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Moods of a raga: Krishnakumar.

For the Sabha, this was the first in what they plan to be a regular series. The raga chosen was Dwijavanthi. Supposed to have been transplanted from Hindustani, this raga is known in the North as Jaijaivanthi. It resembles Yadukula Khamboji and Sahana.

The evening began with a Hindustani sitar recital by Krishnakumar, a disciple of Ustad Bale Khan. He began with a brief description of the two ways or ‘angs’ to which Dwijavanthi belongs. There are the Desh and Bageswari ‘angs.’ Krishnakumar went on to play the raga in the Desh ‘ang,’ which had traces of Desh raga. He was accompanied on the tabla by Deen Mohan. This was followed by a Bandish composed by Fayaz Khan in the same raga.

Dwijavanthi is one raga that music composers have never really explored in Malayalam films or light music. There are just a handful of light songs based on this raga and quite surprisingly only two in film music. Up-and-coming playback singer Vijesh Gopal made a well-researched presentation of the raga. He gave a detailed explanation of the structure of the raga. And then demonstrated it with the popular devotional ‘Oru neram enkillum kanathe vayente…’

Vijesh and M. V. Prabhath.

Vijesh then rendered the two films songs, one a Yesudas-Chitra duet from the film ‘Mr. Butler’ that begins ‘Virahini Radhe…’ and the other ‘Maaril charthiya marathaka kanchukam…’ from the film ‘Oru Kochu Swapnam.’ Then M. V. Prabhath played corresponding Western notes on the keyboard as Vijesh played the bhajan ‘Raghupathi Raghava Rajaram…’

In Kathakali Sangeetham it is usual for a raga to be used to delineate various moods. Kalamandalam Gopalakrishnan, in his introduction to the raga, explained that in Kathakali the structure is primarily handed down by the gurus. Moreover, the raga is used primarily to assist the actors on stage. In Kathakali, Dwijavanthi is used to express both Karunam and Veeram in one single padam. Gopalakrishnan chose the lovely padam ‘Marimankanni…’ from Nalacharitham Moonam Divasam. Thripunithura Hari accompanied him on the edakka.

The piece dé resistance was M. K. Sankaran Namboodiri’s erudite exposition of the raga in true Carnatic style. He explained the structure of the raga in detail and blazed off with the famous Muthuswamy Dikshitar kirti ‘Akhilandeswari…’ It was a detailed, elaborate rendering complete with free flowing alapanam, niraval and swaraprathara. The thaniavarthanam that followed provided a perfect climax.

Kalamandalam Gopalakrishnan.

Sankaran Namboodiri rendered a Tamil composition by Periyaswamy Thooran, ‘Enku naan selven ayya…’ in the same raga.

Edappally Ajith who provided excellent back-up on the violin played a thillana composed by Lalgudi Jayaraman in Dwijavanthi. A short Swati Tirunal padam ‘Tharuni njan enthu chaivu…’ that had all the colour and mood of the raga was followed by a brilliant ragam-tanam-pallavi. This gave Sankaran Namboodiri plenty of room to improvise and he did it with élan. Since he had elaborated on the raga earlier, the vocalist began with the tanam. Cherthala Krishnakumar (mridangam), Tripunithura Gopalakrishnan (ganjira), Kollam Pramod (ghatom) and Kottayam Anish (moorsing) combined well.

Sankaran Namboodiri.

Sankaran Namboodiri wound up the concert with a sloka on Goddess Mookambika and the bhajan ‘Raghupathi Raghava Rajaram…’

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