"I hate the raaga Rasikapriya!" - Many a music enthusiast has expressed openly. If I had had some leisure, I would have pointed a logical fallacy in the statement. "Ranjako jana-chittaanaam sa raaga kathito budhaihi" is the official defintion of "raaga". "The wise say: Raaga is that tune which is pleasing to people". That said, a raaga cannot be an object of hatred!
Names of raagas have always been fascinating and have a rich personality of their own. About the music, we'll fix up a different appointment. Here, our focus is mainly on the name and we will try an unravel some of them.
Parents in their over-enthusiasm come up with all sorts of names and the helpless wards serve a lifelong sentence! So too, some raagas might complain that despite their pleasing personality, they are robbed off a stylish name. Imagine being named "Begada" or "Kalgada" or "Todi" or "Bhimplas" or "Varaali"? It just does not have a musical ring to it and I understand their pain.
"Bombay Jaishree", "Bombay Balaji", "Delhi Ganesh" and "Calcutta Krishnamurthy" are some well known personalities in the arts who carry the place of their origin along with their name. In fact, if we simply referred to them as Jaishree or Ganesh, they would have lost half of their aura! I've often wondered whether these folks applied for a new passport when Bombay officially changed over to Mumbai and Calcutta to Kolkata! Evidently, they didn't and still go by the earlier versions of these cities. So too, some raagas carry their place of origin: Why would we otherwise have raagas named "Saurashtram" or "Kambhoji" (from Kambhoja), or "Gouda-malhar" or "Kedara-gowla" or "kosalam"?
Poly-syllabic names were in vogue in South India till a generation ago. I guess it was fahionable in those days to be named Shivashankaranarayanan or Shivaramakrishnan. Not that they actually used them ever in full. It was truncated even in those days to "Cheenu mama" for Srinivasan uncle.
I can imagine raaga Mayamaalavagoula introducing herself today: With a stylish flick of her hand over her well groomed hair, she would stick out her manicured hand and announce, "Hi, I'm Maya!".
An octogenarian may have a name like "Tarun" (young) or a lady on the wrong side of 70 may still be called "Baby" or someone who wouldn't go too far in a beauty contest might still have the name "Sundari". The object lesson learnt is that parents need to be careful that the names chosen for their children can be applicable for the entire lifetime and don't need a mandatory revision at a later point in time!
My only hope is that better sense prevailed in naming raagas. It would be quite a dampener if the raaga "Charukeshi" actually turned up at a concert and we found it to be as bald as an ostrich or the raaga "Vaachaspati" turned out to be a thumb-print candidate or the raaga "Sucharitra" actually came from a questionable background!!
Our lives are that much richer because the musical platter has so many dishes. Some spicy to evoke tears, others sweet and still others sour. We need them all. We are blessed!
Names of raagas have always been fascinating and have a rich personality of their own. About the music, we'll fix up a different appointment. Here, our focus is mainly on the name and we will try an unravel some of them.
Parents in their over-enthusiasm come up with all sorts of names and the helpless wards serve a lifelong sentence! So too, some raagas might complain that despite their pleasing personality, they are robbed off a stylish name. Imagine being named "Begada" or "Kalgada" or "Todi" or "Bhimplas" or "Varaali"? It just does not have a musical ring to it and I understand their pain.
"Bombay Jaishree", "Bombay Balaji", "Delhi Ganesh" and "Calcutta Krishnamurthy" are some well known personalities in the arts who carry the place of their origin along with their name. In fact, if we simply referred to them as Jaishree or Ganesh, they would have lost half of their aura! I've often wondered whether these folks applied for a new passport when Bombay officially changed over to Mumbai and Calcutta to Kolkata! Evidently, they didn't and still go by the earlier versions of these cities. So too, some raagas carry their place of origin: Why would we otherwise have raagas named "Saurashtram" or "Kambhoji" (from Kambhoja), or "Gouda-malhar" or "Kedara-gowla" or "kosalam"?
Poly-syllabic names were in vogue in South India till a generation ago. I guess it was fahionable in those days to be named Shivashankaranarayanan or Shivaramakrishnan. Not that they actually used them ever in full. It was truncated even in those days to "Cheenu mama" for Srinivasan uncle.
I can imagine raaga Mayamaalavagoula introducing herself today: With a stylish flick of her hand over her well groomed hair, she would stick out her manicured hand and announce, "Hi, I'm Maya!".
An octogenarian may have a name like "Tarun" (young) or a lady on the wrong side of 70 may still be called "Baby" or someone who wouldn't go too far in a beauty contest might still have the name "Sundari". The object lesson learnt is that parents need to be careful that the names chosen for their children can be applicable for the entire lifetime and don't need a mandatory revision at a later point in time!
My only hope is that better sense prevailed in naming raagas. It would be quite a dampener if the raaga "Charukeshi" actually turned up at a concert and we found it to be as bald as an ostrich or the raaga "Vaachaspati" turned out to be a thumb-print candidate or the raaga "Sucharitra" actually came from a questionable background!!
Our lives are that much richer because the musical platter has so many dishes. Some spicy to evoke tears, others sweet and still others sour. We need them all. We are blessed!
Hey... but Maya can't be sooo stylish, can she?
ReplyDeleteSam, And may I ask why Maya cannot be so stylish!? Is it about the name or the raga ? Both are stylish. Go! Climb a tree if you don't agree!
ReplyDelete