Running shoes may actually cause injuries. The heel has evolved to detect the pressure of hitting the ground, and to adjust the force with which to land our feet. Cushioned shoes soften the pressure. So we tend to land with greater force, creating more stress on our bones.
In fact, the more expensive the shoe, the more likely the injuries!
Click here to search for Hindi songs.
This is an article on how I wrote the search engine.
I find it a nuisance to have to go to Raaga, search for a song, not find it, then go to MusicIndiaOnline, not find it, then go to Musicplug.in, and so on until Google.
So I got the list of songs from some of these sites, put it together in one place, and implemented a find-as-you-type.
Just go to s-anand.net/hindi and type a song or movie name.
Update: How I created this is a very long story, spanning over two years. And here it is.
Over the last 5 years, my MP3 collection had grown quite large. Most of these were from MP3 CDs I had bought, songs I’d downloaded, or songs I’d recorded. In any case, the file names were a mess. In early 2005, I decided to organise the collection and put them all into one big directory per language, and name the files in the format “Movie.Song.mp3”.
People think I’m crazy to use a single large directory. But I prefer one directory with 5,000 files to 1000 directories with 5 files for a simple reason. Searching in one directory is easier than in multiple directories. You can just sort everything by name, date modified, size, whatever. On the command prompt, you can type “DIR dil*.txt” to see all movies starting with “Dil”.
I chose the “Movie.Song.mp3” format because the movie name and the song name were really the only two things I knew about every song I had. I didn’t always know the music director, singers or year of the movie. And I placed “Movie” before “Song” because I often browse songs within a single movie, and it’s useful to sort by name in Windows Explorer and see all the songs in a movie. I’ve never had a need to sort by song name. If I wanted to find a song that started with, say, “pehla”, I’d just type “DIR *pehla*” on the Command Prompt. (As you might have guessed, I have a Command Prompt window always open.)
So, having very rationally organised my music collection, I was happy.
Soon the problem shifted to song discovery. I’d heard the familiar songs in my collection many times. Of the unfamiliar songs, but I didn’t know which to pick. I knew I liked some music directors more than others, and had a hunch I liked older songs. (My subsequent analysis of song preferences confirmed this.) But I didn’t know the year or music director for any of my songs.
Since Raaga had a decent collection of songs, along with the year and music director, I decided to download this information and tag my files with this information. There were two problems. Firstly, the data in Raaga needs to be parsed. I need to hunt through each file to find the year and music director. The second was worse: my song names were spelt differently from Raaga’s.
Step 1: download the HTML and parse it. Perl is pretty much the only programming language I know. I used Perl’s LWP library to download the movie index of Raaga. Each movie in the index always has the URL http://www.raaga.com/channels/hindi/movie/something.html. So I extracted these patterns and downloaded all these URLs as well. (Others have a recognisable pattern as well: http://www.musicindiaonline.com/music/hindi_bollywood/s/movie.some_number/, http://www.musicplug.in/songs.php?movieid=some_number, http://ww.smashits.com/music/hindi_film/songs/some_number, etc.)
You probably realise that I downloaded a fair bit of the entire Raaga.com site’s HTML. Actually, it’s not that big. The 800-odd files in the Hindi collection didn’t take more than 40MB of space, and a few hours to download. Here’s what the code looks like:
# Get the list of movies HTML file
my $index = get("http://www.raaga.com/channels/hindi/movies.asp");
# Extract the list of movies from that into a hash (movie, url pairs)
my %movie = ($index =~ m|<a href="/channels/hindi/movie/([^"]*).html" class="[^"]*">([^>]*)</a>|gsi);
# Loop through each movie
for my $file (keys %movie) {
# Get the song HTML file
my $html = get("http://www.raaga.com/channels/hindi/movie/$file.html");
# Year is typically like this: Movie_Name (1983)
my $year = ($html =~ m|<b>$movie{$file}\s+\((\d*)\)</b>|) ? $1 : "";
# Music director always has the URL /channels/hindi/music/something
my $md = ($html =~ m|<a href="http://www.raaga.com/channels/hindi/music/[^"]*" class="black">(.*?)</a>|) ? $1 : "";
for (split /\n/, $html) {
# Now get individual songs and rating. They always have an onClick="setList(something)"
if (m|onClick="setList1\((\d*)\)[^>]*>(.*?)<\/a>.*?"http://images.raaga.com/.*?.gif" alt="RATING: ([\d\.]*)"|) {
$song = $2;
$rating = $3;
print join("\t", $movie, $song, $year, $md, $rating), "\n";
}
}
Incidentally, I’m showing you a simplifed version. I actually wrote the script in a way that I could resume where I left off. The ability to resume was probably the single most useful time-saver in the entire process.
Step 2: match the song names with those on my list. This is tricky. I hate doing it manually. So I developed a set of rules that could compare two spellings of a movie and decide if they were the same or not (see my earlier post on matching misspelt movie names). For Hindi songs and movies, here are my rules (in JavaScript):
w=w.toUpperCase(); // Convert to upper case w=w.replace(/\s+/, " "); // All whitespaces = 1 space w=w+" "; // Ensure there's a space after every word w=w.replace(/W/g, "V"); // V=W w=w.replace(/Z/g, "J"); // Z=J w=w.replace(/PH/g, "F"); // PH=F w=w.replace(/([KGCJTDPBS])H/g, "$1"); // Ignore H after most consonants w=w.replace(/(.)\1/g, "$1"); // Ignore repeated letters w=w.replace(/Y/g, ""); // Ignore Y w=w.replace(/([AEIOU])N /g, "$1"); // Ignore trailing N after vowel (hein, mein) w=w.replace(/[AEIOU]/g, ""); // Ignore vowels w=w.replace(/ /g, ""); // Ignore spaces
These are the rules, incidentally, that I use in my Hindi quizzes. Even if you type in a different spelling, the rules above will match the correct answer.
I extended these programs over 2006 to cover MusicIndiaOnline, Musicplug.in and Smashits. (I’ve hit a point of diminishing returns, I think, so I’m not too keen on expanding this list.)
Now, with a database of song information, I needed a good media player to view this in. I’ve used several media players over time: WinAmp, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, iTunes, and MediaMonkey. I’m a big WinAmp fan, but I’ve been forced to Media Monkey now. WinAmp has a 10 second delay before playing any song on my new laptop. MediaMonkey’s not bad, though. The lack of advanced filters is countered by the heavy programmability (I can use Javascript to update MP3 ID3 tags on MediaMonkey). Plus, I get all the WinAmp plugins. As for the other media players, I think they’re junk.
There are five things I want in a perfect media player:
Since my favourite media players (WinAmp and MediaMonkey) lack only one of these features, I thought I might be able to build them in.
But no such luck. It was almost easier to build my own media player. So I started to build my two weeks ago. My hope was to cover as many of my favourite requirements, beginning with find as you type.
The key to find-as-you-type is speed. You can’t afford many calls back and forth between the browser and the server. Even if people have a fast connection, my server is not fast enough. (A good part of the reason why I use Google applications is speed. Google’s server is blazingly fast, and the design of their applications complements that.) To make find-as-you-type fast, ideally the entire database should be loaded. Then, as you type, I just need to check with the database in memory. But downloading an entire database takes ages! (My full music database is 7MB right now.)
Step 3: compress the database. Rathern than load the full 4MB, I managed to get the page to start after loading 100KB of data. First, I cut down less important fields. Most searches are for a song or movie, rarely for a year or music director. So I took only the movie and song names. That brought the data down to ~2MB.
I don’t need to repeat the movie name across songs. If I have something like this:
Movie1 Song1 Movie1 Song2 Movie1 Song3 Movie2 Song1 Movie2 Song2
I can store this instead as:
Movie1 Song1 Song2 Song3 Movie2 Song1 Song2
I can also eliminate duplicate names. This brings down the space requirements to ~500KB.
The next step was the clever one. I don’t need to load the full database before you start searching! It’s enough to load a reasonable subset, and let you start searching while the rest loads in the background. So my hindi song search engine loads about 100KB of the data from one Javascript file, lets you search, and in the background loads the 400KB Javascript file. As soon as that finishes loading, it displays results from that set as well. (The initial portion is really songs on Raaga. I figured it would represent a decent search set.)
Step 4: find-as-you-type. This is quite easy, actually. I send the onkeyup event to my search function.
<input id="inp" onkeyup="csearch()">
The csearch() function goes through all the songs, checks if there’s a match, and prints all those results.
// Create a case-insensitive regular expression
var re = new RegExp(search, "i");
for (var i in songs) {
if (re.test(songs[i)) { str += songs[i]; }
}
library.innerHTML = str;
But that, unfortunately, takes ages to finish. If you implemented this as is, you would have to wait 1 – 1.5 seconds between each key stroke. So I made two modifications. Firstly, I restrict the number of results displayed to 100. When you start typing, (for example, you’d go ‘c’… ‘ch’… ‘chu’…) there are several songs early on that match the string, so I don’t have to search through the whole list. This speeds up the search for small strings.
When the search gets bigger, (‘chupke chu’… ‘chupke chupk’…), there aren’t 100 results. So the search has to cover the full list, and that takes 1-1.5 seconds between each keystroke. So I took another clever step. I broke the search into chunks of 5000 songs. That takes a fraction of a second. I search successive chunks of 5000 songs. If I find any results, I add them. Then I wait for a keystroke. If nothing happens, I continue searching the next 5000 after 50 milliseconds, and so on. If you press a key in the meantime, I stop searching for the original word, and start searching for the new word. This makes the application appear a lot faster.
There are ways I could make this even faster. For example, people type more often than delete. A typical sequence would be (‘chupke ch’… ‘chupke chu’… ‘chupke chupk’…) rather than the reverse. Backspace is not pressed very often. So, instead of re-searching the whole list, I could just search the already-searched list in such cases. But right now, the search works fast enough, so I’ll leave it at that.
The next step is advanced filters. I’m working on that right now. Hopefully you’ll see in a while.
An excellent talk about the myths we hold on the developing world, supported by the most amazing graphics I’ve seen in a while. Among other things, the speaker (Hans Rosling) proves that chimpanzees are much smarter than the top Swedish students, and are slightly better than Swedish professors when it comes to knowing the developing world.
The first one of the series that I heard was the TEDTalk by Sir Ken Robinson. May be worth hearing all the TEDTalks.
My earlier list of statistically improbable phrases in Calvin and Hobbes is technically just a list of “Statistically Improbable Words”. I re-did the same analysis using phrases. Here are the top 20 statistically improbable phrases (2 – 4 words only):
baby sitter chocolate frosted sugar bombs comic books doing homework fearless spaceman spiff() good night hamster huey ice cream miss wormwood new year peanut butter really think slimy girls spaceman spiff stuffed tiger stupendous man sugar bombs susie derkins watch tv water balloon
That is, these are the 2-4 word phrases whose frequency in Calvin and Hobbes is substantially (at least 5 times) higher than in the other books I have.
While doing this, the single biggest problem that stumped me was: what is a word?
The other problem is, phrases with more words are more improbable. Right now, if a phrase occurs 5 times more frequently in Calvin and Hobbes than my other books, I include it. But three-letter words rarely occur that often, and four-letter words even less so. Maybe I should have a lower cutoff for longer phrases.
Anyway, this analysis is a crude first approximation. Clearly Amazon’s gotten much further with their system.
Paul Graham pens another brilliant essay on Is it worth being wise? It’s mostly about the difference between being wise (right most of the time) versus being smart (being right where few others are). If you’re picking between options, being wise is useful. There is a best option, and you’ll pick it most of the time. If you’re doing something creative, there’s no finite set of options. Then it’s worth being smart. Increasingly, tasks are asking for more creativity, so it may be better to be smart.
You can download the Oscar nominated movies at Oscar Torrents, and vote for them. (No, the decision won’t be based on this — it’s completely unofficial.) via Dhar
This is the 15th of 15 articles titled Classical Ilayaraja appeared on Usenet in the 90s.
I’ve added links to the songs, so you can listen as you read.
You could also try my Tamil song search.
Dharmavathi is the 59th melakartha raagam. Sa Ri2 Ga2 Ma2 Pa Da2 Ni3 Sa as arohanam and the converse as avarohanam. It is the prathimadhyamam of Gowrimanohari (23rd melam). About couple of years ago Rahman tuned a superb Dharmavathi song in Vandicholai Chinnarasu. The song is sugam sugam vendum. I think the singer of the song is Vani Jayaram. It is one of the best songs that Rahman has tuned in his short career so far. It is a very sexy song. He starts the tune in the madhyama sthayi like Sa Ga Sa Ga, with a very very prominent chord sequences in the background. While another song from the same movie became a good hit (senthamizh naatu thamizhacheeyE sung by the late Shahul Ameed), this lovely song based on a pure classical raagam did not become a hit. Earlier, Rahman has tuned one more Dharmavathi in the movie Gentleman. The song is ottagathai kattikko, which came as an unbelievable melody in that movie with a fantastic rhythm played in the pukka South Indian instrument “thavil”.
Of course, Rahman had exhibited the usual (predictable) “cinema musician’s tendency” of deviating from the raagam by using some foreign swaras in both the above songs. Even though there is predominant use of Da2 in sugam sugam, in the charanam he uses Da3 Ni3 prayogam like Neethimathi raagam (60th melam). In ottagathai kattikko, he very liberally uses both Ni2 and Ni3, making it difficult to bring it under either Hemavathi (58th melam) or Dharmavathi. For our purposes to discuss Dharmavathi, I called ottagathai kattiko as Dharmavathi in this essay.
Rahman said in one of his early interviews that he avoided listening to contemporary music as did not want to get influenced by that music. He wants his music to be original and new! Alright bro, make music without the influence of your forefathers! Let us see, if you can!
This is an ever changing world. People are born constantly and people are dead similarly. We all have come into the world not like Mr. Jesus Christ without a father. We have our roots strongly based on our immediate previous generation, and less significantly on the innumerable generations in-between from the ages of origin of man to now. Newtonian concept of gravity was put to disuse by the “nascent” Einsteinian concept in the 20th century. The important thing to remember and appreciate is that Newton did prominent work on gravity before, and his ideas pre-existed the period of Einstein. If it were not for Newton to intrigue Einstein, the latter would not have become such a great scientist. If it were not for the stimulus of advaitha of Sankara, neither would have Ramanujam come up with his visishtadvaitha, nor Madvacharya with his dvaitha philosophy. Nature requires a pre-existent state to progress to the next state. It sends Nagesh first in the time window to do his comedy and then Vadivelu. It sends Shatrugan Sinha first and then later Rajnikanth. We are all a small part of the continuously self-propagating enormous force that originated in the big bang. Nobody can molt the profound ancestral influence to become a “new” creator (in absolute terms).
Ilayaraja too, has tuned wonderful Dharmavathi’s. His first was probably in the movie Vikram. The song is meendum meendum vaa. S.P.Balasubramaniam and S.Janaki! He starts his song in madhya sthayi like Sa Sa Sa Sa (meendum meendum) and then all of a sudden jumps one octave to the thara sthayi Sa (vaa). He has used Mridhangam as a wonderful rhythm support in that song. In the charanam the tune is just excellent. Pa Pa Pa Ma2 Da2 (thekku marathil) Pa Pa Pa Ma2 Da2 (sedhukki vaitha) Pa Pa Ma2 Pa Ga2 Ma2 Pa (dhegam idhu thaana). Even in the charanam he frequently jumps from madhyama sthayi Sa to thara sthayi Sa. To me, it seems like Rahman got the idea to tune his sugam sugam from meendum meendum vaa. Both are very sexy, romantic playboy channel duets! Both of them are great in their own aspects.
Ilayaraja’s possibly second Dharmavathi is illam cholai poothadha in the movie Unakkagave Vazhgiren. This was not a big hit like kanna unai thedugirEn vaa in the same movie. However, illam cholai is one of the milestones in his career. I would say that it is one of his top bests. It has been sung by S.P.B. He starts like Ma2 Pa Sa (illam cholai) Sa Ri2 Sa Ni3 (poothadhaa). He prolongs the kaakali nishadham and beautifully gives a gamakam and then travels down to panchamam. Initially he uses tabla for accompaniment and then in the charanam there is wonderful mridhangam, the usage of which is very typical of him. Listening to this song is one of the best musical experience that I have had in my life! In Varusham Padhinaaru his E aiyyaasaami is a kind of Dharmavathi with lot of mixture of Ma1. In Veera, his konji konji is quite a pure Dharmavathi. Maragadhamani has given a very pure Dharmavathi in thaththithom in Azhagan. He has excellently used keyboard with fantastic gamakams in that song.
Dharmavathi has two very melodious janya raagas. One is Ranjani. Sa Ri2 Ga2 Ma2 Da2 Ni3 Sa; Sa Ni3 Da2 Ma2 Ga2 Sa. The best song in Ranjani in cinema is muthupandhalil rathina oonjalil sung by T.N.Seshagopalan in the movie Thodi Raagam. Kunnakudi has tuned it in an unparalleled manner. MSV has used Ranjani in few of his cinema raaga-malikas (Ezhuswarangalukkul has a bit of Ranjani in Aboorva Raagangal, and also ranjaniyai azhaithEn in the movie Mrudhanga Chakravarthi). The other popular janyam of Dharmavathi is Madhuvanthi. There is a subtle Ma1 usage in this raagam. In the movie Nandha En Nila, obscure music director V.Dhakshinamurthy has tuned one excellent Madhuvanthi song. The song also starts like nandha en nila. My Houston room-mate Karthik used to repeatedly listen to this song again and again for hours. If you listened to this song, you will know the addictive potential of this song. Like “heroin addict”, “ganja addict”, we can proudly call ourselves as “nandha en nila addict”! It is one of the best ever recorded Thamizh cinema song!
The 10th chakram (in other words, the 4th chakram of the prathimadhyama melaraagas) has probably the more popular raagas among the prathimadhyama melams. The 55th is Shatvidhamargini, 56th – Shanmukhapriya, 57th – Simhendra Madhyamam, 58th – Hemavathi, 59th – Dharmavathi, 60th – Neethimathi.
Ilayaraja has given a lot of Shanmukhapriya songs. thamthanathamthana thalam was his first Shanmukhapriya (in Bharathiraja’s Pudhiya Vaarpukkal). One of his very early classical ventures that proved to the Thamizh cinema world what kind he was! It is a very fast song sung by Jency. In his earlier days he seems to have really liked tuning fast songs (like mazhai varuvadhu in Rishi Moolam)! In thamthana song, the thabla rhythm, veenai and flute interlude are mesmerising. His other Shanmukhapriya songs are kaadhal kasakkudhaiyaa (Aan Paavam), thakita thadhimi (Salangai Oli), ooru vittu ooru vandhu (Karagaattakaaran), sollaayo vaai thirandhu (Moga Mull). We have to remind ourselves of the earlier music directors contribution in this raagam that includes pazham nee appa (Thiruvilayadal), muththaitharu (Arunagiri Naadhar), kurangilirundhu (Thookuthooki), maraindhirundhu (Thillana Mohanaambal). Devendran has tuned kannukkul nooru nilava in Vedham Pudhidhu. One interesting thing to note is that even Thyagarajaswami has given only one krithi in this important raagam, while cinema fellows have been handling it quite often, the maximum number being by Ilayaraja!
Shanmukhapriya uses Ri2, Ga2, Ma2, Da1 and Ni2. If we change the Ni2 to Ni3 we get Simhendra Madhyamam. Probably, his first number in this raagam came in Panneer Pushpangal. The song is aanandha raagam. This song has got one of the most abnormal starts! It starts in thaara sthayi Ga! It goes likes this: Ga2 Ri2 Sa (aanandha) Sa Ri2 Ri2 Sa (raagam). A beautiful start and a wonderful job by Uma Ramanan! His second song in this raagam came in Mukta Sundar’s debut film Kodai Mazhai. The song is kaatrodu kuzhalin naadhamE. The song has been sung by Chitra. A highly classical song. The heroine gives a dance performance on stage for this song. This song also starts in a very high pitched Ga2 of thara sthayi! I first listened to this song while watching the movie in the theatre, and the song was just gripping! His next Simhendra Madhyamam came in Oruvar Vaazhum Aalayam. The song is nee pournami. He starts this song in middle octave Ri2! The song goes like this: Ri2 Ga2 Ri2 Ga2 Sa (nee..) Ga2 Ma2 Pa Ma2 Pa (pournami). The swara structuring of this song is just marvellous. He uses groups of swaras up and down like a thrilling roller-coaster ride, and later in the end of the song he starts presenting alternating swaram-sahityam sequences that are just wonderful! His last Simhendra Madhyamam song is thalaattum poongaatru in Gopura VaasalilE.
We have discussed Hemavathi raagam in our earlier essays. Nobody has tuned Shatvidhamargini or Neethimathi in cinema! These are extremely rare raagas even in classical sadas. If we just change the Ga2 to Ga3 in the raagas discussed above, we get all the important raagas of the next (11th) chakram. 63rd – Lathangi, 64th – Vachaspathi, 65th – Mesakalyani (commonly, called as Kalyani). We know that Ilayaraja was the most prolific music director in tuning Kalyani in cinema. Did anybody think that he would use the other important raagams from this chakram in the nineties?!
Once upon a time there was a director called as “P.Vasu”! He used to shoot whatever perversion that came to his mind during the most uninhibited of his dreams as films! He had the extreme fortune of getting “Ilayaraja’s kadaaksham” in most of his movies, and the films would be jam-packed with superb songs! Just because of Ilayaraja, those films would “runno runnunu run” tirelessly in the theatres, with money “fallo fallunu falling” down the roofu! Mmmmm…… Did P.Vasu know that he got one of the two great Lathaangi songs ever tuned in one of his junk movies? The first popular Lathaangi is aadaadha manamum uNdO in Mannadhi Mannan. The song has been sung by T.M.S and M.L.Vasanthakumari. Great song!
The other popular Lathangi came from the harmonium of Ilayaraja! The movie is Walter Vetrivel. The song is raasavE chitterumbu. He has presented an incredibly pure Lathangi in a “tappaanguthu kind of format” in this song. It was a mega-hit song reverbrating throughout the Thamizhnadu, from the slums to the elite! Prabhu Deva and Sukhanya dance for this song. It is one of the songs, which, when a common laymen rasika listens, he just feels it as a “great” tune, while a knowledgeable rasika immediately recognizes the intelligent use of a hardcore classical raagam and becomes wonder-struck! Ilayaraja has tuned another Lathangi in eeramaana rojavE (adhO mEga oorvalam). But, that song was not a big hit. He also gave a Vachaspathi in one of his songs, nikkatumaa pOgattumaa neela karunguyilE (Periya Veetu Pannaikkaran). A beautiful song. But, it was not a big hit. I don’t think anybody else has tuned Vachaspathi in cinema.
Vijayanagari is a janyam of Hemavathi. Actually, this raagam was “discovered” by Harikesanallur Muthiah Bhagavathar in this century. He just omitted Nishadham in Hemavathi and called it as Vijayanagari. There is a famous M.K.T song soppanavaazhvil magizhndhu in this raagam. Ilayaraja tuned one Vijayanagari in paadaadha thEneekkal. The song is vanna nilavE vaigai nadhiyE. He has beautifully used the Ma2 of this raagam. But, from puritans point of view, he has done a mistake. He has also used Ga3 to give a very sad appeal to the song. That is not permissible.
Vijayanagari is very closely related to Sivaranjani. While Sivaranjani is a janyam of the 22nd melam (Karaharapriya), Vijayanagari is a janyam of the 58th (the prathimadhyamam of the 22nd). Sivaranjani is also a very “soga” raagam. Kadalai urundai is called the poor man’s meat, as it has reasonably all the essential amino acids as meat, but at a lesser cost! Like that, we could call Sivaranjani as the “cinema rasika’s Mukhari or Bhairavi” as it has the same dose of “sadness”, but, in a lighter form. Sivaranjani’s arohanam and avarohanam are: Sa Ri2 Ga2 Pa Da2 Sa; Sa Da2 Pa Ga2 Ri2 Sa. Nowadays musicians liberally use Ga3 to add beauty to this raagam.
To list all the Sivaranjani songs of Ilayaraja is impossible. To list a few that comes to the mind immediately: adi aathaadi (Kadalora Kavidhaigal), unnai thaanE (Nallavanukku Nallavan), poovaNNam pOla nenjam (Azhiyaadha Kolangal), solai pushpangalE (Ingeyum Oru Gangai), kaathirundhu (Vaidehi Kaathirundhal), pon manE (oru kaidhiyin dairy), vaa vaa anbE (Agni nakshatiram), valli valli Ena (Deiva Vaaku), adhikaalai nera kanavu (Naan Sonnadhe Sattam), kuyil paatu (en raasavin manasilE) etc. Also, Sivaranjani is one of the unique raagas in the sense that, it is probably the only raagam that has been handled by every Tom, Dick and Harry calling himself as a music director. Manoj-Kiyan tuned tholvi nilayEna (oomai vizhigal), S.A.Rajkumar tuned paattu oNNu naan paadattuma (Pudhu Vasantham), Shankar Ganesh tuned aval oru menagai (Nakshathiram), lately Rahman has tuned kannum kannum (Thiruda Thiruda), thannerai kaadhalikkum (Mr.Romeo). In Karuthamma, Rahman has scored a fantastic song (poraalE ponnuthayee). It is also Sivaranjani based, with weightage given to Ga3 (like Mohanam) in the happy version, and to Ga2 in the sad version. This song unquestionably proves that Rahman is one among the most remarkable music directors in Thamizh cinema now.
The present continuous success in the Indian filmdom might make Rahman feel as though he has gone to the top of the globe. The total ouster of Ilayaraja from the #1 position might give a feeling of superiority than other creators now. Perhaps, that is the reason why he said that he avoided listening to contemporary music! Ilayaraja had the same status once upon a time. He behaved like a narcist then! He quarrelled with everybody in the cinema field because of his superioritic complex. He spoke ill of Vairamuthu on air when both he and Vairamuthu had been selected for national award! This behavior pattern is not unique to Ilayaraja! Almost everybody who comes to the limelight for some reason seems to become gripped by the evil “conceit”! Jayalalitha performed the marriage of her step son in such a grand manner only because of “conceit”! The mind seems to constantly work with the central thought “I”, “ME”, “MINE”! Nothing else matters to the mind!
Pigs like Jayalalitha and Sasikala, Maestro’s like Ilayaraja, Rahman, superhuman beings like Mother Teresa, billionaires like Bill Gates, and all of us would be dead and sleeping in our graves in just another millennium from now! We will all be forgotten and even our own progeny would not know us! When that be the likely practical eventuality, then why conceit? 65 million years ago, in the Jurassic age, the dinosaurs ruled the earth! Where are they now? 65 million years from now, the homo-sapiens species might be extinct, and even Ilayaraja’s microgram worth of dust might not be found in that world! Then, why conceit? In the inconceivably large space-time co-ordinates of Mother Nature, the infinitesimally small human being fails to realize his mortality during his life time. He dances proudly for “HIS” achievement, fails to acknowledge other’s talents, yells at his competitor with contempt and conceit! Oh, the director of all such conceited activity – THE MIND! You are a conundrum!
Lakshminarayanan Srirangam Ramakrishnan,
Internal Medicine Department,
Brackenridge Hospital,
Austin, Tx 78701.
Steve Yegge at Google talks about the features of the Next Big Language. He apparantly has inside information about the language corporates are likely to make a big push for. The comments seem to suggest Javascript 2.
This is the 14th of 15 articles titled Classical Ilayaraja appeared on Usenet in the 90s.
I’ve added links to the songs, so you can listen as you read.
You could also try my Tamil song search.
The invincible AIDS virus is fast spreading in India. That is news! (Accidentally turned) bigamist Thamizh writer Balakumaran once stated in an interview that women are like masturbating bowl to men in India. Yeah, lorry drivers acknowledge that statement candidly! They will take the “sarakku” from Chennai to Thirunelvelli by their overnight lorry-borne express. In the gloomily lit bus-stations in-between, they will stop not only for “barota kuruma”, but also looking for their in-expensive bowls of masturbation! There… will come the familiar figure of the betel-nut chewing red-mouthed sexy queen! Our driver’s mouth will twist into a lusty leer! The indomitable Freudian force will drive the male instrument to do its procreative job in few minutes. There… will go our night queen, having earned few bucks to support her indigent family of innumerable malnourished children. In the above encounter between the two beings, not only the rapturous joy of sex, and money will have transacted, but possibly, the seemingly indolent “HIV” fellow too!
Ilayaraja writes in his nila adhu vaanathu mElE song,
pasikkudhu pasikkudhu dhinam dhinam thaan
thinnaa pasiyadhu theerndhiduma?
Good question, boss! The hypothalamus in the brain is a “dhammathoondu” structure! You can place it on your nail top and squeeze it, like your grandmother used to squeeze the helpless lice from her hair! But, it is this “thammathoondu” structure that orchestrates the various vital functions of the body. When you have not eaten for a while, and when your blood sugar concentration falls, it is your hypothalamus that feels your hunger and instructs you to eat! When you’ve not drunk water for a while, and when your blood sodium rises (dehydration), it is this hypothalamus that senses it and drives you crazy to drink! But, Ilayaraja tries to equate “hunger for food” to “hunger for sex and pleasure”! It is true that TTC bus driver gets free food at those unhygienic hotels in Thindivanam for bringing lots of customers and business for the hotel. Maybe, that is the reason why he eats three days worth of meal when he stops for those 20 minutes during your trip from Chennai to Srirangam! That is an unusual case. Most of us eat because our hypothalamus commands us to eat after sensing our low blood sugar concentrations! But, why does the lorry driver seek courtship in the shady towns of India during his long distance operation? Nothing decreases in his blood, making the hypothalamus “hungry for sex”. The hypothalamus simply feels like having sex!
Ilayaraja showed an abnormal choice of raagam (Reethigowlai) when he tuned thalayai kuniyum in Sridhar’s Oru Odai Nadhiyagiradhu. He had done that earlier in choosing the same raagam for his chinnakannan azhaikiraan in Kavikkuyil, and then in tuning raamanin kadhai kElungal in Sippikkul Muthu. It is a very easily identifiable, very classical janya raagam that was relished by composers like Thyagaraja. But, none in the cinema arena seems to have used it in the pre-Ilayaraja period. In mid seventies, here comes the uneducated music director from Madhurai jilla….! He tunes a couple of “tappanguthu” that marks his initial success! Within 2 to 3 years after his debut, he calls one of the most memorable geniuses of Carnatic music, Shri Balamurali Krishna to sing one cinema song for him. “Alright thambi” says Balamurali, and goes to the recording theatre…..
Was Balamurali surprised initially when Ilayaraja played the tune for him in his harmonium? If I were him, I would have been! First of all, out of the blue, why Reethigowlai? Why not the hackneyed Hindholam or Mohanam? This absolutely classical raaga selection shows his desire to venture into pure, traditional raagas! It is like A.R.Rahman springing a surprise by tuning purely classical Yadhukula Kamboji interludes in kuluvaliyE (Muthu)!
Reethigowlai is the janyam of Karaharapriya (22nd melam). It is a vakra raagam and hence with a convoluted arohanam and avarohanam. Sa Ga2 Ri2 Ga2 Ma1 Ni2 Da2 Ma1 Ni2 Ni2 Sa; Sa Ni2 Da2 Ma1 Ga2 Ma1 Pa Ma1 Ga2 Ri2 Sa. Its raaga lakshanam is so unique that it gets imprinted in our mind easily. Beginners in carnatic music identify Reethigowlai rather facilely and this gives great encouragement to venture into learning other raagas. The jubilance of identifying a raaga by ourselves initially is unparalled and even a triple 800 score in GRE Pre-Test wouldn’t make you that happy! Oh man, what a joy! In that aspect, Reethgowlai could be compared to a steroid shot to Ben Johnson! In all his three Reethigowlai songs Ilayaraja presents the raagalakshanam excellently in a very concise 4 minute form.
He starts his Kavikkuyil song as Sa Ga Ri Ga (chinnakannanan) Ma Ni Ni Sa (azhaikiraan). He has just used the arohanam of Reethigowlai without any extraneous manipulation of the raagam. In his Sippikul Muthu song he goes like Sa Ga Ri Ga (raamanin) Ma Ma (kadhai) Ni Ni Sa (kElungal). A very small variation to chinnakannan song. He made lakhs of rupees for the former and lakhs for the latter! That is why he often says in interviews “there are only seven notes in music. Musicians have made infinite number of songs only with those seven notes by cheating!”. He is in a way right and in a way wrong. The above two songs are cheating of the first order. He has cheated less in thalayai kuniyum thamarayE where the pallavi goes like Da Ni Sa (thalayai) Ni Da Ma (kuniyum) Pa Ma Ga Ri Sa (thaamarayE).
Music is not just the melodious manipulation of different discrete frequencies of the continuum of “energy” commonly called as the sound. It is much more than that. There is another important variable in good music. That is the TIME! If I sing Sa today and sing Ga tomorrow, and Ri day after tomorrow and so forth sing one by one note of Ilayaraja’s chinnakannan azhaikiraan in whatever period it takes to complete the song, will it still be good music? This tells us the importance of MIND in music! There is NO music out there in the physical world! It is all in our MIND! When different swaras are sung, it is the MIND that intelligently concatenates the swaras and sees it as music. It sees a musical quality that is in actuality nonexistent in the frequencies of sound, and derives pleasure by listening to it! Following the same concept, the MIND derives “sexual pleasure” from the physical intercourse of two bodies, or “eating pleasure” from eating buttered pecan ice cream, when it is set for those appropriate moods. Behaviourly, the MIND seems to be a big pleasure seeker. Philosophically it seems to be the greatest fool in the world, constantly seeking the ephemeral, mundane pleasures that are never-the-less, virtual!
Reethigowlai is in no way related to Gowlai, Mayamalavagowlai, Kedaragowlai or Narayanagowlai. It is indeed closely related to Ananda Bhairavi about which we have discussed in our earlier essays.
Other raagas that beginners start recognizing very easily in their journey through the vast empire of carnatic music are Sahana, Kanada, Atana, Natai, Gowlai, Anandha Bhairavi etc. All the above are vakra raagas. We have two popular songs in Sahana that had a tremendous impact on the common rasika. ParthEn sirithEn (Veera Abhimanyu) and indha veenaiku in Rayil Sneham. The former tuned by K.V.Mahadevan and latter by V.S.Narasimhan. I hear that there is a song rukku rukku in Sahana in Avvai Shanmukhi. BTW, Sahana is a janyam of Harikaambojhi (28th melam) with Sa Ri2 Ga3 Ma1 Pa Ma1 Da2 Ni2 Sa and Sa Ni2 Da2 Pa Ma1 Ga3 Ma1 Ri2 Ga3 Ri2 Sa. Strangely Ilayaraja does not have any Sahana product from his industry! Atana is a janyam of Sankarabharanam (29th melam) with a complex swara sequence. It is a bhashanga raagam as it has a double Nishadham. K.V.Mahadevan gave a superb Atana in yaar tharuvaar indha ariyasanam (Mahakavi Kalidas). In Salangai Oli Ilayaraja used balakanakamaya (Thaayagaiyer’s Atana composition) in the scene when Manjubarghavi dances on the stage and Kamalahasan starts dancing in the kitchen (unable to control his inherent dance flow). Atana is a very brisk and “gambeeramaana raagam”!
Chalanaatai is the last (36th) melam in the suddha madhyama raagas and hence using 3rd Ri, Ga, Da, and Ni. Ilayaraja is the only one who ever chose to use this rare raagam in cinema. The song is panivizhum malarvanam in the movie ninaivellam nithiya. Sridhar directed that movie. Oh boy, Sridhar- Ilayaraja combination has given several marvellous songs to Thamizh music! Vairamuthu’s lyrics reached wonderful heights in that song. Ilayaraja’s use of this vivadhi raagam is very intelligent and guarded, avoiding any un melodious use of the vivadhi swaras. This song proved to be a terrific hit when compared to his use of the last (72nd) melam in the prathimadhyama raagas, which is Rasikapriya. He used that raagam to tune sangeethamE in kovil pura. He starts his Chalanatai like Ga3 Ma1 Pa (unpaarvai) Ma1 Pa Ma1 Ri3 Sa (oru varam). Then he goes Ga3 Ga3 Ga3 Ga3 Ri3 Ri3 Ri3 Ri3 (inivarum munivarum) Sa Sa Ri3 Ri3 Sa Sa Sa Sa (thadumaarum kanimaram). A beautiful interplay of immediately adjacent vavadhi swaras with an unanticipated melody that is much more than you could bargain from using such raagas. In the charanam he starts using Da3 and Ni3. He starts the charanam like Sa Ni Sa Sa Pa (chelai moodum) Da Da Da Pa (illam cholai) Sa Ni Sa Sa (maalai choodum) Ri Ri Ri Sa (malar maalai). The tune development is just excellent!
I was in Srirangam when this movie was released (in early eighties). In the Vadakku uthirai veedhi sandhu, there was a guy called as “paaku cheeni”. He was so crazy with this song that the cassette would be playing all the time in his house. While playing kabadi or cricket in the streets I used to get the benefit of listening to this lilting song for free, not knowing what a rare raagam it was! Look what Vairamuthu writes in that song:
Just being seen by you is a great boon;
even an ascetic to come in future would
loose his hold on celibacy on seeing you;
you are a tree bearing beautiful fruits (breasts)You are a garden that wears sari
you are a flower that is worn by flowers
twenty moons would shine in your finger nails;
youthful dreams would bud in our eye corners
as our fingers play on each other,
as the distance between us decreases,
the glowing light would dim and our
eyes would close (in the ecstasy of love)
Oh man, what a language he has written! An unbelievable choice of words and thought in describing the beauty of a women. In a recent song (telephone maNipOl in Indian), look how the poet describes the beauty of a women in modern terms incorporating the latest technological advances in his poetry!
Is she the one who laughs like a telephone bell
is she the one who is like a Melbourne flower
did lord Brahma use a computer to sketch her figure
has her voice been made up of digital signals
is she the latest cellular phone
A wonderful movie by Shankar with great songs by A.R.Rahman. I think the above song is by Vairamuthu. It is amazing how these poets get such novel ideas to describe a simple thing. Grandiosity seems to be an essential quality of a poet’s mind.
Naatai is a janyam of Chalanaatai. The arohanam and avarohanam of Naatai are Sa Ri3 Ga3 Ma1 Pa Ni3 Sa and Sa Ni3 Pa Ma1 Ga3 Ma1 Ri3 Sa. Notice the vakram Ga3 Ma1 Ri3 Sa. Often singers sing Natai like Chalanaatai using all the swaras. Ilayaraja used Muthuswamy Dikshidhar’s Naatai krithi mahaganapathim in the movie Sindhubhairavi. Apart from that he has tuned one Natai (peigalai nambadhE – a jolly song in Mahanadhi). Only Kamal can make such daring pictures about sexual abuse of children. In the early part of the movie, “peigalai” song has been used to show what a happy family Kamal leads. It has become a common feature in India for the government to crumble to dust once in two years costing crores of tax-payer’s rupees for re-election! People have gone immune to all these and they just seem to mind their own business (like finishing B Sc and then studying a crash course in C language programming at NIIT to become a “consultant” to come to the USA). Who cares if the government survives or falls! But, a “mahanadhi” viewer is left with tears rolling down the cheek and extreme sympathy for Kamal at the horrendous turn of events in his life (even though it is just a movie). Kudos, to Kamal!
Ilayaraja’s use of Naatai for that song is quite a surprise. He has presented a pure Naatai in that song. Ga Ma Pa (peigalai) Pa Pa Pa (nambadhE) Pa Ni Sa Ni (pinjilE) Pa Pa Pa (vembadhE). The song ends with S.Varalakshmi singing the tail piece. Gambeera Naatai is a pentatonic raagam where there is no vivadhi swaram. So, it is distinctly different from Chalanatai and Naatai. The aarohanam and avarohanam of Gambeera Naatai is Sa Ga3 Ma1 Pa Ni3 Sa and Sa Ni3 Pa Ma1 Ga3 Sa. You could call it as a janyam of Sankarabharanam or Chalanaatai. Ilayaraja’s innum ennai enna seyya pogiraai in Singaravelan has been tuned in Gambeera Naatai. He has used the raagam remarkably. S.P.B and Janaki have done wonders in the charanam where most of the tune is set in thara sthayi! Earlier T.Rajendar scored one song in the same raagam (kaadhal oorvalam ingE in Pookkalai Parikkadheergal). That is also an excellent song.
If we change the 3rd Ni in the avarohanam of Gambeera Naatai to kaisiki Nishadham (2nd Ni) we get Thillang. Ilayaraja has given few Thillangs so far. Probably the first one was kothamallee poovE in Kallukkul Eeram. His other Thillang song is manadhil urudhi vEndum in Sindhu Bhairavi (a fantastic Bharathiyar poem). Look what Bharathiyaar says in that poem: PERIYA Kadavul kaaththal vendum!! Webster’s English dictionary gives the meaning for God as “the one supreme being, the creator and ruler of the universe”. If so, how can we have a “Periya” Kadavul (big God)? I guess Bharathiyaar compares God to human beings and says “Periya Kadavul”. In Kaiveesamma Kaiveesu there is one Thillang (anbE thaan thaay aanadhu). MSV has given a great Thillang nalladhOr veeNai seidhEn. That is in K.Balachandar directed Varumayin Niram Sivappu. Kamal is a big Bharathiyaar fan in that movie. Nalladhor is also a Bharathiyaar song. Ilayaraja has used a raagam that is closely related to Thillang in Kavarimaan (Thyaagaiyer’s Brovabaarama in Bahudhari raagam).
Because of the unique “vakra” phrases, many of the above mentioned vakra raagas are very easily identifiable. Vakra raagas are a boon to beginners as they help to get a start in carnatic music. If there is a vakram in a raagam, and if that is what gives the important raagalakshanam to the raagam, then that is how it has to be sung! You cannot go like Sa Ri2 Ga2 Ma1 in Reethigowlai or sing like Ma1 Ga3 Ri2 Sa in Sahana. These are absolutely not permissible. Why these strict strictures?
I read in a book recently that there was a Chinese sage called as Li Ling. He would usually be naked in his house. When somebody asked about it to him, he said “I consider the whole world as my house and my house as my cloth. So, why the hell are you entering my trousers?”!! Nature made men to intercourse with women to procreate and sustain life on earth. That is a rule. If man tries to enter into another man’s trouser ignoring the ordinance of Nature, AIDS awaits him inside the other man’s trouser! If the lorry driver in India defies the present day societal norms and seek polygamous pleasure, then AIDS awaits him at the gates of pleasure! Regulations and rules make our life go smooth. Rules enriched carnatic music and gave rise to an excellent variety of raagas. Till Nature gives her treatment of gradual evolution to things, what be now, let be in future!
Lakshminarayanan Srirangam Ramakrishnan,
Internal Medicine Department,
Brackenridge Hospital,
Austin, Tx 78701.
Peter Norvig’s brilliant talk on Managing the Data Deluge. Among other things, he talks about how having lots of data is sometimes better than having a carefully designed algorithm.