Does shabda (sound) have an independent existence? Language philosophers in Medieval India have had extended debates over this and have stood to differ with each other. However, one school believed that shabda and artha (meaning) have a mutual relationship and don't exist without one another. If a forum for Performing Arts calls itself Shabda, then one understands that words are not mere utterances, but have a deeper, richer meaning and they keep evolving based on the evolution and perception of individual artistes.
Shabda, a unique initiative, which had its second edition in Bangalore recently, had a series of lecture demonstrations in the fields of music, dance and theatre. The doyen of Mysore tradition of Carnatic music, the 93-year-old R.K. Srinkantan, spoke on the “Usage of sadharana gandhara in kritis”. The raga system is unique to Indian music and the manner in which an artiste presents this abstract melodic entity, determines the worth of an artiste, he said. “The raga and its emotion are deeply intertwined, like the flower and its fragrance. It is difficult to separate one from the other.” Taking several ragas as case studies, Srikantan demonstrated how the gandhara expresses different emotions depending on its placement in a melodic scale. For instance, in Todi he said, gandhara acquires the shade of the rishaba in the lower scale, and develops a relation with madhyama in the middle octave, and takes on the shade of dhaivata in the upper scale. Also, when it is an elongated gandhara, there is scope for gamaka, however, when it is a clipped utterance, it lends no room for gamaka. The manner in which a note is held can change the raga too, he explained. He elaborated this with the examples of Dhenuka, Dhanyasi, Shubha Pantuvarali, Shanmukhapriya and Sri Ranjani. “The gandhara gets its identity from its placement in the raga scale,” he added.
Classifying a raga according to its characteristics is a recent phenomenon, as recent as Venkatamakhi, said musicologist R. Visweswaran. Speaking on “Classification of ragas as ghana, naya and deshya – an enquiry”, he recalled how Deshya ragas are those that are imported from Hindustani music. Subbarama Diskhitar would say that those ragas were like “women from other lands who win over us”. Ragas like Yaman, Jaijaivanti, Bageshri, Behag have entered the Carnatic stream through the Hindustani system. However, he disagreed with the penchant of Carnatic musicians to introduce a foreign note in these ragas that is not present in its original expression. After a detailed demonstration of rakti and ghana ragas, Visweswaran asked if a raga in all its variants does stand to represent the category it belongs to. “Ragas are compounds of several moods in one. The compartments of rakti, ghana and deshya are not mutually exclusive,” he argued. He went on to prove his point with several examples. “If Goula is a ghana raga, why does Tyagaraja use it to mourn with anguish?”, “If Shree Mooladhara of Shree raga oozes with majesticity, why does the mood change to one of imploration in the kriti Shree Kamalambike?” By citing several examples and raising several questions, Visweswaran insisted that tradition does not exist in watertight compartments.
Danseuse Bhanumathi and her group put out a spectacular performance for her paper, “Adapting a musical composition to Bharathanatya in a group presentation”. With several small performances, she said that while a group presentation is far more demanding and challenging, and it needs split second precision, it also lends itself to far more possibilities than a solo performance. Elucidating it with “Shree Mannarayana”, Bhanumathi argued that fast movements are easier to achieve in a group, whereas slow movements can be brought out only with enormous rigour.
In her paper, “Parallel Tracks: Music and Theatre”, critic and playwright Gowri Ramnarayan, played out several video clippings from her plays and demonstrated how unlike in a concert, emotion plays a key role in composing music for a play. “Music is to say what is unsaid through words,” she explained.
At length, Priyadarshini Govind explained how a composition is conceived, particularly the non-traditional ones. The acclaimed dancer, demonstrated through music and nattuvangam, the various tools an artiste employs to give the performance a visual insight.
No art exists outside its context; hence meanings are multiple. The Shabda endeavour, a significant one at that, hopes to present this multi-dimensional facet.
