You have arrived at a magical, rain-forest home, a temple of Nature tended by man. You're welcomed by fragrant creepers, colourful flowers, fruit-laden trees, the cool breeze and and nature's continual song.
This is the world of the raaga Todi (soft t, hard d). Some spell it as Thodi. It is the heart of Carnatic music. When you listen to Todi, you surrender to it. It takes you in unknown trails, and stops at quiet resting spots. All immersing you in a deep sense of bliss. It is raw and yet majestic. It is graceful and yet solid. You simply have to tune in. Neither singer nor listener bothers about flat notes or equivalent scales while listening to Todi. It all seems childish and not germane to this continuum of a rich dialogue with the Eternal. The best way to experience Todi is to yield to its heavy southern spell.
Todi is an old raaga. In Karnataka Sangeeta Vishwakosha (by Sampathkumaracharya) they have listed about 110 songs in Todi. I saw another list with 910 songs. I have heard the mridangam maestro Vid. Umayalpuram Sivaraman introduce in an Odakattur Mutt concert the vocalist Vid. T. N. Seshagopalan as someone who knows 300 songs in Todi. In fact TNS even acted in a movie called "Thodi Ragam".
Here is a scan of the Oxford Encyclopaedia entry on Todi:
Todi is a melakarta raaga (no. 8). It is called Sarvaswara-gamaka-varika rakti raaga. This means that it is a full-fledged and magnificent raaga. That is how it can be elaborated in so many dimensions. Todi in fact defines many melodic ideas that typify Carnatic music.
Let me quote Vocalist Vid. K. V. Narayanaswamy, whom I regard as a past master of CM. KVN was the prime disciple of Ariyakudi Ramanuja Aiyengar, who has been accepted as the "Karanataka Sangeeta Shikhamani". KVN once told me that the touchstone of Carnatic music is Todi. A musician who sings Todi well has graduated into this art form.
I heard as a child the famous Ariyakudi rendition of a Devaranama in Todi. That was my introduction to this raaga. I also learnt the Todi varnam as a teenager. It has got under my skin.
Note: The following embedded links work within this post in most browsers. You can also right-click and open in a separate window.
Let me sing to you some phrases.
It is said that some 220 years ago, one Vid.Todi Seetarama Aiyar sang Todi for eight days at a stretch. That is still is a record.
Vid. MLV says she heard Vid. Rajaratnam Pillai once play Todi through the night in a Bombay concert for some 6 hours. And in a quirk of our times, the same nagaswara chakravarthy was asked by M/s. HMV to condense his mastery into a few minutes for a plate. Let's listen to it now!
There are two good lec-dems on Todi, one by Vid. MLV and one by the young star Ramakrishnan Murthy. The URLs are listed at the end.
Todi is a multi-contoured raaga. You can do a lot with it, as you gathered from the Nagaswaram plate. Its heavy contours are demonstrated well by Vid. Sriram Parasuram here:
The Alattur Brothers had a trademark on the song Dachukovalena of Saint Tyagaraja in Todi. Recently Vid. Abhishek Raghuram rendered it at the Madras Music Academy and got rave reviews. Here it is. You get to hear the raaga aalaapana, the song, some superb niraval and swaras. Followed some tani aavartanam By the star Vid. Anantha.
Veena is the instrument that can showcase every gamaka of Todi. Here is a wonderful rendition by Vid. Emani Shankara Shastry (guru of Vid. Chitti Babu) accompanied by Vid. Umayalpuram Sivaraman. The soundscape is rich and lasts long in our mind. The tani avartanam actually plays out Todi. No wonder UKS is a Padma Vibhushan.
Here is now a beautiful Kalakshetra dance presentation of the Todi varnam in Telugu composed by Muthuswami Dikshitar. We know that his prime disciples, the Tanjore Quartet, laid down the foundations of what we call Bharatanatyam today.
And finally let me share one of the finest compositions in Todi, rendered by Bharata Ratna M. S. Subbulakshmi. Composed by Sri. Papanasam Sivan, it does full justice to the deity Karttikeya as well as the Raaga Todi. As was Sivan's penchant, the charanams (last few stanzas of the song) render Todi in new moods and colours.
As you heard in the lec-dem of Vid. Sriram, the Hindustani Todi, a major Thaat in its own right, has no resemblance to Carnatic Todi.
I do not want to say much more on Todi. Todi brings to me the rich cornucopia of the tastes and colours of Carnatic music. Let us enjoy Todi!
