Some time ago, a posting from M. V. Ramana prompted a discussion on Ragam, Tanam, Pallavi.
(2) Lyrics that are adapted/borrowed from Kritis. One hypothesis I have heard is that many kritis were constructed using a famous pallavi as the pallavi line of the kriti. The proponents claim that this explains the origin of the word pallavi to refer to both. Some of the examples quoted in this context are "gAna lOla karuNala vAla" in tOdi and "mahimai teliya tarama" in SankarAbharaNam. This is also supported by the tradition of singing pallavis in fixed rAgAs. (Aside : according to vidwAn K S Krishnamurthy, it was GNB who changed this format - for eg: he sang (immortalized, IMO) gAna lOla karuNa in shaNmughapriya, tisra nadai Adi tALam.)
Another example of such a kriti-composition was by gOpAlakrishNa bhArati. The story goes that he went to meet tyAgarAja, whose disciples sang a song in Abhogi (aside : there is some controversy about which song this was!). After that tyAgarAja asked him if he had composed any songs in Abhogi. bhArati replied that he had not, but went on to sing an impromptu pallavi "sabhApatikku vERu deivam samAnamAkumA, tillai". Then, later that night, he completed the famous kriti starting with those words and sang it in front of tyAgarAja, who was very appreciative.
The point of all this is that pallavi lines borrowed from kritis is only (the latter) part of the story.
(3) Lyrics formed by putting together a couple of phrases that make for
a meaningful theme. e.g.,
Ragam - Todi
Talam - Tisra Jampai 2 KaLai
Eduppu at Samam
"VElavanE unathu PadamE -- +4
TaravENdum Mayilnatana" (VElavanE)
A comment here - the DKP/DKJ school, as well as the Alathur brothers (to
the extent I can make out from their tapes) sing this in Adi tALam, 3
kaLai. The eduppu is 2/3 after the beat (where the whole cycle takes 8
beats).
Some Pallavis can be called "more secular than others" such as the famous Nattaikurinji Pallavi "SiRantha engalathu Nattaikurinji enbAr".
Should the lyrics of a Pallavi always involve the well trodden path of "O Lord! save me" or "Blessed am I"? Though I am yet to hear off beat (in the lyrical sense) Pallavis, they apparently do exist.
Ofcourse not. For a previous post of mine about the same topic, see archive/zamorin.html.
The emphasis on pallavis having some religous content may be a phenomenon of this century. Another example of an old-timer who sang such pallavis was Tiger Varadachariar. He would apparently sing pallavis like "katharikai kUdai kondAdi" sung to the same tune as niranjanamE nitya paripUraNamE and uppuma kindadi peNNE, nanRAka (from memory!). T.K.Sethuraman also narrates an incident when Tiger performed in sIrkAzhi village and was asked to sing a new pallavi after he had sung rAgam and tAnam in kAmbOji. Apparently at that time a street-vendor came around shouting katharikkai, katharikkai and Tiger sang "katharikkai vAnga vAyENdi tOzhi".
Among the recent singers, Sanjay Subramaniam seems to sing nice secular pallavis. Some examples :
vaNdAdum sOlai tanile, malayamArutam vIsuthE in malayamArutam, pArukkuLLE nalla nAdu, engaL bhArata nAdu in shaNmukhapriya and apakAra nindai..... in chakravAkam.
First here is a message from a friend.
1.
sri narasimhachariyaar (A) pallavi simmam(Sri Narasimhachari was a pallavi expert in Madras...if I remember correctly, the concert was organized by him... V Iyer decided to play a pallavi in his honour)
2.
The following is not a Tamil lyric, but it certainly scores high on the `unusual lyric' scale, as you will admit:
poojyaaya raaghavEndraaya satya dharma rathaayacha (A) bajathaam kalpavrukshaaya namataam kaamadEnavEThis is of course a sloka! I may have mangled the words, but this is the best extent to which I can recall them.
Ramana
Back to the
article list