Ilaiyaraaja and the Liberation of Rāgas

When the Caged Parrot Sang in Silk — Ilaiyaraaja and the Liberation of Rāgas

By Dhinakar Rajaram | Bibliotheque Series | © 2025

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Prologue — The Parrot and its Golden Cage

For centuries Carnatic rāgas were treated as holy relics—beautiful, yet bound by ritual. Certain modes such as Madhyamāvathi and Dharmāvathi belonged to the sanctum, not the smoky twilight of cinema. They were the parrots in a golden cage: melodious, but never free.

Then came Ilaiyaraaja—composer, philosopher, provocateur. He looked at those cages and smiled. The rāga, he believed, was not a captive deity but a living bird that could sing anywhere—temple, tavern, or dream.

Two songs testify to this liberation:

1. “Yaar Māmanō” — Vetrikku Oruvan (1979)
2. “Ponmeni Uruguthey” / “O Babua Yeh Mahua” — Moondram Pirai (1982) / Sadma (1983)

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I — The Age of Reverence and Restraint

Certain rāgas were once hallowed, too sacred to be playful. Dharmāvathi and Madhyamāvathi were the sanctum’s preserve, never ventured into cabaret or fantasy. Ilaiyaraaja challenged this orthodoxy, blending devotion with desire, discipline with invention.

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II — The Chef of Sound

Raaja treats the rāga like a chef treats limited ingredients. A pinch of foreign spice, a shift in texture, a slow simmer in rhythm—and a sacred recipe turns worldly without losing flavour.

Ingredient	Classical Constraint	Raaja’s Transformation
Rāga	Fixed grammar	Emotional spectrum
Harmony	Taboo	Subtle colour wash
Rhythm	Tāla-bound	Conversational groove
Instrumentation	Acoustic	Hybrid, orchestral palette
Voice	Ornamented	Character-driven expression

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III — Yaar Māmanō — Dharmāvathi in Satin

🎧 Listen: Yaar Māmanō — Vetrikku Oruvan (1979)

Film: Vetrikku Oruvan (1979)
Singer: S. Janaki
Rāga: Dharmāvathi (Prelude) with traces of Gowri Manohari (Main)

A brushed-drum rhythm, languid bass, and jazz brass announce the scene: a cabaret stage. Yet the melody remains S R₂ G₂ M₂ P D₂ N₂ S — pure Dharmāvathi. Listen for the M₂→G₂ glides — those are the rāga’s heartbeat.

Raaja dresses devotion in satin. S. Janaki’s phrasing is a masterclass in restraint: the same notes that could sanctify a prayer now whisper a smile. Each gamaka curves like perfume smoke—visible for a moment, then gone. Here, sanctity and seduction share the same breath.

🎵 Rāga Debate Note — Dharmāvathi or Gowri Manohari?

While this essay identifies Dharmāvathi as the foundational rāga of Yaar Māmanō, several trained listeners recognise Gowri Manohari in its melodic turns. The prelude suggests Dharmāvathi’s prati-madhyamam (M₂) hue, while the main body reclines into Gowri Manohari’s shuddha-madhyamam (M₁). Both share six identical swaras, differing only in madhyamam.

This duality mirrors Ilaiyaraaja’s style—seamless raga modulation guided by emotion rather than rulebook. The shift between M₂ and M₁ intensifies the song’s erotic shimmer without fracturing its classical coherence.

— Editorial Note, Bibliotheque Series

Beat Signature

Rhythmic Structure: 4/4 (common time)
Feel: Latin-jazz syncopation with bossa-nova undercurrent

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IV — Ponmeni Uruguthey / O Babua Yeh Mahua — The Velvet Mirage

🎧 Listen: Ponmeni Uruguthey — Moondram Pirai (1982)

🎧 Listen: O Babua Yeh Mahua — Sadma (1983)

a) The Scene and the Dream

In Moondram Pirai and Sadma, Silk Smitha dreams after glimpsing Kamal Haasan. The entire song unfolds inside her fantasy—a space where desire is imagined, not enacted. Ilaiyaraaja scores sensuality through psychology rather than exposure, making the music the vehicle of unspoken longing.

b) The Rāga Core

The melody begins in Madhyamāvathi, yet it flirts gently with Sindhu Bhairavi, Nātabhairavi, and Kaapi. Each rāga shade enriches its texture — folk warmth, thumri fluidity, and soft melancholy. S. Janaki’s whispering restraint and Asha Bhosle’s Hindustani phrasing complete the dual personality of devotion-turned-desire.

At first, the melody traces Madhyamāvathi: S R₂ M₁ P N₂ S – S N₂ P M₁ R₂ S. But fleeting notes G₃ and D₂ appear like subtle disturbances, a signature of Raaja’s hybridisation: Madhyamāvathi provides the emotional skeleton, dressed in colours borrowed from other rāgas.

c) The Blended Trinity — Sindhu Bhairavi, Nātabhairavi & Kaapi

Rāga Colour	Swaras & Emotion	Function in the Song
Sindhu Bhairavi	Both G₂/G₃, N₂/N₃ — flexible, folk-sensual	Adds thumri-like languor; the sigh in “uruguthey…”
Nātabhairavi	Natural minor (Aeolian) feel; D₁ absent, D₂ present	Provides melancholic undertone — hinting at tragic destiny
Kaapi	Oscillated G₂ → G₃, plaintive slides	Gives warmth and earthy intimacy

d) Orchestration and Atmosphere

Muted guitars sketch rhythm; flute and electric violin interludes act as sighs between thoughts. The bass line walks lazily, almost breathing. Every instrument functions like chiaroscuro — light revealing the curves of shadow.

e) Two Voices, One Soul

S. Janaki internalises the dream in Tamil: half-whisper, half-moan, a voice that melts rather than announces. She sings as Silk Smitha dreams — a blend of innocence and hunger. Asha Bhosle, in Hindi, translates the same melody into Hindustani idiom, her thumri-like inflections, gentle meends and murkis lending rustic sensuality. Both voices reveal what the rāga feels, not what it is; their timbres make the melody human.

f) Beat Signature and Rhythmic Parallels

Rhythmic Structure: 6/8 compound time
Feel: Slow keherva-inspired lilt with cinematic elasticity

The 6/8 swing dissolves discipline into dream. Every triplet phrase invites motion, like silk caught in a breeze. Raaja turns Madhyamāvathi’s disciplined framework into Sindhu Bhairavi–Kaapi fluidity through rhythm itself.

Where rāga gives a song its soul, tāla gives it a body. In Yaar Māmanō, Raaja anchors Dharmāvathi’s grace in 4/4 — dignified, upright, almost architectural. The rhythm behaves like a measured spine, holding sensuality in check. In Ponmeni Uruguthey and O Babuaa Yeh Mahua, the 6/8 swing allows melody to flow, curve, and melt — ideal for imagined desire. The difference between divinity and desire lies not in notes alone, but in the rhythmic breath that carries them.

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V — From Sanctum to Cabaret — The Liberation of Rāgas

For Ilaiyaraaja, rāgas are not moral categories. They are languages of emotion. Dharmāvathi discovers glamour without sin; Madhyamāvathi rediscovers flesh without losing soul. He collapses the boundary between sacred and sensual—music, like humanity, contains both temple and tavern.

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VI — The Listener’s Revelation

For those who grew up with transistor radios humming Ilaiyaraaja’s tunes, these songs were revelation. Rāgas became companions of emotion—speaking in daily language, humming through our kitchens and midnights. The parrot had flown out of its cage.

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VII — Epilogue Study — “Kungumathu Meni” and the Fluid Grammar of Emotion

🎧 Listen: Kungumathu Meni — Naan Sigappu Manithan (1985)

Kungumathu Meni — Film, Rāga & Feel

Film: Naan Sigappu Manithan (1985)
Singer: S. Janaki
Composer: Ilaiyaraaja
Picturisation: A dimly lit club, where Anuradha performs a sensual yet restrained dance as Rajinikanth watches, unmoving — the music itself charged with unspoken tension.
Genre: Cabaret song with a suspense undertone
Probable Rāga Base: Hybrid of Dharmāvathi and Gowri Manohari
Beat Signature: 4/4 (common time)
Feel: Slow cabaret swing with noir-like tension, subtle erotic charge and melancholic undercurrent

Context and Tone:
By 1985, Ilaiyaraaja had already dismantled many of Tamil cinema’s melodic taboos — Kungumathu Meni emerges as a culmination of that journey. Placed within the noir-like world of Naan Sigappu Manithan, the song transcends its cabaret frame, functioning not as titillation but as psychological subtext. The melody carries a subtle erotic charge, yet beneath it lingers a strange melancholy — as if beauty itself is aware of its own impermanence.

Rāga Analysis:
The composition flows between Dharmāvathi (S R₂ G₂ M₂ P D₂ N₂ S) and Gowri Manohari (S R₂ G₂ M₁ P D₂ N₂ S), the only difference being the madhyamam (M₂ → M₁). Ilaiyaraaja deploys this microscopic shift to engineer a macro-emotional transformation — from luminous to dusky, from devotional to dramatic. The prelude’s brass and strings trace the brighter Dharmāvathi hue, before the main melodic body reclines into Gowri Manohari’s shaded sensuality.

Instrumentation and Rhythm:
The song sits on a measured 4/4 grid — a slow cabaret swing supported by brushed drums, a lazy bassline, and sultry muted brass. Strings enter only as whispers, never overpowering the vocal intimacy. The harmonic layering — a touch of electric piano and subtle reverb — amplifies the sense of emotional suspension. Nothing resolves completely, musically or psychologically. Every phrase ends mid-thought, mirroring Rajinikanth’s stillness amid motion.

Vocal Interpretation:
Only S. Janaki could have rendered this — her phrasing blurs the boundary between voice and breath. She treats the melody not as performance but as interior monologue: half sung, half sighed. Her tonal control in the descending glides (M → G₂) brings the rāga’s latent Śṛṅgāra rasa to life without overt display. Few playback singers in world cinema have conveyed such precision of restraint.

Ilaiyaraaja’s Cinematic Vision:
In Kungumathu Meni, he revisits the same philosophical premise that governed Yaar Māmanō and Ponmeni Uruguthey / O Babuaa Yeh Mahua — that rāga is not moral terrain but emotional geometry. By threading a sacred rāga through an ambience of worldly temptation, he reclaims sensuality from vulgarity and transforms desire into aesthetic contemplation. Even in a “cabaret,” the rāga retains dignity — the listener feels awe, not guilt.

Scholar’s Note — The raga identification of Kungumathu Meni remains an open enquiry. Current analytical consensus points to a Dharmāvathi–Gowri Manohari hybrid in a 4/4 rhythmic grid, though future detailed swara-mapping may refine this classification. Its minor modal turns briefly evoke Hindōḷaṃ, yet its melodic behaviour leans decisively toward a dual-madhyamam synthesis unique to Ilaiyaraaja’s idiom. This section will be revisited should an authoritative musical evidence emerge later on this.

— Supplementary Note, Bibliotheque Series

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VIII — Glossary

Term	Meaning
Rāga	The melodic framework in Indian classical music...
Dharmāvathi	59th Melakarta rāga; prati-madhyamam (M₂) counterpart of Keeravāṇi...
Gowri Manohari	23rd Melakarta rāga employing shuddha-madhyamam (M₁)...
Madhyamāvathi	Pentatonic rāga of repose...
Sindhu Bhairavi	Light-classical rāga allowing both G₂/G₃...
Nātabhairavi	20th Melakarta rāga...
Kaapi	Ancient janya rāga...
Gamaka	Ornamentation or oscillation that animates a note...
Rasa	Distilled aesthetic emotion...
Śṛṅgāra Rasa	Sentiment of love and sensuality...

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IX — Coda — When the Parrot Flew Free

Two songs. Two rāgas once confined to reverence. One composer who taught them to blush and breathe. Ilaiyaraaja did not desecrate grammar; he humanised it. The parrot left its golden cage and sang—not less divinely in freedom, but truer.

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© Copyright, Authorship & Usage

© Dhinakar Rajaram, 2025
All rights reserved. Text, analysis, concept, and design are original works of the author. Part of the Bibliotheque series.

Illustration Credits:
Poster artwork with the pencil-sketch portrait of Maestro Ilaiyaraaja (with his signature vermilion) was conceptualised, composed, and designed by the author as a visual echo to the essay’s spirit. A non-commercial homage for educational and cultural appreciation. All creative rights remain with Dhinakar Rajaram.

Usage Terms:
Reproduction or adaptation—digital, print, or derivative—requires prior written consent. Brief scholarly citations may be made with due credit.

“When the Caged Parrot Sang in Silk — Ilaiyaraaja and the Liberation of Rāgas” stands as both homage and analysis — tracing how melody transcends morality when shaped by a master craftsman of sound.

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