Music for healing
PHOTO: S. MAHINSHA
KAITHAPRAM DAMODARAN NAMBOODIRI: Innovative use of ragas.
And you thought just listening to Anandabhairavi kneads away hypertension. Well, it does if heard at the right time and in the right ambience.
Or so, believes lyricist Kaithapram Damodaran Namboodiri. Kaithapram is all for using the raga-time equation for therapeutic purposes. "Each raga has a specific time frame, when it can be sung. Thus you have pre-dawn, dawn, forenoon, noon, afternoon, evening and night ragas. A raga heals best when sung at its allotted hour of the day, tunefully of course. `Samaya Sangeetha' is the best antidote, which has absolutely no side-affects," he says.
Training
To prove his point, Kaithapram, under the banner of the Kozhikode-based organisation, Swati Tirunal Kalakendra Music Therapy Foundation, is training a group of children in music therapy.
The project has got a shot in the arm with Abdu Samad Samadani, MP, allotting it Rs. 10 lakh from his MP's Fund. The organisation now plans to set up a three-storeyed building, complete with an audio-visual studio, ECG, pain detector, digicam, and 3D projector, exclusively for music therapy. The foundation for the proposed building will be laid on May 28, at Thiruvannur in Kozhikode.
Assisting Kaithapram in this pioneering effort is a panel of expert doctors and musicians, including Venkata Ramana, Chengotta Harihara Subramanyam, Kannan, Nedumangadu Sasidharan Nair and Prasanth.
The poet has also requested Navodaya Appachan to explore the possibility of 3-D visuals as an add-on to the music. "Imagine waking up, listening to raga Bhupala and watching the rising sun. Or, gazing at the stars as the soft strains of Nilambari put you to deep slumber. The effect can be magical," says Kaithapram.
To begin with, the Foundation will offer a 21-day course. The patients the ailments could range from depression to insomnia, mania, neurosis, pain, restlessness and stress to blood pressure to cancer and headache will be exposed to different ragas through kritis, kirtanas and bhajans sung by the children. A team of doctors will closely monitor them from day one.
The patients would have to stick to a vegetarian diet and do yoga during the course. Cigarette and alcohol are a strict non-no.
But why kids? "Its simple. They have melodious voices and sing in tune."
The Foundation has conducted several therapy sessions in hospitals of Kasaragod, Kannur and Kozhikode districts. The results, Kaithapram says, have been a revelation. "We found that when exposed to good music, the blood count and oxygen levels increase, blood pressure decreases and stress vanishes. Not surprising, this. For, the human body is like a veena with the vertebral column as its mettu. When a well-tuned instrument is played, it will produce positive vibrations in the gathra veena," he says.
The only hitch, Kaithapram feels, is that music isn't recognised as a mode of therapy in India.
"The government should look into this issue. Then, not only the patient, but the doctor also will stand to benefit."
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