Samanvayam - The Joy of togetherness
Welcome to this special page! Hope you have listened to the ragamalika rendition of ‘Neelambari Sada Palayamam (Listen in Soundcloud)’. Curious to validate your findings? :) Please read on to get a glimpse of some of the interesting aspects of this composition.
- A composition made up of pallavis: This composition actually could be treated as a collection of 7 individual pallavis which have been sung together to give the feel of a complete song. This could be considered as a garland of pallavis, so just like ragamalika, it is a pallavimalika :)
- Raga and Lyrics are same: The opening lines Neelambari Sada Palayamam is in raga Neelambari, followed by Dharmavati Neelambari Sada Palayamam in raga Dharmavati followed by Palini Dharmavati Neelambari Sada Palayaman in raga Palini, Mandara Kusuma Priye . . . .in Mandari and so on, thus making the lyrics and the raga one and the same! And they are all names of Goddess Devi!
- Srothavaha Yati As the composition progresses, the length of the pallavi keeps building similar to Dikshitar’s Srothavaha Yati.
- Swaraksharams: Occur in all pallavi beginnings (Neelambari, Dharmavati, Palini, Mandari, Kalyani, SRi, Saraswathy) along with several other places through out the composition.
- Saptaswaras: The swaraksharams in first line are Ni and Sa, in the second one, Da Ni Sa, third one Pa Da Ni Sa, fourth one Ma Pa Da Ni Sa and so it goes till the pallavi in Saraswathy, where the swaraksarams would be Sa Ri Ga Ma Pa Da Ni Sa, the saptaswaras! Wow!!
- Keeping all the above aspects in mind, if we were to coin a term for this composition, what would it be? Saptaswarakshara Srothavaha Pallavi ragamalika!! :)))))
Apart from this, people from various geographical locations coming together to make this happen,
really a samanvayam, isn’t it? (Uma and Ram - Chennai, Balakrishna - Saarbrucken, Germany,
Vijay - Berlin, Sriram and Hema - USA).
We really enjoyed working on this, we hope you enjoyed listening to it too! Please do share with your
friends and family and wishing you all a happy Navarathri again!
