Rag Shivaranjani

Description

Shivaranjani is a Hindustani rag which has only arisen in the 20th century. In spite of its recent advent, it has quickly become one of the most widely used and recognisable rags in Indian music. This is due to its ubiquitous presence in films from every part of India.

Its purpose in films is to unambiguously invoke a mood of pathos. Visualise the mother who moves at the speed of sound to get in front of the hero, just in time to get struck by a bullet from the villain’s gun. (All of this in spite of the fact that she apparently hasn’t run since 1955.) Although she dies, it isn’t before she is able to deliver some heart-wrenching dialogue to be inflicted upon the movie-goers. The background to this predictable dialogue will often be in rag Shivaranjani.

There is another way that Shivaranjani has burned itself into the collective Indian mind. For many decades AIR used a small loop as a test audio before the start of each broadcasting day.

The modality of this rag is remarkably simple. It is merely Bhupali that has the shuddha Ga replaced with a komal Ga. Since no other rag shares this modality, one does not have to worry about vadi, samvadi, or pakad to maintain the character.

Although it isn’t strictly permissible, it has become a common in the lighter approaches to admit both shuddha and komal Ga. These Gas are sometimes even handled chromatically to enhance the quality of pathos, even though this breaks with a classical Shivaranjani.

There is a Shivaranjani in Carnatic music, but it is a very different rag.