Music Appreciation Notes - Natabhairavi & Its Janya-s

Natabhairavi is a suddha madhyama mela raga, the twentieth in Venkatamakhi's scheme. It uses chatusruti rishaba, sadharana gandhara, suddha daivata and kaisiki nishada.

It is not a raga famous progenies.

There are only a few compositions in Natabhairavi in vogue. Among them: Tyagaraja's Chetulara (Telugu); Ramanathapuram Srinivasa Iyengar's Parulaseva (Telugu); Papanasam Sivan's Sri Valli Devasenapatey (Tamil); and Balamuralikrishna's Nalina nayana.

The Tyagaraja-kriti is nowadays generally rendered in Bhairavi and Kharaharapriya also. The Bhairavi version can be heard performed on the flute at the opening of the saint's aradhana in Tiruvaiyaru every January. This convention began apparently when the late Palladam Sanjeeva Rao used to open the proceedings. To start anything with Sanjeeva Rao's flute was, in those days, firmly believed to be most auspicious.

Chetulara has also been a favourite of nagaswara vidwans Tirumarugal Natesan (T.N. Rajarathnam's uncle) and the Kiranur Brothers played the song in the original Natabhairavi mode. Pipers who came later switched to playing the song in Bhairavi, presumably because of a difficulty, which I shall mention presently. Despite this difficulty, many nagaswara vidwans have chosen Natabhairavi as the vehicle for displaying their creativity in ragam-tanam-pallavi.