Human mind is funny.
Some time back, my daughter Dhenuka wanted me to read out ‘Sivagamiyin
Sapatham’ that immortal classic
penned by the immortal writer Kalki.
As I read out some chapters, my
thoughts went back with images
moving in my mind. I was just around 9
then when I read this novel for the first time and now as I was reading it
aloud, my mind started recollecting the entire story, episode after episode. At
the same time, a song-or rather a particular line from a song- started playing
in my mind constantly. And not without a reason..
The second
part of the second CharaNam of
that particular song refers to Maamallan
and Sivagami- two main characters of
the historical novel. For people not
that familiar with Tamizh literature
and the history of Tamizh Nadu, let
me tell you that the novel is set in
the 7th Century and it
talks about the Pallavas( a dynasty
which ruled Tamizh land between the
3rd and the 9th Centuries).It was during the reign of Mahendravarman that the sculptures were
carved and rock cut temples were built at Mahabalipuram.
Narasimha Maamallan was the son of Mahendravarman and Sivagami was his
lover.
Hold on!
Only the first part of the statement is true. The second part
about ‘Sivagami’ is factually wrong.
Then why do I call it a great work? This is
where that term called artistic liberty
comes into play. An artiste (writer
in this case) can take liberties with anything as long as it is aesthetic and relevant to his/her story. This by no stretch of imagination can be
called as ‘distorting history’. On
the other hand, it only shows the creativity
of the writer.
So masterfully did the author craft the story
that it is very difficult to believe that Sivagami
is a fictitious character. In fact, he also makes Sivagami visit the great Tamizh poet Thirunavukkarasar in his Matam
in Kanchi and makes her dance to his
couple of TevArams. Yes, Sivagami was an excellent classical
dancer!
Going back to me ‘reading sessions’, needless to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Don’t I enjoy reading chaste Tamizh
aloud? But apart from this fact, there is one more reason-as already mentioned.
The song ‘Oru Kaadal Devatai’ from ‘Saainthadamma Saainthaadu’(1977) always
gives me nostalgic feelings. This was his first ever KeeravaNi(though I knew only ‘Keerai’
and ‘VaNi’ those days). It is
composed in a high pitch and can easily lead one to believe that it is in VakuLabharaNam(same is the case with ‘Ore
idam nirandaram’ from Sattam En
Kaiyyil and ‘KaN malargaLin Azahippidazh’ from Thai Pongal). It is because of the graha bedam aspect and since there is a separate
Blog for such explaining such
technical details, I would prefer to do the explanation (not necessarily for
this song) in that Blog.
Another interesting feature of ‘Oru
Kaadal Devatai’ is that the audio
version has the truncated prelude
and first interlude. This, in fact
is a common feature of many of early year songs (till the first part of ’78).
The unabridged version will be
available only in the film version(OST). Since I hardly watched such films those days,
I always went by the audio version
available on the radio. Only a
chance visit to You Tube made me
aware of this fact. Now, contrast this with the present day trend of chopping off part of his song(s) or
even the whole song(s) in the film version.
Since the OST
version has the prelude and interlude in full, I am describing this
version only ( I managed to rip this version). However, I am also giving the
link to the audio version since the
recording quality of OST is below
average.
‘Oru Kaadal Devatai’ is a racy duet.
It starts with three different sets of instruments
playing three different sets of
notes simultaneously- the dulcet-toned small
flute, the higher-octave strings
and the subtle bass guitar. After a
while, it is the turn of the piped
instruments and the strings and
these two too play different sets of
notes. Only difference is that now
the percussion-which was silent
during the flute-strings-bass guitar
session - plays the chatushram beats
with gusto.
The entire musical
piece described above is missing in the audio version.
I must say one more thing here. Those days, Raaja sir would introduce at least one new sound in an album and he would use that sound
almost throughout the song. I shall
give more examples in my future posts. In Oru Kaadal.., he has used an instrument which gives a bubbly sound (not sure if it is from a keyboard though I know he was the
pioneer in using different kinds of keyboards as early as 1977!). This sound appears now along with the bass guitar and leads to the Pallavi.
SPB
starts the Pallavi in his inimitable
style and Suseela joins with her
sweet tone in the second half. In
between we have the higher-octave strings
playing for a period of 3 chatushram cycles! Also note that the lyrics are slightly different when the female renders it. The bass guitar acts both as one of the percussion instruments apart from
providing melody. Here I can’t help mentioning about a Bass Guitarist, who about 6
years ago made a statement in a National
Newspaper that nobody knew the
existence of Bass Guitar until 1992! Wonder how the so called
musicians can flaunt their ignorance so openly!!
The first
segment of the first interlude is a marvel. The strings play thrice, each time in a different octave. What a glide! The second
segment has the saxophone
etching a melody with the western flute
repeating it with some minor changes. Between these two (the sax and the flute), the strings play
very briefly in higher octave. All
along the ever-disciplined bass guitar
plays in its unique style. The special
sound appears again leading to the first
CharaNam. The sax-western
flute-strings segment is totally
missing in the audio version.
Some beautiful wordings in Tamizh embellish the lines in the CharaNam. We also see the strings
being interspersed between the lines.
As I said earlier in one of my posts, it always pays to read (and listen)
between the lines in a Raaja sir’s
composition.
Is it a twin - brass flute in the beginning of the second interlude? Or is any other instrument played along with the brass flute? It is indeed difficult to say. Rather than asking such
a question and thinking about it, is it not better to just enjoy that sound?
The special sound mentioned in the
beginning appears again now. The strings
follow and then change the scale and play the same notes transporting us to a new place and showing us some beautiful
moving images. The special sounding
instrument and the strings indulge
in a brief conversation before guiding us to the second CharaNam.
And this is where that line appears which made me reminisce about this song as I was
reading out the novel to my little
daughter..
A reading
session made me think of this song effectively filling my mind with it for many
days, finally resulting in this post.
Human mind is funny..
..Or is it?
No comments:
Post a Comment