KOCHI: Every morning a group of music lovers including music directors, dancers and bank managers wait for an WhatsApp message from film maker T K Rajeev Kumar. A lot of information about music goes out from the director’s phone these days. He has been regularly keeping them updated on ragas (modes of classical music) and interesting information associated with them for some time. The idea of introducing ‘A Raga A Day’ was started seven months ago and since then both Kumar and those who receive his daily messages are hooked to it.
“The idea of ‘A Raga A day’, was an accidental initiative. I randomly selected a few from my contact and observed their response. Later I restricted the list to 100, those who have shown deep interest in it,” says Rajeev.
Prominent among the 100 members of this informal music club are music directors Ramesh Narayan, M Jayachandran, violinist Balabasker, dancers Methil Devika, Lakshmi Gopalaswamy, play back singers Venugopal, Sreeram, Gayathri and Vidhu Prathap, noted nadhaswara players Ampalapuzha brothers, chief general manager SBT S Adikesavan etc. But Rajeev has not converted this into a WhatsApp group in order to avoid discussions straying outside music and hence sends individual messages to each one.
Rajeev sends messages at 5 in the morning to the music lovers he has identified. The message introduces one raga in carnatic music with details such as aroganam (ascending scale of notes), avarohanam (descending scale), janya (explains the origin), composer, tala (rhythmic pattern) and singer. He also sends an audio clip of the raga, its kriti (composition), a kathakali padam (if available for the selected raga), an instrumental composition and a film song based on particular raga.
Rajeev explains that including film songs enables people who do not have much knowledge of music to understand the raga.
One would wonder why a film director is so keen about music? “I grew up listening to music. I do have a huge collection of all types of music. Now a days I prefer western music and am into its history also,” says Rajeev. He is trained in mridangam. He is also the founder member and leader of the musical band Blue Birds, formed in 1980.
Rajeev says he is happy with the response he has received so far. Whenever he delays sending message, the members will either call back or send message to remind him. The members are equally appreciative of the efforts of this award winning director.
“We spend much of our time in WhatsApp and many of the messages are unwanted. I believe this is actually a good start for the day. ‘A Raga A Day’ is a best mix up of both carnatic classical and western classical. The talk is all music. I really appreciate Rajeev for the providing such a refreshment for the soul,” says Adikesavan.
For the playback singer Sreeram the daily messages help in recollecting ragas. He saves the audio clippings and stores them as a treasure. “Besides the collection will help my daughter who is doing her graduation in music,” he says.
The messages make dancer Methil Devika home sick for her native Palakad.
“At home everyone knew music very well and loved listen to it. Now I get the same feel through the WhatsApp messages,” Devika says.
