection
conveys a lot.
1. Anything can be
undone with true faith and belief.
2. Resurrection and
Rebirth are facts.
3. ‘Dead’ does not
denote just people. It is just symbolic and denotes things/deeds.
Lest I be
understood as a philosopher or even
a religious preacher ( I hate the
word ‘religion’ anyway), let me tell you that the idea behind saying all these
is to put across certain facts as experienced by me. In fact, there is nothing
that life does not teach us. It is
in our hands to understand why things happen (either favouring us or against
us) and move on. Once we let go of things, we are born new.. and this is what
is resurrection!
In my post on the New Year Day in 2012, I asked if there is any significance in celebrating New Year Day. After all, it is just
another day! I further wrote that ‘ Every New Year brings us hope. And it is
this hope which keeps us all going.’
In my opinion, ‘False Hope’ is a misnomer. Hope can
never be false. Miracles happen with hope and faith and I have been
experiencing it. Let us all spread positivity by being positive and acting
positive.
The rare gem of
the day, ‘En Anbe’ from ‘Neram
Nalla Neram’(1984) is positive too. This song somehow gives me a lot of
confidence to face things and also have hope though it is not like the usual
old song of the ‘50s and ‘60s which preaches us to do certain
things and avoid certain things. Though I have not watched the movie nor have I
seen the picturisation, I feel it is sung by a lady to motivate her beloved.
To start with, the
tune in Madhyamavati is sweet and
majestic. Next, we have wordings like ‘muyandraal eduvum mudiyum’(Try and
you will succeed surely!), ‘aaha, pudu aarambham’(Oh, it is a
good beginning), ‘naaLum maatRam kaaNum’(change happens every day), ‘puliyenave
ezhundu vidu’(Rise like a tiger). Finally, the postlude has the vocals reaching a crescendo making us go in a
trance.
The prelude has the beautiful humming of Janaki with the Keys and the Strings
moving innocuously.
The Pallavi in pure Madhyamavati has his trademark ‘podi
sangatis’. The lines in the CharaNams
are fluent too and alien notes in the second part CharaNams go with the flow of the song and does not sound jarring
at all.
How a keyboard can be used and should be used
is demonstrated yet again in the first
interlude. The special sounds in the beginning, in the middle and towards
the end are different and melodious. The Strings
appear thrice and each time there is a variation. His penchant for
variation continues in the percussion too with the Chatushram sounding ‘ta ka –
mi’ in the first part (keys),
sounding just the first syllable and that too subtly in the second part (higher octave strings) and not sounding
at all in the last part (‘call and response’ between the keys and the strings).
The second interlude is a rhapsody. First,
there is chorus in Madhyamavati with
the Strings backing it at the same
time playing a different melody. There is short ‘call and response’ between the
Guitar and the Veena before the Flute takes
over giving some folksy shades. Not the one to give up, the Veena continues with the percussion
replying ‘ta – dhi mi’ even as the
Flute charts its own course in Madhyamavati.
It is the turn of higher octave strings and
the mid octave strings to drench us
in melody. And how? The former goes for a count of four while the latter plays
for a count of three with the last count left as silent!
What follows is
extra ordinary and I would say this is what makes him the greatest composer
Indian Film Music has ever seen. Guitar
appears from nowhere and in a matter of 6
cycles of Chatushram, covers the
entire range of the ragam. The Strings back it for the first 4 cycles and then remain silent.
Finally these play for the first half of 2
cycles with the percussion replying in the next half as ‘- ka dhi mi’.
Who said miracles
happen only in mythologies?
