Aaa Be Ree (Abheri)

A B E R I

Take a trip to Rishikesh from Delhi.

You reach over there in the earlymorning and even on a hot and sultry summer day you would find theplace cold and breezy. The Ganges is still, serene, secretive andphilosophical. You dare not even drench your toes into her. You takethe trip back down the hill and reach Haridwar around mid day. The sun pours down heat all over above your head, the Ganges below is cold andswift. Being almost the first place where the river touches plains, the swiftness of the current is beyond any description. It embodies youthfulness and the joy and the mischievous laugh that go along with youth. You are stunned by its beauty and almost jump into the river only to feel its all pervading cold and swift. In moments you are deep immersed in enjoying it and hardly can you make up your mind to get outof it.

Abheri or Bheemplasri as is called in HCM, gives you a similarexperience.
Once in, you can never get out.
The sur track in CCM is rather simple

:Arokan : S g m P n S
Avro : S n D P m g R S

In Bheemplasri of HCM, it takes the shape of a vakra raga:

Arokan : n S g m P n s
Avro : S n D P m g R s

Yet both are equally enjoyable.

Who could have forgotten the almost immortalized song in Kishore's
voice when he sings of flowers which blossom only to droop down?

Whenhe sings "khilte hain gul yahaan" the song at once gets into theform of flowers, so you could even feel the fragrance of it! "Ohbequaraar dil" from Khamoshi and "tu mile dil khile" fromCriminal are equally enchanting numbers from Bheemplasri.

In Tamil films numerous songs have been churned out of this raga. Be itthe one which gave Jankai the name and fame ("Singaravelane Deva")or her subsequent song where she proved her mastery in scaling highpitch and comfort level at dropping down birgas as casually as flowersdrop down from a tree ("kannan mana nilayai thangame thangam") orthe later "kuyile kavikyile" in Mastero's music, each and everyone of them is rich with the innate beauty of the raga.

Not to lag behind, male voice has suited equally well the raga with TrichyLoganathan's "vaarai nee varaai" or Ghantasala's "OhoVennilave" or AM Raja's "Varoyo vennilave" - in duet withP.Leela or the high pitched T.R.Mahalingam's "Iasai Thamizh".

The robust flow of the surs down the track in any of the songs quotedtakes your mind just to the Ganges at Haridwar.