Deciphering Janani Ninnuvina

Janani Ninnuvina is a famous beautiful madhyama kaala keerthane in Reethigowla raga, Mishra Chaapu taala, composed by Sri Subbaraya Shastri.

The first time I heard MSS sing this; I fell flat on the ground. What a beautiful krithi and what a voice!

I wanted to sing this one too. All I had is the windows media file. I needed the script. I did not want to look at the English versions available on the internet. I wanted to do this on my own in my mother tongue. :)

So I first listened to the song several times to check if I can do this. Since I have never learnt a krithi this way, meaning, I normally learn from a teacher and only film songs/light music and some devaranamas through tapes or any media, this was my first experience with respect to a full fledged krithi coming from MS Amma. Normally I copy krithis from my music teachers’ book and all I have to do is just plain copy every note and sing it correctly. But now I had to do everything my own!

Thanks to Adiya for giving me the mp3.

Here it started.

First I thought, I know reethigowla and this should not be tough. Then I turned on the song in my ipod, opened my book and started penning down the saahithya in my mother tongue. I just realized that learning this way was equally exciting, though I missed my Meera aunty. Then after a few lines I realized I should mark the taala also now! And to top it all, it was Mishra Chaapu! Though I have learnt a madhyama kaala krithis in Mishra Chaapu (Maamava Pattabhirama(Manirangu), Kamakshi (Bhairavi)), when I started marking the taalas for this on my own, I realized how tough it was! Every note fell out of one complete cycle and I had to do it very carefully. I would’ve listened to each line 20 times to get the taala markings right! Phew that was one helluva job!

I sailed through Pallavi and Anupallavi.

Now came the chitteswara. I was in a maze now. Almost felt like Abhimanyu caught in Chakravyooha, unable to escape! How do I decipher this now, the taala went haywire when I sang the swaras and the swaras went haywire when I put the taala! I just knocked my head and realized that all I had to do is, split the beats into Thriputa taala pattern what we learnt in Alankaarams! Wow! I felt like a hacker hacking some password! So I wrote down the swaras in Thriputa taala style and it exactly fitted the bill! Wow! I wrote the charanam with ease after this and here I was! Ready with my dream script!

I am now learning the song part by part, directly from MS Amma! Let me tell you one superb advantage of learning this way (from ipod) – you can rewind and repeat the lines as many a times as you want till you get it right! Can you do this with your music teacher? Never right?

Take advantage of technology and do learn music. Never give up. :)