Why don’t people sing Kamalamba Navaavaranams during music festivals around the world? Why don’t we hear them as loud and consistent as Thyagaraja’s Pancharatna Krithis? The Pancharatnas have acquired celestial fame that, even several film music composers snuggled them by bits and pieces, into movie songs and background music over past many years (no disrespect intended)! They even have the reality show competitions, exclusively for Pancharatna singing by kids !
I have asked this question at several Carnatic music festivals and got universally the same answer, that nobody knows to sing them which implicitly means that they are not famous enough for people to put in efforts to learn them. Thank god, nobody answered this explicitly, that they are not as attractive as the Pancharatnas.
This is some sort of a disease particularly of the contemporary society. Things untouched go into garbage very easily and it requires a celebrity’s touch and at times, sincere effort, to pick them onto the showcase. For instance, this happened with the pre-trinity Tamil composers’s songs among which many were, as much I understand, brought into limelight by the humble efforts of Sanjay Subramaniam, after several decades of appalling neglect.
I have equivalent and unanimous admiration for the Trinity and comparing them for their ‘merit’ is much more ridiculous a business than comparing apples and oranges. But stylistic and musical differences are obvious for their compositions. Thyagaraja’s krithis, as I see them, were more spontaneous in creation and hence huge in number. I have heard legible opinions that a huge number of his krithis disappeared forever into history, since his disciples couldn’t get a chance to note them down, while they were sung by him. Many krithis were contemplative and philosophical apart from the central theme of divine worship. He was perhaps the most diversified composer ever in the musical history, that you could end up using all adjectives of your vocabulary to describe his music.
But Dikshitar’s was to a very certain extent, more scholastic with emphasis on deriving the maximum linguistic beauty, though the central theme was the same; divine worship through comprehensive description of the corresponding God/Goddess. His enormous knowledge bank of mythology, history, geography, temples and architecture all evidently glitter in each and every krithi. The scholastic nature coupled with the Vilamba Kaala of his compositions, to me, appear the reasons for his lesser fame among the masses. It is interesting to note that while Pancharatnas are sung all the year round irrespective of the occasion, the Kamalamba Navavaranams are rarely sung even during the Navarathri period, when they are supposed to be sung. Not to mention Dikshitar’s other set of krithis like Abhayamba Navavaranam, Neelothpalamba krithis, Navagraha Krithis, Panchalinga Ksetra krithis etc.
Man has always had this attraction for speed that, anything slow or silent or subtle will stay in the junkyard. Apathy that MDR had received during his life time makes a good parallel with the lesser projected glory of Dikshitar krithis.
Well, it’s time to keep my moaning and criticisms apart…Right now I am melted in the Anandabhairavi of “Kamalamba samrakshatumam” by DKJ and his chorus; the person, to my knowledge, who immortalized the Navavaranas (DKP too).
