🎶 Sahana & Nalinakanthi — The Cinematic Voices of Ilaiyaraaja, Rahman & Deva
Prelude: When the Grammar of Sound Becomes the Geometry of Emotion
In Indian music, a rāga is not merely a set of notes — it is a living being, a temperament, a pulse that breathes through time. Each carries within it a history older than the instruments that serve it, older even than the tongues that name it.
But when the rāga crosses into cinema, something alchemical occurs. It leaves the temple, steps into the studio, and learns to walk with the common man. It sheds none of its sanctity — only its austerity. There, among lights, lenses, and dialogue, it becomes the unseen actor: sometimes the voice of love, sometimes the voice of conscience.
In that long corridor where the classical meets the cinematic, two ragas — Sahana and Nalinakanthi — have found their own quiet corner. They do not shout for attention. They whisper, they linger, and they dissolve like perfume.
Their cinematic life is brief, almost elusive — yet in those few appearances, they reveal the inner lives of their composers. And when the names are Ilaiyaraaja, A. R. Rahman, and Deva, the conversation between tradition and modernity becomes nothing short of symphonic.
🌸 Rāga Sahana
— A rāga of reflection and surrender —
Sahana is tenderness incarnate. A rakti rāgam born of Harikambhoji, it has the fragrance of jasmine after rain — fragile, familiar, and infinitely expressive. It does not seek grandeur; it seeks grace. Its phrases unfold in curves, never straight lines — a melodic arabesque that evokes surrender and introspection in equal measure.
Ārohaṇa: S R₂ G₃ M₁ P M₁ D₂ N₂ S
Avarohaṇa: S N₂ D₂ P M₁ G₃ M₁ R₂ G₃ R₂ S
Yet to call these swaras Sahana would be like calling a prayer a sequence of syllables. The raga’s true life resides in its gamakas — those oscillations of feeling that transform sound into sentiment.
🎼 Ilaiyaraaja — Sahana in “Unnal Mudiyum Thambi” (1988)
Among Ilaiyaraaja’s countless dialogues with Carnatic grammar, Sahana occurs only once — but that single instance is enough to tell an entire story of musical conscience. In Unnal Mudiyum Thambi, from 1:35:40 to 1:36:40, a minute-long nagaswaram passage rises like incense through silence.
No words, no vocal line — only the breath of the reed carrying moral transformation. Ilaiyaraaja does not “use” Sahana; he consecrates it. In that one minute, the listener hears not just melody, but resolution — the triumph of introspection over inertia. It is perhaps the most unspoken form of rebellion in Tamil cinema: a reformist cry rendered in raga.
It remains to this day Ilaiyaraaja’s sole cinematic invocation of Sahana — a single candle lit, and still burning.
🎧 Watch the segment (1:35:40–1:36:40)
🎵 A. R. Rahman — Azhage Sugama / Anbe Sugama (Paarthale Paravasam, 2001)
If Ilaiyaraaja’s Sahana is carved in stone, Rahman’s is carved in mist. In Paarthale Paravasam, he reimagines the raga as a sigh wrapped in silk, built on suspended chords and diaphanous textures. The lines are long, the pauses eloquent, the rhythm unhurried — Sahana wanders as though reluctant to end.
Rahman’s brilliance lies in his ability to translate the grammar of a raga into the language of the modern ear without diluting its spirit. Where Ilaiyaraaja’s Sahana meditates, Rahman’s dreams. One invokes the deity; the other addresses the beloved. Both worship — only the temples differ.
🌼 Rāga Nalinakanthi
— A rāga of light and renewal —
If Sahana is a solitary dusk, Nalinakanthi is sunrise over a riverbank. Derived from the 27th Melakarta Sarasangi, it bursts with luminosity and measured optimism. It is discipline made joyous — the sound of the morning after a long night of silence.
Ārohaṇa: S G₃ R₂ M₁ P N₃ S
Avarohaṇa: S N₃ P M₁ G₃ R₂ S
The raga lends itself naturally to cinema’s kinetic emotions — bright, brisk, devotional yet worldly. Where Sahana invites reflection, Nalinakanthi invites renewal.
🎼 Ilaiyaraaja — Endhan Nenjil Neengatha (Kalaignan, 1993)
Here, Ilaiyaraaja conducts Nalinakanthi as though it were chamber music — intricate, layered, but unfailingly lyrical. The flute glides with understated majesty; the strings echo in tender consonance. Nothing juts out; everything breathes in perfect harmonic proportion.
This is the Raja of form — the engineer of emotion, for whom even the raga’s smallest gesture serves a symphonic purpose. He never compromises classical purity, yet never isolates it from feeling. Endhan Nenjil Neengatha is not merely composed; it is architected.
🎵 Deva — Manam Virumbuthe (Nerrukku Ner, 1997)
Male Version — Vocals by Unnikrishnan: Deva’s Manam Virumbuthe in Nalinakanthi finds its voice in Unnikrishnan’s serene classical phrasing. His rendition balances romantic tenderness with melodic purity, allowing the raga’s inherent brightness to bloom naturally. The composition remains graceful yet accessible — a bridge between Carnatic discipline and cinematic simplicity.
Watch on YouTube: https://youtube.com/watch?v=1z0X3UCCGHg
Female Version — Vocals by Harini: This rendition of Deva’s Manam Virumbuthe retains the cheerful lift of Nalinakanthi but softens its edges with Harini’s lilting timbre. Her voice carries the raga’s radiance with a distinctly feminine warmth, turning exuberance into quiet celebration — a luminous counterpart to the male version.
Watch on YouTube: https://youtube.com/watch?v=oQHqKNTl_8Q
Deva’s Nalinakanthi is the people’s version — unpretentious, cheerful, instantly memorable. He trims its grammar but retains its smile. The result is simplicity without shallowness, a melody that doesn’t bow before the scholar but walks hand in hand with the listener.
One could say Deva democratises Nalinakanthi. His song hums through buses, tea stalls, and transistor radios — proof that a raga need not live in ivory towers to be alive. In his hands, melody becomes companionship.
🎶 A. R. Rahman — Kandukondein Kandukondein (Title Track, 2000)
Rahman’s Kandukondein Kandukondein begins in Nalinakanthi but refuses to stay confined. It soon flirts with Kadanakuthuhalam, teasing anya swaras (R M, D N, G P, R, R S) as though melody itself were intoxicated with curiosity.
Rāga Kadanakuthuhalam:
Ārohaṇa: S R₂ M₁ D₂ N₃ G₃ P S
Avarohaṇa: S N₃ D₂ P M₁ G₃ R₂ S
Kadanakuthuhalam is a raga of exuberance and motion — bright, effervescent, and full of childlike vitality. It rarely lingers; it dances. Its asymmetrical climb and cascading descent create a sense of perpetual discovery, making it a perfect companion to Rahman’s musical temperament. Within the title track, the transition between Nalinakanthi’s poise and Kadanakuthuhalam’s sparkle is seamless, symbolising curiosity meeting clarity — the heart conversing with intellect.
The song sparkles with Rahman’s characteristic eclecticism — a harmonic dialogue between Carnatic rigour and Western romanticism. Here, the raga isn’t simply followed; it’s interpreted. And in that interpretation lies the thrill — a reminder that creativity is the most respectful form of rebellion.
This is Nalinakanthi as festival, not lecture — classical soul dressed in the finery of filmic imagination.
Learn more about Rāga Kadanakuthuhalam →
🎻 Composer Counterpoint: Three Worlds, One Grammar
To study Ilaiyaraaja, Rahman, and Deva through these ragas is to witness three philosophies of music-making.
Ilaiyaraaja is the grammarian-poet — an architect of order who believes beauty is born of structure. His ragas are not borrowed; they are built, brick by brick, until emotion becomes architecture. He composes as a mathematician might dream — with precision so profound that it turns spiritual.
A. R. Rahman, the alchemist, deals not in bricks but in light. He sees ragas as frequencies rather than formulas — elastic, mutable, alive. Where Ilaiyaraaja invokes the sanctum, Rahman builds a sanctuary — the same divinity, refracted through harmony. His music reminds us that devotion, too, evolves; it can wear headphones as easily as sacred ash.
Deva, the conversationalist, brings the raga to the people. He neither canonises nor complicates. He speaks in melody as one speaks in mother tongue — instinctively. If Ilaiyaraaja gives us the Veda and Rahman the Upanishad, Deva gives us the proverb — simple, succinct, yet resonant with wisdom.
Three composers. Three temperaments. One lineage of sound — each expanding the idea of what it means to be “classical” in a cinematic nation.
🪶 Epilogue: When Raga Becomes Reflection
Ragas, like rivers, change shape according to their banks. In the hands of these three, they flow — through temples, studios, and streets — carrying with them the same unbroken rhythm of human feeling.
Sahana and Nalinakanthi are not merely scales; they are philosophies disguised as melody. One teaches surrender; the other, renewal. Both remind us that the emotional cartography of Indian music is not drawn on paper but on the listener’s heart.
Ilaiyaraaja listens with devotion, Rahman with wonder, Deva with instinct — and together, they form the trinity of Tamil melody, where intellect, imagination, and intimacy coexist.
When Ilaiyaraaja’s nagaswaram sighs in Sahana, or Rahman’s strings shimmer in Nalinakanthi, we are reminded that cinema, at its best, is not visual but spiritual. It is the art of hearing the unseen.
For in music, as in life, not every silence is empty — some silences are simply listening back.
📚 Coda: The Library of Sound
Imagine walking into a library where every book is a raga. Some volumes are ancient and worn, their pages perfumed with age; others gleam, freshly bound, humming with new ink. In one corner sits Sahana, soft-spoken, contemplative, a philosopher in silk. Across the aisle, Nalinakanthi — bright-eyed, curious, a child who cannot stop asking questions.
And moving between these shelves, three curators: Ilaiyaraaja, arranging with the care of a sage; Rahman, rearranging with the curiosity of a seeker; and Deva, handing books freely to passers-by, smiling as they hum.
That, perhaps, is the enduring truth of our music — it is both library and living room, both scripture and song. And as long as these ragas continue to echo, one can walk into that library, close one’s eyes, and still find oneself home.
🎵 “In film music, a raga is never just a scale — it is the soul that listens when the story falls silent.”
🪶 Copyright Notice
© 2026 Dhinakar Rajaram. All rights reserved.
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“Music, like thought, belongs to the soul — but writing about it belongs to the writer.”
— Dhinakar Rajaram
🎧 YouTube References Used for Illustrative & Analytical Purposes
All embedded videos are publicly available on YouTube and are used here solely for educational and analytical discussion under fair usage principles. Full credit and ownership remain with their respective creators, composers, producers, and copyright holders.
- Ilaiyaraaja — “Unnal Mudiyum Thambi” (1988) BGM (Nagaswaram – Sahana)
Source: YouTube | Timestamp: 1:35:40 – 1:36:40 - A. R. Rahman — “Azhage Sugama / Anbe Sugama” from Paarthale Paravasam (2001)
Source: YouTube - Ilaiyaraaja — “Endhan Nenjil Neengatha” from Kalaignan (1993)
Source: YouTube - Deva — “Manam Virumbuthe” from Nerrukku Ner (1997)
Source: YouTube - A. R. Rahman — “Kandukondein Kandukondein” (Title Track, 2000)
Source: YouTube
Embedded clips are intended only to illustrate musical interpretation and tonal structure in film raga analysis. No infringement is intended; if any rights holder requests removal, the author will comply immediately.
