Restoring श to its right place

there is a complaint among those 

with refined speech that anything goes

these days that a lighter sibilant श

is confused with fellow fricative ष

and such are the pronuciation woes

There are 3 sibilant alphabets in many Indian languages. For now, I will give examples in Hindi and Telugu alphabet.

1. sa, स, స - pronounced like the first syllable in saturday

2. Sa, श, శ - pronounced like the second syllable in issue

3. sha, ष, ష - pronounced like the third syllable in promotion

Now coming back to the issue I highlighted in the lines above, many confuse the 2nd and 3rd to an extend that the lighter second sound is gradually disappearing. At least that is true in Telugu and some think it is due to the Hindi influence. The purpose of this post is to point out that there might be Hindi influence here but if someone is replacing శ with ష, then that's because they weren't pronouncing श the way it is supposed to be pronounced.

Just like I chose progressive syllabary to illustrate the pronunciation from a frictional passage aspect of producing the sound it is pertinent to keep the following in mind.

1. sa, स, స - the placement of tongue for this is close to that of dentals (दन्त्य, त थ द ध. దంత్యములు - త థ ద ధ)

2. Sa,  श, శ - the placement of the tongue for this is close to that of palatals (तालव्य, च छ ज झ, తాలవ్యములు - చ ఛ జ ఝ)

3. sha, ष, ష - the placement of the tongue for this is to close to that of cerebrals (मूर्धन्य, ट ठ ड ढ, మూర్ధన్యములు - ట ఠ డ ఢ)

Even when seeing the way the tongue touches the palate you can see a progression of where the frictional sound proceeds forth from. For the first one, it is close to the teeth. For the second one it is moves a little inside but not all the way. For the thir one it is  close to the throat area. 

If we keep the above progression in mind, then there would be no reason to confuse the pronunciation of the second sibilant with the third.

In the same boat

"in the same boat"
i laughed at a pretty lady who cooed
with visible pride in her transient beauty
and the Almighty smiled at me as he showed
pity on the impermanence of my brainy uppity

Janya raagam and related classification - First in the line rule, points for and against it

In the classroom our music flows

unhindered a weekly cycle it follows

and sometimes musical theory too

engenders debates on topics old and new

Today, it was time to discuss the Janya raagams and how they are categorized into the known mELakarta system. This is a topic worthy of indepth research and I would not be surprised if there are many people who have already done so. Not having access to such information at this time, I am laying out the key points that were discussed.

Before going into various facets of this discussion, it is pertinent to note that a majority of raagas have very well known parent-child relationship.  Parent in this case is one of the 72 mELakarta sampoorNa raagas, and the child then is one that has lesser than 7 swaras in aarOhaNam or avarOhaNam. Many parent-child relationships are widely accepted without any debate based on the collective knowledge that has been carried over from one generation to the next for many centuries and has thus reached us. The point of debate is about only those that have some confusion or the other.

First one in the list rule: This came up as a point delineated by a musical exponent recently. For example, if you are trying to find out where Mohana falls, then the question would be either hari kAmbhOji (28) or dheera SankarAbharaNam (29). This rule expostulates that the raagam with lesser meLakarta number should be chosen in such case. So, going by this rule Mohana raagam becomes a child of hari kAmbhOji.

This rule might appear simplistic if we consider the following points.

Raaga swaroopam: Each raagam whether a mELakarta or a janya has a swaroopam, an identity. While a part of this identity is influenced by the notes that are present in this raagam, a bigger influence probably would be the parent raagam. It is likely and happens in many cases that the child raagam explores areas that a parent actively does not, but I would think it is rare to find a child raagam that would go into the domain of another mELakarta raagam prominently. On this point, I would like to find out if any exponents have a differing view. 

If we agree on this point, then Raaga swaroopam forms a big factor in deciding the parentage.

Nomenclature: There are two known naming systems - one that Sri Muttuswami Deekshita followed and the other that is being widely used these days. I will focus on the latter. It is known that the latter has a mathematical basis on the kaTapayaadi sankhya. Using that it becomes easy for a person to arrive at the Raaga's name if the notes in aarOhaNam and avarOhaNam are known. Work has been done by earlier luminaries in Carnatic music to align the names to this system by adding prefixes where there was no complete alignment. Hence we have "hari", "dheera", "mEcha" and such prefixes for kAmbhOji, SankarAbharaNam, kalyANi raagas. It is quite likely that when this system was develped all known raagas till that point would have been classified using rules that would probabaly consider the following factors

1. Raaga swaroopam (as mentioned above)
2. Parental name
3. Axiomatic relationship

The three points above are a cautious conjecture on my part which partly is also due to lack of access to any authoritative treatises on this subject. If anyone can point me to prior work in this area, I would be grateful. The idea is based on the thought that any classification system while taking care of the known elements would also make a provision for the ones that are not yet known and would be invented or discovered (as the case may be) in the future. Periodic table of elements is a good example.

Raaga swaroopam is already covered, so let us focus on Parental name and Axiomatic relationship theories.

Parental names: We know that the names of the raagas have a basis and follow a mathematical principle. It is not necessary to go into details of that because many have expounded this theory and you can simply search and find a lot of information.  For the purposes of this post, I will include a link from Wikipedia (please see here) and move on. If the parental names are not based on whim, then it behooves us to believe that the names of the child raagas are not accidentally chosen. While there would be exceptions like in any system, there would be rules a majority have to follow. In this case, I am wonder is this the rule that would make Saraswati raagam a child of Vaachaspati as opposed to Hemavathi?

Axiomatic relationships: These would be those that would have existed prior to the imposition of the classifiction systems and thus would be fit into the requiremetns laid out by the system or otherwise noted as exceptions. In any case, I believe these would have been widely accepted at that time that preempts any debate. 

Another point to note is that new janya raagas are not not just born, someone creates them and popularizes them by writing and composing swarajatis, varnams or kritis using them. The most recent vAggEyakAra we all know is Sri M BalamuraLikrishna who is credit with many new raagas. In some cases like lavangi which comes only with 4 notes, where will you place it in mELakarta system? 

Well, there might be many open questions than answered ones in what I wrote. Some of these, no doubt be answered if and when I get a chance to explore the theoretical side of Carnatic music. 

To that extent this is a work in progress article.

 

First day of Devi Navaratri - 2017

Today I found the following slokam on FB, thanks to Sri Kompella Ramakrishna Murthy. The slokam is as follows

अनायासेन मरणम्
विना दैन्येन जीवनम्
देहन्ते तव सायुज्यम्
देहिमे पार्वतीपते।

అనాయాసేన మరణమ్
వినా దైన్యేన జీవితమ్
దేహన్తే తవ సాయుజ్యమ్
దేహిమే పార్వతీపతే

I translated it this way

peace when passing on
life deviod of misery
my manifest form's unity
with your divinity,
for these i beseech you
O pati of Parvati

Ghalib and Anonymous

Ghalib lived during the last mughal Bahadur Shah Zafar II's times. He outlived the mughal regime in Delhi and saw British establish their stranglehold on the city. In the aftermath of suppression of rebellion by sepoys, a large portion of his work was supposedly destroyed. Much of his literary output was kept alive by those that loved his poetry, wrote or sang his lines till they were etched in the collective memory of a generation. Thus his Urdu writings were handed down to the next generation.

Here is a couplet introduced to me by my friend Biren Bhuta.

उनकॆ दॆखेसे जो आजाती हैँ मुहँ पर रौनक

वो समझते हैँ कॆ बीमार का हाल अच्छा हैँ

My translation is as follows:

the sight that bestows radiance and peace
in me by her is perceived as salubrity in disease

Another one sent by my friend Puneet Sharma goes as follows. Provenance of these lines is unknown.

तू मत देख कोई शक्स गुनहगार है कितना..,
बस यह देख वो तेरे साथ वफादार है कितना

हो सकता हैं उसे कुछ लोगो से नफरत हो
पर ये देख उसे तुझ से प्यार हैं कितना…

My translation is as follows:

wouldn't it be better to see
in a person his loyalty
than an apparent deficiency
though he might have hurt
others that do not matter
to see his demeanor that
remains firm and friendly

Emily Dickinson's Peace

Thanks again to Dr Mythili Abbaraju. Today she wrote a free verse translation of Emily Dickinson's poem below, the title of which is unknown to me. I called it Peace. My translation is in a Telugu metre called tETageeti. 

I many  times thought peace had come,
When peace was far away;
As wrecked men deem they sight the land
At centre of the sea,

And struggle slacker, but to prove,
As hopelessly as I,
How many the fictitious shores
Before the harbor lie

అలసి జలనిధిలో మునక లగునపుడు
నావికు కనుల కగుపడు రేవు మిథ్య
యగుచు జతనము సడలజేయగల కల్ల
యై చెలఁగు నటులనె మదీయాత్మ వేల
యలజడులలోన జిక్కుచుఁ విలవిలమను
సమయముల నిరుద్వేగప్రశమన మొందు
భ్రాంతి నొందుచు నున్నది శాంతతీర
మెంతయో దూరమైయున్న వింత గనదు

Clear night - Walt Whitman

Thanks to Dr Mythili Abbaraju for an introduction to the lines by Walt Whitman below.
 
This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson
done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the
themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.

( Clear midnight, Walt Whitman )

Here is my translation in Telugu

సీ. కర్మమార్గము గాని, ధర్మసూత్రము లేని, కలజనుల్ విహరించు కలలదీవి
మాటలు మలిగిన మౌనమార్గములకు, వ్రాతలను కళలవాసరములఁ
జదివిన పాఠముల్ వదిలిన వీథులఁ, జరియించు కోర్కెలు దరినిజేర
నిజరూప మెంతయుఁ నిశివేళఁ జనియింప, నవలోక నాలోచ నాదికముల
తే. కెగసి పోవు సమయమయ్యె నేగిరమ్ము
వేగిరమ్ముగ నిదురించు వేళవచ్చె
దీర్ఘనిద్రకు చెల్లెలు తెరలివచ్చె
చూడచక్కని చుక్కలుచూపవచ్చె