Life and times of raga Kalyani

Ponni Arasu lives in Chennai, and doesn’t speak any Kannada, but she surprised a hall full of theatre and music lovers last evening when she presented an hour-long solo performance in the language. Sanchari, a play scripted by Bangalorean singer Sumathi Murthy, tells the story of raga Kalyani. Directed by the well-known Tamil writer A Mangai, it presents a charming if minimalist picture of the life and times of the raga.

Non-musicians may find it difficult to understand how musicians can be dead serious when they say ragas are human, capable of love, hate, anger, and envy. Sumathi takes this raga-as-human premise further and creates a character who talks about her origins (“I was born to many”), her free spirit, and her eternal appeal (she walks away in the last scene singing the current Kannada hit ‘Ninnindale, ninnindale’). We hear representative snatches of the raga from the classical masters (Mogubai Kurdikar, Mallikarjun Mansur, Balamurali) and the movie composers (Madan Mohan, Khayyam, Ilaiyaraja), as Kalyani moves in and out of a reverie.

Ponni danced and acted out the raga’s relationships with great composers such as Amir Khusrau, Sadarang, and Tyagaraja. She pulled off the Kannada dialogue with astonishing ease, although I would have liked the language of Sumathi’s script to have been a little more conversational. Ponni broke off into Tamil when she had to portray the raga’s refusal to be reined in by the musicologist Venkatamakhi, and into Malayalam when she had to portray her relationship with composer-king Swati Tirunal, who it seems loved raga Behag a little more than Kalyani.

Ponni as Kalyani stood on the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan stage, using cloth paintings as props (Srijith Sundaram) and unfurling them to illustrate the changing chapters of her life. Her costumes (Anusha), for the most part, looked like a fashionable mix of the medieval and the contemporary, but she finally slipped into clothes that looked very tinsel, and very urban-contemporary.


Kalyani is called Yaman in Hindustani music. Sumathi’s experience as a khayal singer, and her training under Pandit Ramarao Nayak, must have come in useful in the making of the play. Many in the audience, including distinguished connoisseurs such as Chiranjeevi Singh and Jayant Kaikini, felt the play would have gained from more live singing. Mangai promises to take the play to other parts of Karnataka, and will hopefully incorporate more live singing into the play.



Now, for some nitpicking. Kalyani, for all its beauty, is an overused raga, and although it hasn’t become as hateful as the weepy Shivaranjani (do you remember ‘Tere mere beech mein’ from Ek Duje Ke Liye?), it can certainly put off some listeners (such as myself). I liked the play, but I can’t say I like all compositions I hear in Kalyani. Also, the play could perhaps have a little more action and movement. Thanks, Sangat (Delhi) and Marappachi (Chennai), for making Sanchari possible.

(Sanchari premiered at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bangalore, on Sunday, 27 September 2009)