A Pilgrimage Through Kalyani and Her Five Tongues: Ragas, Devotion, and the Architecture of Sound in Ilaiyaraaja’s “Vaidehi Raman”

By Dhinakar Rajaram, 2025

Preface

To listen to Vaidehi Raman from Pagal Nilavu is to step inside a temple built not of stone but of sound. Ilaiyaraaja, in his infinite grace, crafts a Ragamālika where Kalyani reigns supreme, yet the air is inhabited by her children and cousins: Hanumatodi, Hindolam, Suddha Dhanyasi, Mohanam, and faint whispers of Harikambhoji, Charukesi, and Madhyamavati.

This essay is offered from the perspective of a lifelong listener — a fan whose ears have grown wise through decades of attentive immersion rather than through formal training. Here, we journey together, with raga as guide, from the first trembling bell to the final harmonic sigh.

Act I — The Aural Architecture

The overture is a slow unveiling. Celesta chimes glisten like dew on bronze bells; the air trembles with the promise of sanctity. One senses not merely a song beginning but a space being consecrated.

Out of that quiet ascends a tanpura drone — the primordial Sa — and in its halo lie the seeds of every raga that will soon unfurl: Kalyani, Hanumatodi, Hindolam, Suddha Dhanyasi, Mohanam, and their faint cousins Harikambhoji, Charukesi, and Madhyamavati.

Ilaiyaraaja — architect rather than mere arranger — designs his soundscape as a mandala of modes. Each raga is not yet audible in full, but its shadow already flits across the air: the xylophone traces Kalyani’s bright Ma–Pa–Dha; the veena sighs a Harikambhoji phrase; the violins momentarily darken toward Charukesi’s minor hue. Within seconds, he has hinted at the whole pilgrimage to come.

Kalyani — The Queen of Light

A heptatonic sovereign (S R₂ G₃ M₂ P D₂ N₃ S), Kalyani is spacious, magnanimous, and eternally upward-looking. It tolerates graha-bhedam with ease; every note can become a doorway. Its sonic aura feels like marble bathed in morning sun — devotional yet confident.

When Raaja anchors his temple bells here, he is proclaiming: the light has entered.

Ārohaṇa: S R₂ G₃ M₂ P D₂ N₃ S
Avarohana: S N₃ D₂ P M₂ G₃ R₂ S

Hanumatodi — The Austerely Devout

Waiting in the wings is Hanumatodi — ancient, severe, and ascetic (S R₁ G₂ M₁ P D₁ N₂ S). By shifting Kalyani’s Ni into the seat of Sa, Raaja will later summon this monkish presence. Its flattened intervals bow the melody; pride becomes penitence.

The bass that hums a long Ni in the overture already sketches this transformation — a hint of confession beneath celebration.

Ārohaṇa: S R₁ G₂ M₁ P D₁ N₂ S
Avarohana: S N₂ D₁ P M₁ G₂ R₁ S

Hindolam — The Meditative Pentatonic

A raga of only five notes (S G₂ M₁ D₁ N₂ S), Hindolam is silence sculpted into sound. Because it omits Ri and Pa, it floats — refusing gravity. Its graha-bhedam possibilities are legendary, and Raaja, ever the tonal voyager, keeps its ghost hovering in the flutes.

Ārohaṇa: S G₂ M₁ D₁ N₂ S
Avarohana: S N₂ D₁ M₁ G₂ S

Suddha Dhanyasi — The Rustic Devotee

From Hindolam’s meditation will sprout Suddha Dhanyasi (S G₂ M₁ P N₂ S) — earthy, tender, folk-devotional. Even in the prelude, a veena’s plucked triad foretells it.

This is the raga of hearth and lamp, of a mother humming while the rice boils. In Raaja’s architecture, it serves as the step from introspection to intimacy.

Ārohaṇa: S G₂ M₁ P N₂ S
Avarohana: S N₂ P M₁ G₂ S

Mohanam — The Joyous Liberator

The brightest pentatonic (S R₂ G₃ P D₂ S) glimmers faintly in the violins’ arpeggios. Its smile is inevitable; Mohanam is the child in every adult, the laughter hidden in every prayer.

It is also the most graha-bhedam-friendly of all — capable of birthing or being born from almost any of the others.

Ārohaṇa: S R₂ G₃ P D₂ S
Avarohana: S D₂ P G₃ R₂ S

Harikambhoji, Charukesi, and Madhyamavati — The Peripheral Stars

Harikambhoji (28th melakarta) is the unseen parent of both Suddha Dhanyasi and Mohanam. Raaja hints at it through passing major-scale harmonies.

Ārohaṇa: S R₂ G₃ M₁ P D₂ N₂ Ṡ
Avarohana: Ṡ N₂ D₂ P M₁ G₃ R₂ S
Charukesi, noble in sorrow, appears as a fleeting violin sigh — a half-tone bridge between Kalyani’s radiance and Hanumatodi’s penance.

Ārohaṇa: S R₂ G₃ M₁ P D₁ N₂ Ṡ
Avarohana: Ṡ N₂ D₁ P M₁ G₃ R₂ S
Madhyamavati, pentatonic and pacific, lingers in the temple-bell coda — the unspoken Mangalam that every Carnatic journey deserves.

Ārohaṇa: S R₂ M₁ P N₂ Ṡ
Avarohana: Ṡ N₂ P M₁ R₂ S

Together, these ragas form a genealogical tree: Kalyani the matriarch, Harikambhoji the sibling branch, and the pentatonics their children and grandchildren. Raaja’s overture, therefore, is both invocation and blueprint.

The mridangam now enters — heartbeat of stone. Its tala steadies the listener’s breath; within that rhythm, the mind becomes receptive.

By the time the human voice begins, we are already subtly tuned: the body keeping tala, the intellect tracing intervals, the soul waiting for revelation.

Such is Ilaiyaraaja’s genius — he builds a cathedral before singing a hymn. The listener, whether scholar or layman, steps inside the music already half-converted.

Act II — The Vocal Pilgrimage: Kalyani

And then, the melody takes flight:

"Vaidehi Rāman, kai-sērum kālam, thai mādha nan nāḷilē…"

The first syllable blossoms in Kalyani rāgam, radiant and magnanimous. Ilaiyaraaja’s treatment is deliberate and unhurried: strings sustain the long Pa–Dha–Ni–Sa, giving the singer room to breathe, while bells trace subtle arpeggios as if the temple itself were responding.

S. Janaki’s voice enters like a liquid sunbeam, nailing every nuance of Kalyani and the subsequent ragas with uncanny precision. Each gamaka and modulation reveals both technical mastery and emotive depth.

🎧 Listen to “Vaidehi Raman” — Kalyani to Mohanam

Act III — Hanumatodi Emerges via Shruti-Bhedam

Then, quietly, the world tilts. As the bass sustains a long Ni, the tonic imperceptibly shifts. Through this subtle Shruti-Bhedam, Hanumatodi emerges from Kalyani’s radiance — austere, ancient, dignified, like a granite saint illuminated by a flickering wick lamp.

The emotional landscape transforms: confidence to contrition, offering to introspection.

S. Janaki navigates this shift with uncanny precision, her voice bending effortlessly through flattened swaras. The transformation is seamless — more dream than modulation.

Act IV — Hindolam: The Moonlit Interval

Just when austerity weighs, Raaja opens a skylight. The violins withdraw, the flute steps forward, and the composition exhales into Hindolam — pentatonic melancholy.

With no Ri and no Pa, absence itself becomes aesthetic. Moonlight on temple stones — cold yet comforting.

S. Janaki’s voice enters seamlessly, embracing Hindolam’s contours. Each note floats effortlessly, making the listener feel they’ve been expecting this moonlit calm all along.

Act V — Suddha Dhanyasi: The Earthly Smile

Now comes a sudden shaft of sunlight — earthy, unpretentious, tender. The veena plucks foregrounded; mridangam articulates affectionate rhythms. Hindolam’s meditation gives way to human devotion; the melody smiles even when the eyes are wet.

Subtle Madhyamavati hints linger in the coda.

S. Janaki’s voice infuses warmth and grace, transforming devotion into intimacy.

Act VI — Mohanam: The Joyous Ascent

Mohanam bursts forth like sunrise over temple towers. Flutes trill, violins shimmer, percussion gains confidence. A pentatonic optimism bridges East and West.

The transition from Suddha Dhanyasi to Mohanam is a pivot — the mood alters, the grammar persists. At last, the song circles back to Kalyani; the cycle is complete.

Act VII — The Orchestral Conversations

Every note is dialogue: veena intones, flute replies, strings sigh in concord. Mridangam’s tala threads the changing modes.

Bass guitar under Hanumatodi grounds modal austerity with Western tonality; celesta under Mohanam shimmers like cosmic confetti.

Even silence has a scale.

Act VIII — The Lyric and Its Light

The lyric bridges the theological and the psychological. Vaidehi Rāman is not only deity but conscience.

The raga-journey mirrors the inner pilgrimage: pride (Kalyani), remorse (Hanumatodi), reflection (Hindolam), humility (Suddha Dhanyasi), joy (Mohanam).

Music here is philosophy made audible — a hymn to self-realisation.

Act IX — The Filmic Context

In Pagal Nilavu, this song accompanies moral dilemma and redemption. Cinematography lingers on temple architecture, vermilion lamps, and the devotion of the crowd.

Raga changes correspond to camera movement: close-up to wide, interior to exterior, conscience to cosmos.

Here, the blueprint of later Raaja–Mani Ratnam sound-worlds emerges — psychology, narrative, and raga woven into a single cinematic grammar.

Act X — The Comparative Frame

Ragamālika has an august history — Dikshitar, Tyagaraja — yet for kutcheri stages. Ilaiyaraaja transplanted it into cinema, using continuous modulation via tonic migration: the reincarnation of melody within a single body.

Earlier glimpsed in Janani Janani (Thodi–Kalyani), later in Poonkadhave Thaalai Saaya (Simhendramadhyamam–Kalyani), but here with unparalleled seamlessness.

For connoisseurs, intellectual rapture; for lay listeners, sheer beauty.

Act XI — The Listener’s Epilogue

I first heard Vaidehi Raman on a faint All India Radio transmission in the mid-1980s, monsoon static distorting the sound. Yet something pristine emerged — a voice, a bell, a raga neither temple nor theatre, but somewhere in between.

Years later, I realised I had known it even then — not intellectually, but instinctively. That is the paradox of Ilaiyaraaja’s art: even unnamable ragas are already known to the soul.

Ragas are memories given melody; Shruti-Bhedam is felt, not parsed. The temple of sound becomes memory; Kalyani dreams in five tongues, and we listen with remembrance.

Ars longa, vita brevis — art is long, life brief. Yet within the few minutes of Vaidehi Raman, one lives a lifetime of musical enlightenment.

Glossary of Musical Terms

Raga / Ragam: A melodic framework with specific ascending and descending notes.
Ārohaṇa / Arohana / Arohanam / Aroh / Aroha: Ascending scale of a raga. Notes rise from Shadja (Sa) to Taar Shadja (higher Sa), possibly vakra (crooked).
Avarohana / Avarohanam / Avaroha: Descending scale of a raga, from upper Sa to lower Sa, possibly vakra.
Graha-bhedam: Shifting tonic (Sa) to derive a new raga.
Sampoorna: Raga with seven notes in ascent and descent.
Audava: Pentatonic raga.
Melakarta: Parent scale in Carnatic music.
Tanpura: Drone instrument providing tonic.
Tala: Rhythmic cycle.
Śraddhā / Viveka / Dhyāna / Bhakti / Ānanda / Śānti: Emotional stages mirrored by the raga sequence.
S. Janaki: Renowned playback singer whose rendition of Vaidehi Raman exemplifies flawless raga transition and emotional precision.
Ilaiyaraaja: Legendary composer who fuses Carnatic ragas with Western orchestration, creating a temple of sound where ragas converse across time, mood, and emotion.

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Wednesday, 26 November 2025

Vaidehi Raman — When Kalyani Dreamt in Five Tongues