Death of karvai

The heart of carnatic music is manodharma. The monarchical aspect is what defines carnatic music, and distinguishes it from the other forms of music--it is the triumph of spontaneity over the rehearsed and perfected. That is why carnatic music lives on, amid the flood of veritably more mellifluous, more soothing light music or the roller coaster thrill of rock or pop. Carnatic music appeals to the intellect, to the brain, while the rehearsed forms of music sing to the ear.

So, the connoisseur doesn't care much for a coarse (Chembai) or nasal (Semmangudi) or husky (Sanjay) voice; nor does he place a premium on sweetness of voice (say, Mahati). He looks for manodharma. Imagine a painter splashing cans of paint onto a canvas, yet makes the paint adhere to rules even as it spreads itself on the canvas! That is carnatic music.

Oddly enough, carnatic music still did not lack in aural appeal. Vocalists of yore achieved this by precision plucking of micro-tones; their mastery over the art was so good that they dwelt on the micro-tones in long pulses, called 'karvai'. The karvai-based painting of the raga had a certain soothing effect and made for aural appeal. Imagine a dancer climbing up a staircase on the stage, with a marked dwell on each step, and then climbing down in a similar fashion -- as opposed to a mad rush to the top and then a tumble.

Today, what we are seeing is the death of the karvai. The emphasis on manodharma and in the rather arrogant display of it, carnatic singers have kissed the karvai goodbye. The grace of a tusker ambling up a mountain is gone; what we see is the mad jig of a drunken monkey jumping from crag to crag.

Take for example, the performance of Vishnudev Nambudri at the Parthasarathy Swami Sabha during the 2019 season. The artiste stunned the audience with an audacious twin-raga pallavi--in Kamalamanohari and Devamanohari. The raga, tanam and the swaras alternated superbly over the two ragas, neither influenced the other and the vocalist maintained the distinction. Not that this has not been done before. Only a week or so back, Sowmya presented her own twin-raga pallavi--Panthuvarali and Nasikabhushini. The four-raga pallavi 'Sankarabharananai Azhaithodi vaadi Kalyani Darbarukku' has been handled by quite a few senior artistes and I have heard Neyveli Santhanagopalan sing it brilliantly at Kalarasana in the 1990s.

But the problem with Vishnudev was the excessive use of brikha and the almost complete exclusion of the karvai. What was evident was the talented singer's grip over the art and his enormous manodharma; what was absent was the aural appeal. 

Vishnudev's was just an example, and it is unfair to single him out in this. Practically every artiste is like this. Palghat Ramaprasad, for example, seems to have fallen in the same rut. His Ritigowlai--oh, boy, Ritigowlai--was splendid in its stretch of imagination, but the intoxicating effect of the raga was missing. 

The second last of the karvai-based singers was Nedunuri Krishnamurthy, who is no more. The last is perhaps Madurai G S Mani, the hallmark of whose raga delineation is the karvai. The octogenarian Mani--still a powerful singer--is totally absent from the halls these days, regrettably.

A example in contrast to the ruling rocketry in carnatic, was a Kiravani presented by Malladi Brothers in 2015, in the music season that came on the heels of the devastating floods in Chennai. They declared that they were singing the pallavi (pancha bhuta shantim dehi parameshwara) as a prayer to the Lord for peace with the elements, and as such had to be subdued and modest. It wasn't a great Kiravani in terms of manodharma. The raga spread itself with the slow and sombre majesty of a hearse; yet it was so incredibly beautiful, so mood-lightening, so aurally sticky. It is the best Kiravani that I have ever heard. 

How different it was from, say, a Sanjay concert. You come out of a Sanjay's cutcheri feeling as though you have been punched all over the body; you come out of the hall and rush to grab a cup of coffee...to relax. People--including me--go to Sanjay's concert to soak in his phenomenal manodharma, but his concerts strain you, drain you out. We know that that is how it is, but we still go to him because we want that treat of manodharma. 

Yes, today's carnatic vocal musicians have killed the 'karvai'. I can only hope that the karvai is a phoenix and will rise from its ashes.