Kanniks writes:
This is a haunting song.
I did not pay much attention to this song when the film came out. The song actually hit me only during my 4th year at IIT.
The film is rosappoo ravikkaikkari.
The singer is Vani Jayaram.
The song starts with a dundunaa (ek taara), and is buttressed with some string arpegios playing the minor chord, then the flute shows a hint of a tetrachord combining the two arpegios in a melodic twist and leads into the melody.
The melody of the song is based on the scale of the raga madhuvanti – derived from the scale of dharmavati. The effective use of chords, leads to all kinds of pleasing illusions in the pallavi itself.
Then comes the fire. The strings play in unision, with ornamentation, the phrase
‘sgmp gpmp g’, with the glide from p to g and the santur chimes in.
The strings go on unchallenged, then the flute picks up at the higher end of the register and plays a solo, leading to the dilruba’s answer that leads into thecharanam ‘en manam gangaiyil’).
The song is particularly demanding and the singer does justice.
The second interlude, a dialogue between a keyboard oboe and a flute, to the background of a bed of strings, moving from the s to the n, is a masterpiece.
A sitar comes in from nowhere and steers the 2nd interlude to a stringful climax into the charanam.
This song is one of Illaiyaraja’s best and was featured in his tour of Italy. (That this and an equally great classic tumbi vaa were featured there doesnt mean anything, if you look at all the other songs featured in the tour).
The richness of the song is a contrast to the profile of the movie, relative to the the high profile megabudget ones that float through the screens today.
Illaiyaraja’s other dharmavati is mindum mindum vaa from the film Vikram. More on it later.
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