Harikambhoji
A raga that struggles for gravitas, but holds its own with empathy
Gravitas
Early in my career, almost two decades ago, I received this feedback — “You need to have more gravitas”. This is the most frustrating sort of feedback — when you agree with the assessment, but are entirely unclear about what to do with it. Because it is less to do with what you do, or how you do it, and more to do with who you are. And, what really, can you do about who you are? I have struggled with gravitas and ‘presence’ on and off right through my working life, even today. Only two (likely related) things seem to help — forgetting about it, and having conviction about what you say (or as a good friend put it, as I turned to him for help — “I bet you don’t have this problem when you speak about Carnatic music”).
Perhaps one of the reasons I am so fond of the raga Harikambhoji is that it too seems to have a lifelong struggle with gravitas. Harikambhoji has much in common with Kharaharapriya, the raga I dealt with in my previous post. Both are linear ragas with seven notes. Of the composer Trinity, only Thyagaraja has composed in these ragas, which suggests that they are not old ‘organic’ ragas, but had their origins as scales. Both are popular ragas, and owe their popularity and existence as fully-formed ragas largely to the works of Thyagaraja in the raga. And like with Kharaharapriya, there exist many substantial ragas whose notes are a subset of the notes that comprise Harikambhoji.
But while Kharaharapriya is firmly established as a ‘Big 6’ raga, Harikambhoji has not attained that status. You don’t think of it as a raga with any great heft. It is often sung as an important piece in a concert, but rarely sung as a ‘main piece’. It is not often considered a raga that can anchor a concert. In short, it struggles for gravitas.
Empathy
So Harikambhoji struggles with gravitas among a roomful of ragas, but once it has your attention, boy, can it hold it’s own! It seems to do so by engaging you with an immense amount of empathy. I cannot think of any raga that embodies empathy as fully as this raga. It seems to care about what you are saying, makes an effort to understand what you are going through, and tries to provide support.
Empathy has been on my mind a lot lately.
The Modi regime is marked by a singular lack of empathy. This is evidenced in the way it goes about pretty much anything it does — whether the brutal suddenness of demonetization, the unplanned rush to GST implementation, the onus on a citizen to prove their existence by virtue of an Aadhar card, the callous requirement for the Assamese to prove that they are their father’s child, and he the son of his father, with only poorly maintained government records considered valid proof (DNA testing is expressly disallowed), or the latest ‘bold decision’ — the abrogation of Article 370 while blockading 12 million Kashmiris from each other and the rest of the world, while the rest of India celebrates their fate.
I’ve also watched as empathy is increasingly and widely seen as a soft-headed weakness rather than a virtue. A pervasive lack of empathy, and more specifically the narrowing of the very ability to empathize with another may be a quixotic thing to worry about. But we all know (or ought to) that a democracy without a commitment to individual rights is a mob. And a prerequisite for even a basic appreciation of individual rights, let alone a commitment to them, is empathy. One may go so far as to say that empathy is a prerequisite for all morality. So as empathy rapidly evaporates, so does democracy as we know it. The naked assault on individual rights has in fact already begun — the amendment to the UAPA allows a few good men to brand you or I a terrorist, to be detained and with no legal recourse for 6 months.
Of course, those who care little about what is going on will protest that they are in fact filled with empathy, and that they do in fact live by the Golden Rule, which I first came across in a 4th standard lesson on Confucius: “Do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you”. That’s worse — all that means is that they consider some humans to be sub-humans, who don’t matter. This of course is the animating pulse of any mode of populism. [For instance, there are many who cheer the creation of the Union Territory of Ladhak, as India listening to the voice of Ladhakis. That’s fine on its own. But they don’t see why it is wrong for the same August 5th action to have been taken without any input from Kashmiris, while keeping them under an indefinite siege like condition].
They are also implacably unruffled about the morphing of a democracy into a majoritarian state. The mob after all will not come after them, the rightly acting, rightly thinking, the rightly named virtuous. Nor will they will ever be branded a terrorist. They do not realize that they may be safe in this mob, but there is always a mob with their name on it, for whom they could become the illegitimate sub-human. The Tamil in Delhi, the taxpayer, the landed, the educated, the dancer. Once the State itself legitimizes majoritarianism, making it the uninterrogated norm, which is the majority, and who the target are mere details to be sorted in the heat of the moment or in the cool of the backroom.
And so this is the other reason I love Harikambhoji. With its empathy, it signifies all that is important about being human.
Carnatic Music in One Song
I wrote an obituary for DK Pattammal, in which I said:
There is a joyful, urgent, and emphatic energy that seeps through every exact note. It is as though her music is Carnatic Music, as it wants to be, not for the Gods, not for the audiences, but for itself, and perhaps, Pattammal. The complete lack of pretension, or extraneous intent, in Pattamal’s music makes it surprisingly captivating.
This shines through in her rendition of Enthara neethana, by Thyagaraja.
Gurus and Shishyas
This post on Harikambhoji was triggered in part by my listening to this rendition of Thyagaraja’s Chani Thodi by Dr. S. Ramanathan. Ramanathan is one of my favourite vocalists, with his simple, straightforward, almost minimalist, but high energy style. I have a distinct image in my head of listening to him at the Music Academy as a child. An image dominated by his distinctive full white beard. I don’t know if is a true memory.
This seems to be one of the rare instances in which Harikambhoji has been taken up as the ‘main piece’ in a concert. The piece starts with an alapana at 1:03:40. After rendering the composition, the artists take up the line patitula brochu pattadhi kaari for neraval (improvisation on a single line) at about 1:21:00. This is followed by kalpana-swaras (solfa-syllable improvisation) beginning at about 1:26:11. And finally, the tani-avarthanam (percussion solo) begins at 1:36:05. He is accompanied by Lalgudi G. Jayaraman on the violin and Trichy Sankaran on the mridangam.
One of Ramanathan’s foremost disciples is S. Sowmya. She is to receive the Sangita Kalanidhi award from the Music Academy (considered the ‘Nobel Prize of Carnatic Music’) later this year, 24 years after Ramanathan did. Like her guru was, she is also a student of Carnatic music in the academic sense, and shares her insights on the finer points of Carnatic Music through numerous ‘lecture-demonstrations’. She was an early favourite of mine among the now middler-aged but then ‘young generation’ (Sanjay Subrahmanyan, S. Sowmya, Sudha Raghunathan, Vijay Siva, Unnikrishnan, TM Krishna…).
Here is her rendition of Dinamani Vamsa by Thyagaraja, perhaps the most well known and oft-rendered composition in Harikambhoji.
When one thinks of Dinamani Vamsa however, the first artist that comes to mind is Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer. Like with many other pieces that he sang often, his rendition set the benchmark for future generations.
And if Semmangudi made Dinamani Vamsa his own, then his foremost disciple M.S. Subbulakshmi did the same for Thyagaraja’s Rama Nannu Brovara. When writing a tribute to her on her 95th birth anniversary, I struggled to pinpoint what made her music special. I identified her voice as one factor. Beyond that then this is where I was forced to land:
Her music was filled with feeling. She was immersed in her music, and it showed. Even if predictable, it was freshly felt music each time because she felt it freshly each time. And therefore real, meaningful and tangible. […] the hope and anticipation I feel when listening to her rendition of Thyagara’s Rama Nannu Brovara are real. Her neraval (a type of improvisation) at “Meppulakai” might be well worn but is still exciting.
Here are two different renditions of hers of the song. See if you agree with me.
Not Thyagaraja, but Close
There is a beautiful album produced by Charsur Digital Works called Ashwattha. The singer is Sanjay Subrahmanyan. In the album he sings a selection of compositions by the disciple ‘lineage’ of Thyagaraja. The whole album is worth downloading from Play Store or Apple Music (if available), but the one song in particular that I love is Saketha Nagara Natha in Harikambhoji, composed by Mysore Sadashiva Rao. Sadashiva Rao was a disciple of Walajapet Venkataramana Bhagvatar, who in turn was a leading disciple of Thyagaraja. Unfortunately, the rendition by Sanjay is not readily available to share with you. Instead, here’s a rendition by the yesteryear icon G.N. Balasubramaniam.
Gravitas, two takes
Gravitas can come in many forms. I remember the manager who gave me the feedback on gravitas saying “this doesn’t mean that you suddenly start speaking loudly or banging your fist on the table — that won’t work for you.” What he was hinting at was the importance of authenticity.
So here is the same Thyagaraja song — Enduku Nirdaya, sung by artistes who imbued their music with undeniable, but very different sorts of gravitas.
The first is by T. Brinda, grand-daughter of the famous Veena Dhannammal, and a legend in her own right. Apparently Spencer Venugopal has said that trying to analyse her music is like trying to find the source of the beauty of a flower by dissecting it, but this write-up by N. Ravikiran is a very good attempt. The gravitas I associate with her music is that of bamboo — tall, thin, strong, simple, unfussed, reaching and aesthetic. There is a certain sense of precision, restraint and clarity that shines through.
The second rendition is by the Alathur Brothers (Srinivasa Iyer and Sivasubramania Iyer; not really brothers). Like many others, I associate their music with a certain robust, deliberate, fullness. If Brinda’s gravitas is akin to that of bamboo, theirs is more gulmohar or oak. In this recording of a live concert, Enduku Nirdaya commences at 25:33:
[If interested, and you understand Tamil, check out a short video of Sanjay Subrahmanyan speaking of the Alathur Brothers’ music].
Empathy, distilled.
I discovered Thyagaraja’s Undedi Ramudu relatively recently. There seems to be a venue in Mysore called “Parvathi House”. The patrons of this house have clearly held chamber music concerts regularly from as early as the 1960s, and until as recently as 2014. They seem to have had a stunning array of stalwarts perform there over the years. And it would seem that Undedi Ramudu was a particular favourite of a one time patron — many artists have performed this song at Parvathi House. Strangely, I have not come across this song, outside the ‘Parvathi House’ context.
Here is Maharajapuram Santhanam’s rendition from his 1972 concert at Parvathi House. It is now my all time favourite rendition of any song in Harikambhoji. Moving, and empathy distilled.
Thank you for listening!
