Saroja could well be one of the few artistes playing the dilruba. Daughter and disciple of P.V. Shanmugam and grand daughter of Vellasamy, Saroja has been practising the instrument for the past 35 years. She is perhaps the only solo recording artiste operating on the instrument that has a near soprano human voice and is often used as an accompaniment.
Ideally suited to express pathos, dilruba found happy use in the hands of A.R. Rahman. ‘Urvasi Urvasi,’ ( Kadhalan ) becoming a hit. ‘Haira haira hairabba’ ( Jeans ), ‘Poongatrile’ ( Uyire ) and ‘Uyire Uyire’ ( Bombay ), ‘Pachai Kili Padum Ooru’ ( Karuthama) ‘Uppu Karuvadu’ ( Mudhalvan ) ‘Nilavae Mugam Kaattu’ ( Yajaman ) ‘Megham karukkudu’ ( Kushi )... the list is endless. All followed in quick succession which gave her a chance to play her instrument to the hilt.
Innovative styles
In 1995, she performed with the Belgium Orchestra in the U.S. and in Europe with composer Hans Vermeerch. It was indeed a great comeback for the ancient instrument. The 12-member orchestra which performed Ramayana at the U.S. on July 6,1995, was one of its kind. In 2008, Saroja had performed with Paul Jacob’s Sangamam in China. There were 38 of them and she was able to bring out folk style tunes on tharshehnai and dilruba. A bit of Pop style on dilruba was quite an innovation.
Speaking of recordings, she had the privilege of recording with M.S. Viswanathan, Ilayaraja, A.R. Rahman, Deva, V. Kumar, Anu Malik, Yuvan Shankar Raja, Karthick Raja, Devi Sri Prasad, Harris Jayaraj, Hamsalekha, Keeravani, Shankar Ganesh, Chandrabose, Upendra Kumar, Dina and Gibran. The ease with which Saroja handles the 19 frets, moving them to make minute adjustments and then working on 22 sympathetic strings while strumming the madhyama string, speaks volumes of her proficiency.
Saroja excels in presenting the melodic structure in all its entirety, delineating the mood in the essential passages, with a variant, giving it a distinctive stamp. Ragas that stand out in her repertoire are Keeravani, Kannada and Subha Pantuvarali.
“There were always moments of anxiety. For instance, during my trip to the U.S. the instrument went missing and was recovered three days later,” says Saroja. Receiving the Mirchi Music Award from Rahman was a high point. She describes as rewarding the trip with Ilaiyaraja to the U.S. and Canada in 1993 and later on to Sri Lanka.
Dilruba is related to sarangi, taus and Esraj. The story goes that it was blessed by the 10th Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh and became a regular part of the Sikh devotional music. While the Esraj became popular in Bihar, Bengal, Orissa and Assam, dilruba is more popular in Western India.
Some prominent musicians to have used dilruba with great effect are: Ashesh Banerjee, Pt. Shiv Dayal Batish, Pt. Ranadhir Ray, Kalipada Ghoushal, Buddhadeb Das, Master Sri Chinmoy, Pt. Ravi Shankar, SN. Bose, Shubhayu Sen Majumdar, Abir Singh Khangura, Alexandre Jurain, Jonathan Kay, Sougata Das, and Joel Goldsmith. The Beatles used it in ‘Within you without you’.
