Melt in the soothing rhythm………….

What is passion? The answer is simple. When a person can never be alone without the thing which he/she likes to do or his/her creativity and innovative ideas start and come to an end on a particular thing, thus can be called as a passion. Likewise, music is oxygen to me. It is difficult to imagine my life without music. But you know what attracts me more about music……the sound, rhythm, & tune. When I started learning classical music I got to learn the real base of music in the form of Raagas. The Raaga is the most important concept that everyone who learns Indian Classical music should understand. A raaga scale can be defined as a musical theme created by choosing a specific set of notes ‘swaras’ from within an octave. It is similar to a palette comprising blue, green, violet, gray, white, black and yellow colors, for instance, which would produce a very cool picture. The right mixture of these colors can produce beautiful different paintings, similarly the different notes (swaras) blended in different ways can produce different Raagas.

Now let me introduce all of you to one my favourite raagas.

Malhar Raag: Rainy season being my favourite season, Malhar raag is just the right blend of swaras which can depict rain. Malhar raag is an old raga in Indian classical music. This raag is associated with the atmosphere torrential rains. According to the legend, Malhar Raag is so powerful that when sung, rain starts falling from the sky. Many great artists of the medieval, and much earlier period like Tansen, Baiju Bawara, Meera used to sing this raga to invoke the rain God There are many variations of Raag Malhar, and are categorized chronically based on the era of their composition- Prachin  (before15^th century), Madhyakalina (15^th-18^th century) and Arvachina (19^th century and thence). Raagas Shuddha Malhar, Megh Malhar and Gaud Malhar belong to the first period.

Miyan Malhar raag is the most favourite variation of Malhar raag. It has a beautiful blend of the swaras Sa Re ga PA Ma Pa ni Dha Ni Sa where ga and ni are komal swars. The swaras in Malhar Raag are so beautifully formalized that it brings forth a picture of nature in full bloom after a refreshing rain shower. It creates a pleasant atmosphere and a feeling which takes you to a place where the breeze is cool, where you can smell the fragrance of rain soaked earth. This is the effect in which you get enchanted in the magic of the Raag. It gives an awesome experience when you listen to or sing Malhar Raag.

There are various songs in Malhar Raag used in Bollywood like 'Bol re papihara' from the movie 'Guddi' which is a beautiful song, also 'Garjat barsat saawan aayo re ' from the movie 'Barsaat Ki Raat'. I hope you  listen to the Malhar Raag and experience the magic  for yourself.
Garjat barsat saawan aayo re

Bol re papihara

These are the songs composed in Malhar raag. Enjoy…. J