Mahaganapatim manasaa smaraami
Posted on: September 18, 2025
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in other sites without the knowledge and consent of the web administrator of atulsongaday.me, then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
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Today, September 18, 2025, is the 75th birthday of Shabana Azmi which is an important milestone in anyone’s life. I thought that on this occasion I should write an article on a film in which, in my view, Shabana Azmi has accepted a challenging role and has given a brilliant performance. The film I am covering in my article is ‘Morning Raaga’ (2004), a predominantly English language film in which Shabana Azmi’s role is that of a Carnatic vocalist.
‘Morning Raaga’ (2004) was produced by K Raghavendra Rao and was directed by Mahesh Dattani, a well-known personality in English theatre. The film was later dubbed in Telugu language with the title, ‘Raagam’ (2006). The cast included Shabana Azmi, Prakash Kovelamudi, Perizaad Zorabian, Lillete Dubey, Nasser, Ranjani Ramakrishnan, Vaishali Bisht, Shashi Sudigala, Sheela Naidu, Shaleen Sharma, Elahe Hiptoola etc. Prakash Kovelmudi is the son of Producer K Raghavendra Rao who is a producer-director, screenplay writer and an actor in his own right.
I have not been able to lay my hand on the film on any video sharing platforms. However, I have watched its Telugu dubbed film, ‘Raagam’ (2006) with irregular English subtitles. Broadly, the story of the film revolves around three different families. Two landlord families stay in the same village in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh. The wife of the first landlord is a successful Carnatic vocalist. The daughter-in-law of the second landlord is a close friend of the Carnatic vocalist and she is also her violin accompanist. The third is a Hyderabad based business family. In a bus accident on a road bridge connecting the village to Hyderabad, Carnatic vocalist’s minor son dies along with her violin accompanist and the Hyderabad-based businessman who was driving his car from the opposite direction. After the death of her son, the Carnatic vocalist becomes recluse and stops singing. After about 20 years, all the three families get connected through the music. A successful fusion musical concert involving the members of all three families brings back the happiness to them, not before overcoming some hurdles.
The film’s story in some detail is as under:
The main title of the film runs in the background of Swarnalatha (Shabana Azmi), a successful Carnatic vocalist and the wife of a landlord rehearsing a Carnatic song in her house. The song continues as she visits the local temple where her close friend, Vaishnavi (Ranjani Ramakrishnan), the daughter-in-law of another landlord in the same village in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh. Both are traveling in a bus to Hyderabad with their sons to participate in their first music concert outside the village. The bus meets with an accident plunging it in the river in which Vaishnavi and Swarnalatha’s son die. Shocked by the accident, Swarnalatha blames herself for the accident because it was her ambition to become a concert singer that she took Vaishnavi with her as her violinist. She becomes recluse and suppresses her singing ambition. She has also developed a superstition that traveling on that bridge leads to an accident.
The film goes fast forward by 20 years. Vaishnavi’s son, Abhinav (Prakash Kovelamudi) works in Hyderabad as a music composer for a TV advertisements company. He leaves his job and returns to his village to attend his mother’s ‘shraad’ ceremony. His grandfather is elated to see him after a long time. He expects him to stay back, who is the only inheritor of his 200 acres of land. But Abhinav is not interested in his property as he has decided to start his own rock music band in Hyderabad.
During the ‘shraadhh’ ceremony at the banks of River Godavari, Abhinav sees Swarnalatha who has also come for her son’s ‘shraadhh ceremony. After seeing Abhinav from a distance, she hurriedly leaves the place. Abhinav follows her to meet. While crossing the bridge, Abhinav narrowly escapes from a car accident which is driven by Pinky (Perizaad Zorabian). The car gets damaged and she has to stay put in the village for a day in Abhinav house. During their inter-action, Abhinav comes to know that she is the daughter of a boutique owner (Lillete Dubey) in Hyderabad and her desire is to become a singer. He offers her to join his music band as a singer in Hyderabad. After some hesitation, she joins his rock music band.
The first few rock music concerts of the band get a lukewarm reception. Abhinav feels that he requires a good Carnatic singer which can blend well with his western music for the sake of variety. He decides to go back to his village to meet Swarnalatha. He tries to convince her but fails. Next, he reminds her that after all he is the son of her best friend and her violinist, Vaishnavi and she has some obligation toward him. But she is adamant about her decision not to resume singing and travel out of her village.
Actually, Swarnalatha is obsessed with the superstition that crossing the bridge over Godavari River will result in some kind of accident. With convincing help from her husband, who wants her to be active again, she agrees to travel to Hyderabad to sing for the band. Abhinav takes her in his car for travel to Hyderabad. While travelling, the car breaks down forcing them to travel in a bus. When the bus reaches the bridge, the old memories of the bus accident on the same spot makes her run out of the bus. She becomes hyper emotional. Her trip to Hyderabad is aborted. Abhinav goes back to Hyderabad. It dawns on him that if she cannot come to Hyderabad, at least he along with his band can go to her village and try the experimentation of fusion music with her singing in her house. This time, she feels obligated to help the son of her close friend and reluctantly agrees to cooperate with Abhinav and sings for the band in her house. But once again she flatly refuses to travel to Hyderabad.
The alternative option is to train Pinky under Swarnalatha for Carnatic classical singing so that over a period of time, Pinky herself sings for the band. First, Swarnalatha refuses to train her but later she relents only because her singing will help Abhinav’s music band. Pinky comes to the village and stays with Swarnalatha to commence her training in Carnatic music. During the training both of them develop a close rapport with each other. Abhinav with his band also comes to the village to try a demo of her singing. After completion of the training, Abhinav tells Swarnalatha that the band is participating in the first fusion music competition in Hyderabad and requests her to sing along with Pinky. She agrees to sing in the concert. Abhinav and Pinky take her in their car to Hyderabad. While driving the car on the bridge, Pinky drives the car very fast to cross the bridge early before Swarnalatha becomes aware of it. But she starts yelling and Pinky stops the car. For the first time, Pinky reveals to her that the person responsible for the bus accident was her father who was drunk while driving his car from the opposite direction which led to the bus accident. However, Swarnalatha goes back to her house while Abhinav and Pinky continue the journey to Hyderabad. Once again, her husband convinces her that she should travel to Hyderabad and he would accompany her to help Abhinav in his music career.
The concert is about to start for a houseful audience and both Abhinav and Pinky are hopeful of Swarnlatha joining them in the concert. But there is no sign of her arrival. Pinky consoles Abhinav that she will sing like Swarnalatha if she is not coming. When the band is about to start playing, Pinky notices Swarnalatha and pleads with her to join her in singing the jugalbandi not for anyone but for the sake of herself. Pinky holds the mike in front of Swarnlatha who starts singing aalaaps from the podium itself and walks towards the stage. Both sing the jugalbandi. Abhinav plays the violin as an accompanist in the same way as his mother used to accompany Swarnalatha. The fusion concert of the band gets a standing ovation. In the audience, Abhinav’s grandfather, Pinky’s mother and Swarnalatha’s husband also join the clapping audience. The band’s fusion concert remains on the hit list for weeks. With this, the traumas each of the families faced for years from the accident get erased from their minds.
After watching the film, I feel that Carnatic classical music is the ‘lead actor’ in the film in which lead actress, Shabana Azmi gives one of her outstanding performances. The film beautifully portrays the rural life of people and connects them with the music. There is a scene in the film where Abhinav and his band give a demo of their music in the midst of his vast paddy field. One of the villagers who have come to watch them, passes a comment with some disappointment that the performance sounds like Michael Jackson’s music. The other positive features of the film are superb photography and background music.
I will call it an off-beat film with freshness in the story written by Mahesh Dattani. Upon its release, the film did not impress the general audience as, apart from being in English language, the subject was not of interest to them. But the lovers of classical Carnatic music and of the rural landscape with eye-pleasing photography will definitely like the film.
The film had 15 songs most of which are of short duration, consisting of aalaaps, sargam and instrumental music. There are six songs which can be regarded as full length renditions. Apart from the traditional compositions, the music is supplemented by music director Mani Sharma and Amit Heri.
On the occasion of Shabana Azmi’s 75th birthday, I present one of the film’s songs, ‘mahaganapatim manasaa smaraami’, the Sanskrit chant which is picturised on Shabana Azmi. The poem is written and composed by Muthuswami Dikshitar. While the Carnatic renditions by Bombay Jayashri (real name: Jayashri Ramnath) is originally composed by Muthuswami Dikshitar in Carnatic classical Raag Nattai (equivalent to Raag Jog in Hindustani classical music), Amit Heri has arranged the music for the chants harmonizing with instrumental music to create a fusion between Carnatic and Western music.
While singing, Shabana Azmi’s lip movement, especially singing fast sargam (swaram) is fantastic. Her expressions, gestures and mannerism give an impression of a professional Carnatic vocalist. Her entire fast rendition of sargam (swaram) of about 25 seconds is a one-take shot. In her interview which appears on rediff.com, she revealed that for this film, she was put under tutelage of Carnatic classical vocalist and violinist, Ranjini Ramakrishnan who was also her co-actor in the film. During training, she learnt the nuances of a Carnatic vocalist including the rendition of ‘swaram’ in about 22 sittings with her. During this period, she became aware that Carnatic classical music had spiritual quality engulfing her entire system.
Muthuswami Dikshitar (24/03/1776 – 21/10/1835) was a poet, Veena player and composer of Carnatic music. He was one of the trinity of Carnatic music, the other two being Tyagaraja and Shyama Shastri. During his lifetime, Muthuswami Dikshitar composed about 500 musical poems, predominantly in Sanskrit in praise of various Gods. He spent five years in Banaras where he studied the theories of Vedanta and got exposure to Dhrupad style of Hindustani classical music. In the later years, he was influenced by European folk music when he got associated with the East India Company at Fort St. George in Madras (now Chennai).
It is not known at what stage of his life Muthuswami Dikshitar wrote ‘mahaganapatim manasaa smaraami’. A simple translation of the Sanskrit chants gives a feeling of a spiritual journey with the blessings of Lord Ganesha.
mahaganapatim manasaa smaraami
vasishta vaamadeva di vanditaa
O my mind, please remember the name of Lord Ganesh who is worshipped by sage Vashishta and Vaamdeva.
mahaadeva sutam Guruguha nootam
maarakoti prakaasham shaantam
Son of Lord Shiva, Lord Ganesha whose younger brother is Gurugruha (Kartikeya or Murugan). He is equivalent to the shines of one crore Maraa (Manmath, the God of Love and Beauty) and a symbol of peace (shaantam).
Note: ‘Gurugruha’ is also the pen name of the poet, Muthuswami Dikshitar
mahaakaavyaa naatakaa di priyam
mooshikaa vaahanaa modakaa priyam
He (Lord Ganesha) is fond of great poems and plays (naatakaa). Mouse (mushikaa) is his mount and Modak is his favourite sweet.
Note: ‘Modaka’ in Sanskrit means ‘small part of a bliss’. The offering of Madaka is regarded as invoking the divine bliss of Lord
Ganesha.
Coming back to the film, the context of the song is that Hyderabad-based Abhinav (Prakash Kovelmudi) and his musical band wants to create a fusion music, blending Carnatic rendition with Western music. After spending a life as a recluse, Swarnalatha (Shabana Azmi) is not ready to resume her singing and travel to Hyderabad. So, her husband convinces Swarnalatha to sing in the house with Abhinav’s band who will come to the house. Being the Vinayaki Chaturthi day, she picks up Ganapati chants for singing. She sings well in tandem with Western instrumental music. However, she signals to stop the music when she sings the sargam. There are some disappointments on the face of Abhinav and some of his musicians in the band. Probably, the band did not incorporate the suitable rhythm for her impromptu sargam. Later, they decide that they will have to make improvements in the drum section of the music.
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Mahaganapatim manasaa smaraami (Morning Raaga)(English)(2004) Singer-Bombay Jayashree, Lyrics-Muthuswami Dikshitar, MD-Muthuswami Dikshitar
Lyrics:
aa aa aa aaaa
aa aa aa aa aa
aa aa aaa
aa aa aa aaa
mahaganapatim manasaa smaraami
mahaganapatim manasaa smaraami
mahaganapatim manasaa smaraami
mahaganapatim manasaa smaraami
mahaganapatim manasaa smaraami
vasishta vaamadevaa di vanditaa
mahaganapatim
mahaadeva sutam Guruguhaa nutam
mahaadeva sutam Guruguhaa nutam
maarakoti prakaasham shaantam
mahaa kaavya naatakaadi priyam
mooshika vaahanaa modaka priyam
mahaganapatim manasaa smaraami
vasishta vaamadevaa di vanditaa
[Sargam (Swaram in Carnatic music)]
4 Responses to "Mahaganapatim manasaa smaraami"
September 28, 2025 at 11:22 pm
Good Evening,
Such a beautiful devotional raga, was disturbed by the western instrumental fusion.
Apologies
Regards
Uma🙏
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
September 18, 2025 at 10:38 am
This the rendition by K J Yesudas in the 1985 Tamil film “Sindhu Bhairavi” which was a K Balachander direction. This song happens along with the film’s titles.
this is where I heard “Mahaganapathim” for the 1st time ever in my life. And fell in love with it forever
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September 18, 2025 at 4:33 pm
Peevesie;s Mom,
Thanks for the link.
I heard this version for the first time, though while writing this article I felt that at least this chant may have been used in other southern language films. While searching, I got the link of the chant from Telugu film, ‘Indra;’ (2002) which is rendered by SPB. Incidentally, SPB is present during the rendition as a judge in the competition.
The link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVqEX_Ex7LI
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September 18, 2025 at 7:20 pm
thank you for sharing the link to the SPB song🙏🏻
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