The Rasika's Confusion

Hmmm....
After dedicating a blog solely to musical experiences, I haven't done justice to the blogging experience. More than 7 months is a looong time of bloggo-dormance. Breaking the vrath, I start off with some recent findings of mine in the carnatic arena.

The song, Innisai ala vedaye from Varalaru is a master-class composition made even more vocally irresistible by Naresh Iyer and Mahati. As with any song that I hear these days, the immediate thoughts that scamper in my mind are the structure of the song, the swara pattern which culminates in the identification of the ragam of that song. What sheer joy it brings to identify the ragam of a song. It exercises your intellectual ability and ripens your artistic creativity.(wow!)

So, on hearing the song, my instinctive, impulsive reaction was Shudhha Dhanyasi, with Sa Ga2 Ma1 Pa Ni2 Sa - Sa Ni2 Pa Ma1 Ga2 Sa. That was easy!. It starts of with Ni Sa Ga Ma Pa, Ga Ma Pa... - clearly, no controversies, or so I thought.

Just then, another opinion came across, from my mother, Ga Ma Da Ni Sa, Da Ni Sa....She was singing Hindolam Sa Ga2 Ma1 Da1 Ni2 Sa - Sa Ni2 Da1 Ma1 Ga2 Sa. It sounded right the same way Shudhha Dhanyasi had sounded right in my head.

I couldn't get it. Two ragams for the same song??

The ensuing discussion offered some interesting insights on the concept of Adhara Shruti. Any song has a fundamental scale associated with it. It can be determined from the thanpura shruti that plays at the background, or any accompanying instrument that delivers the Sa-Pa-Sa notes.
So when Innisai is sung with the scale to which it was originally tuned to, its Hindolam. When on the same scale, you port Ma to Sa, that is make, Sa-Ma as Pa-Sa, the same song can be sung in Sudhha Dhanyasi.

This is a conclusion that I have arrived after having thought through for sometime. Anybody willing to contradict this is most welcome :-)
A brilliant manifestation of the hidden science behind the evergreen art that is carnatic music!