Aarohanam : S R3 G3 M2 P D3 N3 S
Avarohanam: S N3 D3 P M3 G3 R3 S
I was going through some of my old posts looking for some carnatic info (Yes, I know..such a show off! yeah?) and some “anonymous” person had commented somewhere that the film song Ding Dong kovilmani from the movie, Ji, is set in the raga Amrithavarshini.
However, I called up one of my friends sometime back, who is sort of big time in carnatic music, and he told me that is Rasikapriya. And me being me, reverse engineered and looked this raga up on Karnatik.com and Bingo! perfect match!
I’ve made the post title a hyperlink to the Karnatik.com website’s information about this Raga.
And thanks to another anonymous blog reader, I got reminded about this song today and inspired enough to share it with y’all! 
Arun,
A rare raaga indeed in both carnatic and light(cine)music arena.
If you need a more authentic devout to this raaga in cine music listen to SangeethamE en jeevanE from Kovil Pura. Music by mottai. One can find the Ji song taking a lot a clue from this kovil pura song. Btw who is the music director (MD) of Ji?
Given that I some how feel this kovil pura song reminds me of khoya khoya chaand khula aasmaa(n) sung by Rafi. Any takes?
Coming to Kovil pura it has splendid songs set in rare raaga. The movie came in 1981, i think. Unfortunately the songs sank with the movie. Three songs from this movie that I could recollect are:
SangeethamE in Rasikapriya (S.Janaki)
vEdham nee in Gowlai (K.J.Yesudas)
AmudhE thamizhE azhagiya mozhiyE in Rasikaranjani (P.Susheela & Uma Ramanan)
oru naaL iravu from kaaviya thalaivan, a vijayakanth movie, is another song set in this raaga, again by IR.
Sridhar – wow! thats a neat list of songs.. thanks for all the info.. will listen to all of soon and comment..
oh btw, MD for Ji – VIdyasagar.
ninachchEn. when i had the feel of mix of IR’s song structure intricacies and nuiances presented in ARR’s style i felt it to be VS.
btw i believe you have listened to the sangeethamE song for which the URL was given in my earlier post.
here is the link of other song, vEdham nee iniya nAdham nee, perhaps the only cine song in gowlai.
ok lemme stop eating your bytes here.
I am not able to find link to the superb rasikaranjani song amudhae thamizhae azhagiya mozhiya. This song, neelakkuyilE unnOdu naan paN paaduvEn a duet by SPB & SJ from Magudi, edhilum ingu iruppaan avan yaarO from Bharathi all the three are melodic honey in rasikaranjan tuned by IR. Incidentally the lyrics for all the three songs are of superlative category. Two of them amudhE thamizhE and edhilum ingu penned by pulamaipiththan. I am not sure of the lyricist of neela kuyilE. It could be Kaviyarasar KaNNadaasan (KKD), not sure though.
Sridhar,
yes, I finally listened to ‘sangeethame’.. WHOA! Mottai mottai dhan! and the highlight is the song is a dual raga song.. I think it turns out from Rasikapriya to Mayamalava Goulai… not sure though, as I listened to the song only a couple times… Man spell-binding rendition..
FYI — All these songs (i think all)are availalble for d/l as mp3 on cooltoad.com
Arun,
. you see mottai doesnt mix raagas in a song, normally, that too a big nay in classically tuned one. he is very very orthodox in it. otherwise getting accolades from none other than Semmangudi is difficult, you see 
.
did you feel mayamalavagowal (MMG) raga in it? good catch and….that is the speciality of mottai
Still you see the duality right. I am sure you know the concept/art called grahabedham/shruthibedam in karnataka sangeetha. Mottai does bring this feature in this raaga for this song. He does a modal shift on the ‘ri’ of rasikapriya to get the MMG. Refer carnatic-music.com for further details.
Also if you get time to know more than imaginable work by IR in this art read the following two part article by Harigovindan in Raaja.com site.
Part1 and Part2.
he..hee..i earlier told that i’ll stop eating bytes but mudiyala. To say in nayagan style avan(r)a (mottai) niruththa chollu naan niruththarEn
Sorry the correct link for Part2 is Part2.
Hmm. Interesting. thanks for dropping by. I’ll be back for more!
sridhar – I salute you for all this trivia knowledge man! awesome! chancey illa..
and yes, the raga mix especially maintaing the shruthi bedham concept in bounds is just beautiful..and in the words of vadivel in singaravelan.. ‘only IR possible’..
will check out all the links when I get home..
iz – grazie!
Getting back on track, are we?
I lovvvve that song… didnt know it was set in rasikapriya. nandri hai.
Can you please provide a link to some krithis in this raagam?
-Viji
P.S: word verification- pgbnmdgx. grrrrr…
taruna,
i guess we are…thanks for visiting my blog..
viji,
its ok ya.. no chilly pheeelings..krithis in this ragam – enakkey therila.. will find out..
word verification ku ellam mandai kaanja eppidi..
same funda here, refer my comment to your post on Abhogi.
rasikapriya, Amruthavarshini and Mayamalavagowla form a Gruha Bedham group.
sorry, I was wrong it is Simhendra madhyamam not Amruthavarshini.
sb – what is ‘gruha bedham’? never heard of this before..
Arun,
if you read the part 1 and part 2 links that i have before in this comment section, that would give you an idea about gruha/shruthi bedam.
i think shruthi bedam is called as gruha bedam because the aadhaara shruthi, referred as home(gruha) is changed (or shown as changed) by the performer.
sb,
yep MMG, RP, SM are GruhaBeda cousins.
Arun,
one more clarification on my earlier comment. I wrongly mentioned that mottai did a modal shift on the ‘ri’ of rasikapriya to get the MMG. It should have been a modal shift on Sa (reducing further below) of rasikapriya to get MMG.
dear friends,
IR has also composed in raaga GOWLAI
‘manjal nilaavukku indru ore sugam,sung by jayachandran and p suseela (i suppose)
from film ‘mudal iravu’
kasimaran – thanks for the info and for visiting my blog.
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog.
Cheers! Sandra. R.