The Forbidden Raga
Unraveling the jinx, the genius, and the gatekeeping of Varali.
During one of my trips to Chennai for music class, I, out of nowhere, asked my teacher,“Sir, can you teach me Kanakana Ruchira?”
He looked at me in utter disgust and hurled at me,“Varaali, yaa? Yenna… indha teacher-student relationship must end, is it?”
His response completely blew me away. It took him a few moments to even process my question, his face clearly reading: How on earth do you not know that a Guru never directly teaches Varali to their student? Well, I genuinely had no idea, at least not until his flabbergasted expression planted that realization in my mind.
Although I had participated in one or two Thyagaraja Aradhana gatherings before to render the Pancharatna Kritis, I was entirely unaware of the jinx back then. I had simply sung Varali along with the crowd, but singing it in unison like that, I never really felt the true weight of the raga. To be honest, some of those events felt a bit too much like being just another sheep in the herd - a social gathering where we showed up, sang a couple of songs, and left. I got absolutely nothing out of it - blame it on my own chronic social dissonance. To the world, I might look like I’m successfully catching up and fitting in, but internally, I’m just screaming: Why the heck am I here? Why did I even come?
Everything changed, however, when I heard Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna’s rendition of Kanakana Ruchira. His performance finally showed me the true weight of Varali, or at least gave me my first real, breathtaking sense of it. I was utterly blown away by its complexity. I tried learning it on my own afterward, but I failed miserably. The intricate nuances and the sheer depth of the scale were simply beyond my understanding at the time.
It reminded me of an incident from my violin class a few years earlier. During a casual discussion about Varali, a peer had ridiculed me, saying, “You don’t know how to sing even a bit of Varali? You aren’t a musician then!” Though his comment stung at first, I wondered about his own skills and ‘modestly’ dared him to render the raga to its full capacity on his violin. He didn’t even brave an attempt, and quietly slipped out, citing an emergency. Huh. Some people are so quick to criticize others, but the moment the tables are turned, they immediately back down. Yet, looking back, the funniest part was that not a single word about this notorious jinx came up even then!
Still, the urge remained: I really wanted to learn Varali, or at least grasp a bit of its complex grammar. Occasionally, I would ask my mother to sing it. She would oblige with a few lines of Ka Va Va or Kanakana Ruchira, but for some reason, I never prodded her to teach me more. Other life distractions always seemed to override the urge.
I don’t recall my mother ever mentioning the jinx to me. Perhaps she had at some point, but it never stuck — not until my teacher’s sharp question struck a deep chord. I had already encountered plenty of superstitions in my life and dismissed them all as foolish, but this one left me genuinely stunned. Even music isn’t spared, is it?
Once I got back, I asked my mother, “Why is Varali never actually taught?”
Her answer was pretty much the same. “It’s learned by listening deeply, not by being taught,” she said. “I only sang it in front of you so you could pick up the nuances on your own. I never made you sit down one-on-one to repeat the phrases. Legend has it that the teacher-student bond breaks if Varali is taught directly. But, who told you this?”
I told her what had happened at my class.
“Phew! At least he just shrugged it off after the initial shock. Most traditional Gurus would have been offended, and some might have even canceled the rest of the day’s class!”
Holy smokes, I thought. While I found the whole superstition utterly ridiculous, I had somehow been conditioned never to argue with tradition.
What an absolutely beautiful raga, I thought to myself. What depth, what a difficult melody to even absorb! You truly have to be in a specific frame of mind just to take it all in. It draws you into a space of exquisite tension…a striking sense of dissonance that somehow remains deeply resonant. In classical music, this tension is called Vivadi, a phenomenon where notes sit so incredibly close to one another that they naturally clash. Yet, instead of sounding harsh, Varali coaxes these clashing notes into a haunting, restless pull that you don’t just analyze with your head, instead you feel it straight in your chest.
For a long time, I simply couldn’t accept that such a raga wasn’t openly taught. After all, what about the true seekers? The students who want to master it by breaking down its elusive puzzle into simpler blocks, only to piece it all back together? Relying entirely on oneself makes it feel like any other modern problem: You want to learn something? Just Google it, you might find answers! Figure it out yourself. But if that’s the case, what is the purpose of having a teacher in the first place?
I wouldn’t be surprised if traditional Gurus of the past were even harsher with their disciples, including the great performing musicians of yesteryears and today. I once read about a highly acclaimed musician whose Guru refused to teach them Varali, yet expected them to perform it anyway. After initially failing, the student listened to countless renditions, absorbed the nuances, and slowly pieced the puzzle together. Yet, even then, the Guru wasn’t satisfied with how they rendered the Ga — the most notoriously baffling note of the scale. And honestly, who could blame them? It isn’t a plain Gandharam at all! But there is a sheer beauty in self-learning, isn’t there?
Perhaps, true to its nature, the raga’s sheer nature is exactly why teachers historically refused to teach it. By stepping back, they forced students to decipher the scale themselves by studying different interpretations. Could this notorious jinx actually be a brilliant psychological trick, just invented to spark a fierce curiosity in true seekers, driving them to attempt what was forbidden? Or, more cynically, was the superstition manufactured simply to avoid the agonizing task of teaching it altogether?
There is also a possibility that the myth was born out of reality: a frustrated teacher continually trying to impart the raga to a struggling student until their relationship soured under the weight of it. And given that it is a Vivadi raga, with its sharp, challenging notes, maybe music teachers just preferred to steer clear of it entirely. Honestly, it could be any of these!
Despite the persistence of the jinx, some have actively defied it. I found a decade-old video of a teacher demonstrating some phrases in Varali to a group of youngsters, easily the best thing I’ve watched recently. Ironically, it was likely filmed right around the time I first learned of the superstition. I just didn’t happen to find it back then when I was looking for answers.
Well, I won’t slide into playlist mode and clutter this space with a host of links. Everyone has their own starting point for discovering Varali. For me, it began with the Thyagaraja Pancharatna Kriti, Kanakana Ruchira before I branched out to discover other musical gems like Mamava Meenakshi, or Eti Janmamidi, or Ka Va Va. It is a Ghana raga, and truly a masterpiece. The magic of this raga is that it is entirely Sarvakalika - it belongs to no specific hour, defying the rigid classifications of morning or evening melodies. I suppose certain melodies just can’t be time-bound!
Yet, as brilliant as these vocal compositions are, I’ve come to realize that the absolute, rawest depth of Varali isn’t even bound to lyrics. Its true, untamed gravity reveals itself in the vast, unscripted expanses of a Ragam Thanam Pallavi (RTP), especially when rendered on instruments. The heavy, lingering oscillations on a Veenai, the weeping glides of a Violin, particularly on the lower octaves, or the piercing, open-air majesty of the Nadaswaram seem to coax a vulnerability out of the raga that vocals alone can only hope to mimic. Even in my wildest imagination, I can barely bring myself to attempt that excruciating Ri-Ga tension on my own violin…phew!
To this day, I still struggle to truly understand its character; the more I listen to it, the more the raga reveals itself as a labyrinth. I often wonder: where does this elusive tension actually hide? Is it in the sharp edge of the Ma, or the pleading pull of the Ni? Or is it found entirely in the infamous friction of the R-Ga notes, sitting so close that they seem to physically rub against each other, threatening to collapse into one? I honestly don’t know whether it is the sheer musical configuration of that scale, or simply the psychological weight of the tension it evokes, that keeps me trapped in its maze.
Perhaps the jinx was never about a broken bond, but maybe a test of devotion. The Gurus knew that a raga this profound cannot be handed down; it must be fought for, listened to, and earned in isolation.
Or perhaps I’m just overthinking the grand mystery of it all. After all, classical music is wonderfully full of these quirky, high-stakes warnings designed to keep us on our toes. If the curse of Varali is that you will lose your teacher, then there is always the old, famous warning about Ahiri: sing it too early in the day, and you’ll be devoid of a meal for that entire day.
Personally, navigating the grand mystery of Varali sounds much better than navigating a day on an empty stomach. I’ll keep chasing the labyrinth of Varali in the dark, just as long as nobody asks me to sing Ahiri before breakfast!