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On the day of the performance, the court was packed with
courtiers and royal guests. People had come from far and near to
hear Tansen sing.
Tansen was waiting with his tanpura in hand and, as soon as the
Emperor entered and sat on the throne, the great musician began
the alap - the first portion of a raga.
As Tansen sang on, the surrounding air got warmer and warmer.
The audience started perspiring. Leaves and flowers in the
garden dried and crumbled to the ground. Water in the fountains
began to boil. Birds flew away in fright. The unlit lamps on the
walls lighted up mysteriously and flames appeared in the air.
People fled from the court in terror while the fire generated by
the raga raged on, burning the curtains to cinder. As the
Emperor got up and stood listening with awe, the rose that he
often held in his hand drooped and died.
Now Tansen's body was hot and feverish, but absorbed in Rag
Deepak he continued to sing vigorously. Such was the power of
Rag Deepak, rightly named after the flame… the raga that brought
fire on rendition.
Music is truly magical, every tune, every tone, every note…
all sending across the right vibes to soothe the nerves. It
emerges as the most powerful medicine of all, as well as the
best form of entertainment.
There once existed ragas that could do miracles like Rag
Deepak. History has it that the flames of the raga were
supposedly doused by yet another raga, Megh Malhar. As the name
suggests, Megh Malhar gathered up the clouds and it rained!
While up north it is known so, in south Indian style of
classical music, it is known as Amrithavarshini.
This rare talent to make magic with ragas is called nada
siddha in Sanskrit. “It’s almost lost… died with the first
generation of Tansen’s disciples,” says Radhe, an ardent
patriarch of art in the form of music, who also owns plenty of
blogs and websites of classical music downloads. “It has lost
its fervour, but one cannot say that it is a lost art, for it
does exist in various other forms, sung in different styles,”
she concludes.
Ragas can be really mysterious. There are different ragas in
Indian music and each raga creates a different mood. A raga can
make you so happy that you want to dance, or it can make you so
sad that it brings tears to your eyes. Besides performing in the
court, Tansen is believed to have often sung alone for Emperor
Akbar. At night he sang ragas that would soothe and help Akbar
fall asleep, and in the morning Tansen sang special ragas that
would gently awaken the Emperor.
“Only traces of those melodies exist in the present world of
remixed and mirch-masala music. Carnatic music itself has very
few followers these days,” complains S Padmavathy, a renowned
musician from Chennai. Rakesh, a young singer, also feels the
same. “Music is so powerful,” he says, “unfortunately, only a
few realise its potential.” Music can be such a good healer. “No
intake medicines, no side effects, no expenses… Just a leisurely
day and a good old tape recorder. That’s what music therapy is
all about,” says Ragini, who runs a music therapy centre. “There
is a raga for every situation, every condition,” she says.
“Ragas really are therapeutic. Call them magical if you wish
to, but they do have the powers to bring rain and fire. However,
it is all in the singing that they manifest their true powers.
All the musical exponents I’ve known believe that if properly
sung, these ragas really do work wonders. The musician must
really be extraordinarily brilliant and devoted to music for
this to happen,” opines Archana, a singer.
The ragas are full of unexplored beauty, mystique and depth -
something utterly magical. Yet another powerful raga is Raga
Yaman. It is a veritable ocean - fathomless, horizonless,
tranquil, full of dignity and repose. “What we musicians play is
only the tip of its musical iceberg. Yaman is a raga for every
mood, every ras, every situation. It is unmistakably the one
raga that serves as a divine channel for communicating with
God,” says Radhe.
Raga Darbari works its magic with the help of minutely
flattened intervals recalling the harmonic ambiance of the
blues. It is a deeply moving, emotionally intense raga with
enough detail and nuance to repay repeated listening. Raga
Darbari is like what we say, a dialect of the original raga of
Tansen. Many such mystic ragas are ascribed to Tansen. Ragas
like Mian ki Malhar, Mian ki Todi and Darbari Kanada are the
most famous and existent today too.
Says Rakesh, a finalist of the Superstar Global, a
reality-cum-musical talent hunt, “I think there exists a world
which truly is unknown for a normal human being here on earth...
some call it the spiritual presence or the omnipresent force.
Music promotes positive energy to that force. This is not only
done by the singer but also by the listeners.”
“I think it is this positive energy that is reflected as rain
or fire. Nowadays, there are not enough aspirants to sing those
ragas with 100 per cent efficiency and there are no spirited
listeners who appreciate great music. All these account for the
absence of the miracles.”
“Like fables and folklore, these musical wonders have changed
through time. No one knows the ancient real McCoy, but it still
goes down generations with personal touches and changes. No one
can bring rain or create fire anymore… It happens only in
stories of the great Tansen,” concludes Shravan, a music
composer.
Padma Venkatraman
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