Smara Samarochita ..Kapi Madhuripu - Janjhuti - Jayadeva Asthapadi - M Balamuralikrishna (1970s)

Mangalampalli Balamuralikrishna (BMK) makes music beautiful because beauty is there to be revealed. His artistic endeavour has revealed hundreds of sculpted beauties in the various genres of Indian music, much like painting pictures of various landscapes, people and diversity of the culture of India.

The thoughts expressed in a composition, when they are allowed to flow through the intellect of BMK, his voice faithfully assimilates and brings out every nuance of musicality inexplicably.

The rendition presented here, a Jayadeva Asthapadi, serves as a good example to showcase that ability of the maestro. That is, to make such a transformation of a poetry filled with passion into a new possibility, from a piece of lyrics that was composed in the 12th century.

I think it would be appropriate to briefly mention about this Asthapadi and here is a transliteration and a free translation of the portion rendered.

When Radha saw her friend come back without Krishna, downcast and dumbstruck, suspicion raised a vision of some Gopi delighting Madhava and she then told her friend--

kapi madhuripuna vilasati yuvatir adhika-guna ||

smara-samarochita-virachita-vesha |
galita-kusuma-bhara-vidulita-kesha (kapi madhuripuna) ||

“O sakhi, she is attired in clothes and ornaments suitable for an amorous battle. Tangle of flowers lie wilted in her loosened hair. Some young woman, who is more qualified than I, is blissfully engaged in revelry with Madhuripu.”

hari-parirambhana-valita-vikara |
kucha-kalashopari taralita-hara (kapi madhuripuna)||

“When Krishna deeply embraces her, she becomes bewildered by sensual agitation. She must be experiencing the bodily transformations beginning with the thrill of every pore of her skin and her necklace must be swaying back and forth on her.”

BMK in this rendition, an excerpt from a live concert of early 1970s, has sung only two stanzas of the Asthapdi; by seemingly making the poet’s emotion as his own and leave the listener in a state to imagine and grasp the inner emotion of the unsung stanzas.

Please listen to this rare rendition tuned in the rāga Jhanjhuti in Madhyama shuti (Hindustani) at your choicest moment to get the best from M Balamuralikrishna’s (BMK) rendition that mirrors the emotion of Jayadeva.

I wonder how the tunesmith in BMK was ceaselessly sought by the songs of several composers, to find their true voice with that touching and gentle expression of their own emotion.

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