Song of the Day # 189
From: bb (@ 12.234.176.52) on: Wed Mar 26 23:18:28 EST 2003
Song of the Day: andhi mazhai pozhigiradhu from raja paarvai.
http://www.tfmpage.com/cgi-bin/stream.pl?url=http://www.dhool.com/sotd/andhi.rm
Lakshminarayan Srirangam Ramakrishnan writes in the "Classical Ilayaraja" article:
Vasantha is a fantastic ragam. It is a popular janyam of the unpopular melam Suryakaantham (17th). Its arohanam and avarohanam are Sa Ma1 Ga3 Ma1 Da2 Ni3 Sa; Sa Ni3 Da2 Ma1 Ga3 Ri1 Sa. While traditionally it is believed that Boopalam is the ragam suitable for the dawn, Vasantha is the ragam suitable for the dusk. So, no wonder Illayaraja used this ragam for a duet which talks about the rain pouring during the dusk! "Andhi mazhai pozhigi- radhu" is a great song in the movie rajapaarvai. Kamalhasan sings this song with Madhavi. It is one of those early songs that showed the full fervency of Illayaraja's mind for creativity. The classical orchestral grandeur of this song was unbelievable at that time. I distinctly remember hearing this song for the first time in "Oliyum Oliyum" in Madras Doordarshan. Those days we were living in the Telephone quarters in Kilpauk, Madras. Since we did not have a TV, we used to go to our neighbour's house. They had a merciless "hundiyal" right at the door, which demanded 25 paise for each program! Well, getting to see songs like "andhi mazhai" for just 25 paise was definitely worth the money!
Illayaraja starts the song with a prelude of "pop pop pop poboppo" by the chorus. The sudhdha madhyamam in Vasantha has served as the starting point for many classical krithis. Illayaraja too starts his "pop pop" in the madyamam like "Ma Ma Ma Ma Ga Ma Da". Classically, the transition from Ma to Da is not a straight one. There is a subtle Ni in between. That is, when the musicians say Da they go all the way to Ni and then drop down to the daivatham. Illayaraja starts the pallavi "andhi mazhai" like Ma Ma Ma, Ga Ma Da Ma Ga, Ga Ma Da Ma Ga Ma Ga Ri, Ma Ga Ga Ri Ri Sa. It is a beautiful start. All the hidden melody in the swaras of Vasantha are extracted in the pallavi itself. Even in the charanam his mind seems to be bent upon extracting all the melody in the Ga Ma Da transition. He starts the charanam like Ga Ma Da Ma, Ga Ma Da Ma, and the tune lingers there for a while!
This song also marked the early classics of Vairamuthu. His lyrics became a controversy too, in this song. He writes:
Andhi mazhai pozhigiradhu
Ovvoru thuliyilum un mugam therigiradhu...
Indhiran thottathu mundhiriyae
Ragasiya rathiri puththagamae....
Look, the hero who sings this song is a blind man in the movie! How can he see the heroine's face in each of those beautiful rain drops?! Perhaps that is what defines a poet's world. Physical defects get nullified in their world of fantasy! But, surely Vairamuthu got into trouble when he called the heroine as "the cashew nut of Lord Indira's garden"! Basically he means to say that the heroine is like a kind of sex bomb to the hero! She is the bible that the hero reads in the night! That is understandable. But what does this cashewnut stuff mean? Lord Indira is not known for romantic deeds like Manmadhan! Just for matching the alliteration of the words he made a senseless statement. (Recently Vaali got into trouble when he said "inji iduppazhaga" in thevar magan. Sure that ginger has got all degrees of sharp bends in its structure, but what has it got to do with the hero's hip!) In Demolition Man, Sandra Bullock may feel very much disgust- ed about what she calls as "biological transfer of fluids". But look how Vairamuthu characterises the feelings love creates during the youthful period of fantasy. He says "dreams torture", "eyelids weigh heavily", "it is like suturing a thorn inside the eye" and so on....
Illayaraja made T.V.Gopalakrishnan sing in the second interlude of this song. A short piece of Vasantha. (Earlier he had made him sing a short piece of Keeravani in "idhu oru nila kaalam" in Tick Tick Tick). There are few classical people who have tried the orchestral expedition of carnatic music. I remember the recordings of Y.M.Kamasastri often played in the radio long time ago. Invariably he would pick up a rare vivadhi ragam for his explorat- ion and have his orchestra play it. Albeit high technical quality, those recordings were not very much enjoyable. I would dare say that Illayaraja was the first guy who could appropriately use the orchestral music in a very "enjoyable" way. Later he got so much used to composing a tune for his orchestra that he started doing everything in his mind. That is an unbelei- vable state of knowledge. When the song goes like Ma Ma Ma Ga Ma Da Ma Ga, the background violin may be going like Da Ni Sa Ga Ri Sa in the upper octave. The chorus might be traversing in the Da Ni of the lower octave. The guitar chords might be vibrating in the F major area! If you could figure out that all these individual musical events would unify in a perfect harmony to give a superb Vasantha melody, just by imagining in your mind, then is it not a great task?! Where the heaven is this enigmatic MIND?
- The classical Ilayaraja articles are here: http://tfmpage.com/ci/
Discussion Pages in TFMPage on this Song
http://tfmpage.com/forum/22464.20880.03.21.22.html
http://tfmpage.com/forum/19967.20880.03.21.22.html
http://tfmpage.com/forum/26544.20880.03.21.22.html