Peace in the eye of the storm!

Raag Puriyä gives a feel of being on an island of peace!

‘Serenity is not freedom from storm, but peace amid storm!’ – So goes a famous quotation. How true, especially when you think of Raag Puriyä! This is one raag-matrix which has a scale identical with Raag Märwä but differs from it radically in nature. While Märwä evokes tension and turmoil, Puriyä is more like an island of peace amidst the storm. The difference lies in its phraseology and emphasis on notes. Where Märwä favours Komal Rishabh (minor second note) and Dhaivat (sixth note), Puriyä relies on Gandhär and Nishäd (third and seventh note, resp). Teevra Madhyam (sharp fourth note) also gets good prominence in the presentation in Puriyä.

Puriyä is an ancient melody and one can find any number of good recordings in vocal and instrumental music. The most prominent that come to mind, from among the old masters, are the three-and-half minute 78-rpm discs of Pt DV Paluskar and Pt Omkarnäth Thäkur. Both have presented the same traditional composition but, in the recent years, Pt Rajan-Sajan Mishra have given us a delightful bandish that’s serenity and romance, at the same time. The lyrics ‘Main to kar äyi piyä sang rang raliyä’ lend it the silken touch of romance and the raag treatment brings out serenity in the matrix. The same bandish has also been recorded by young Ustäd Rashid Khän, but lacks the typical Puriyä touch of serenity.

The instrumental section gives us a variety of options vis-à-vis Puriyä. Ustäd Bismilläh Khän (shehnäi) and Pt Hariprasäd Chauräsiyä (flute) are simply superb while Pt Shivkumär Sharmä (santoor) and Pt Nikhil Bänerjee (sitar) also sketch an enchanting soundscape of this raag. Puriyä also melds well with a couple of other raag-matrices and gives birth to combination raags. Puriyä-Kalyän and Puriyä-Dhanäshri are the most common examples and we find a number of recordings in these.  Here I have a delightful and serene Puriyä-Kalyän rendered in an exclusive concert by Aarti Anklikar-Tikekar a few years back in Nashik.  Enjoy...

Popular music has borrowed a lot on all varieties of Puriyä and given us a number of delightful songs. Compositions like ‘Jai-Jai kartär tori’ (Film: Baiju Bäwrä), ‘Mere säson ko jo mehkä rahi hai’ (Lata-Mahendra Kapoor, Film: Badalte Rishte), ‘Aäke teri bähon mein’ (Film: Vansh) from Hindi film-music take us into the Puriyä territory while Marathi bhäv-sangeet boasts of ‘Jivalagä, rähile re’ (Ashä Bhosale, Composition: Hridaynäth Mangeshkar), an all-time great in Puriyä-Dhanäshri. A few other compositions like ‘Muralidhar shyäm’ (Katyär Käljät Ghusali, Composition: Pt Jitendra Abhisheki) or ‘Harawale te gavasale ka’ (Lata Mangeshkar, Composition: Vasant Prabhu) give us a different flavour of Puriyä and keep us riveted by the magic of its notes.

Yet another raag-matrix also evolves from the scale shared by Märwä and Puriyä, but more about it in the next episode…