THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As the Ayyappa temple opens for Mandala Makaravilakku, Sabarimala witnesses a huge rush of pilgrims, coming from different parts of the country especially from the Southern states, climbing the hill barefoot with their ‘irumudikettu’ singing praises and listening to devotions of Lord Ayyappa.
Two youngsters, Rahul Soman and Anoop Bhat, thought of gifting the pilgrims with a new-age devotional track and hence came up with ‘Swami Ayyappa’, a song by Dreaming Nomads and Ripples Media, which has been uploaded on
YouTube.
The song is a first-of-its-kind, as it blends Western and Carnatic devotional songs. The track begins with a touch of traditional music and at a later part transforms into mild guitar strokes.
If you listen intently, you would understand that the music composers have succeeded in giving the devotional song a rocking touch without hampering its divinity.
Anoop, working with Bharat Petroleum and Rahul, a software engineer with IBM in Bangalore, are the brains behind this different genre devotional song. For last year’s World Cup, Anoop, who has a passion for music composed a Spanish motivational song, blending Indian and Western music. It had gained him a lot of popularity.
Rahul who too had an inclination towards music and composition got in touch with Anoop through a social networking site. They started chatting and the technology over a period of time helped these chat-friends make the song without them ever meeting each other.
One day, as these night owls were chatting after their day’s hectic work, the idea of a new-age devotional song clicked in their minds. While chatting, they brainstormed and came to the conclusion of making a trendy Sabarimala devotional song. As they wanted their song to be connected with a large number of people, they thought Sabarimala and its pilgrims would be the apt theme for the song.
Anoop proposed the making of this experimental music, to which Rahul penned the lines. Rahul says,”We chose to have an unconventional formula for the making of this song. Both of us were not keen on following the current trend of writing lyrics and composing. Even though Anoop was the music director and myself the lyricist, we switched roles whenever we found it essential.” They interlaced their talents for the making of their song.
Unnikrishnan K B who sang the song is an upcoming singer quite popular in the audio blogging sphere.”There are many who liked the song just for the vocals,”says Rahul. Abraham Joseph and Bimal S Parayil who gave visual support to the song have done a tremendous work taking shots of pilgrims at different locations.
For the team, making of this song is a success as they could retain the divinity of the track all throughout. “We never expected financial gains from the song. As this was an experimental attempt, the primary motive was to build contacts.” Rahul added.
The crew gets started with their second project, a friendship song which would be shot at different locations in Goa.