Todi is a morning raag, and a serious one (more on raag hours in Why raags have a time of day). Three of its notes are flat, or komal: Re, Ga and Dha. A fourth, Ma, is sharp, or tivra. One description of the raag finds its signature in a small turn: Re, Ga, back to Re and home to Sa, the Re often gently shaken.
Its mood is mostly pensive, even mournful, lifting only when a performance reaches its fast section. One critic, objecting to a wailing film song set in Darbari, put it bluntly: there are other raags, like Todi, for as much wailing as one wants.
Todi also heads a family. It gives its name to one of the ten parent scales, or thaats, and to relatives such as Gurjari Todi, which drops Pa altogether, and Bilaskhani Todi, which takes the notes of Bhairavi but keeps Todi's shape. Both turn up below, in five songs from our Todi list whose films brought classical masters into the picture.
1952: the master who agreed to lose
Vijay Bhatt's Baiju Bawra (1952) was built on raags: Naushad's score drew on Puriya Dhanashri, Todi, Malkauns, Darbari and Desi, and Mohammed Rafi's ‘Insan Bano’ is its Todi song. The industry doubted such a film could find an audience, and Bhatt's friends called him ‘Viju Bawra’, crazy Viju.
Amir Khan agreed to sing for Tansen. But the plot needed Tansen to lose a singing duel to the young Baiju, and by one account no one knew how to tell him. He solved it himself: bring in D. V. Paluskar, the one artiste he held in high esteem, to sing for Baiju, and he would not mind losing. Their duel, ‘Aaj Gaavat Man Mero Jhumke’, is in Desi.
Naushad and Bhatt had set out to change public taste, and in Naushad's words, ‘it worked’. The film ran for 100 weeks. At the first Filmfare awards, in 1954, Meena Kumari was named best actress and Naushad best music director, the only Filmfare of his career.
1956: another master, another defeat
Raja Nawathe's Basant Bahar (1956) told another musician's story: a singer whose rival poisons him before a contest. Rafi's ‘Duniya Na Bhaye Mohe’, for Shankar–Jaikishan, is in Todi. Two years earlier, Pilpili Saheb (1954) had a different Todi song with the same opening words, composed by Sardul Singh Kwatra for Lata Mangeshkar.
Once more a classical master was cast to lose. In ‘Ketaki Gulab Juhi’ the composers set Manna Dey against Bhimsen Joshi, and the script had Joshi's character lose. This time the doubts were the winner's: by one account, Manna Dey thought it a sacrilege and did not want to sing, until his wife told him to treat it as simply what the scene required.
Duniya Na Bhaye Mohe
Raag TodiBasant Bahar (1956)
Not to be confused with the 1954 Lata song that opens with the same words.
1979: the voice that said no
Gulzar's Meera (1979) starred Hema Malini, with music by the sitar master Ravi Shankar. Hema Malini asked Lata Mangeshkar herself to sing; Lata declined: she had already recorded the same Meera bhajans, or devotional songs, for an album composed by her brother Hridaynath Mangeshkar, and had promised him not to record them for anyone else. Hema Malini later called it the one regret of her career.
Vani Jairam sang instead, including the Todi bhajan ‘Eri Main To Prem Divani’, and won the Filmfare award for best female playback for ‘Mere To Giridhara Gopala’. The film failed at the box office but was praised by critics.
Eri Main To Prem Divani
Raag TodiMeera (1979)
Ravi Shankar's Todi, sung by the voice that stood in for Lata.
1991: Lata turns producer
Twelve years later Lata and the same brother made a film of their own. By one account she turned producer because she was dismayed by the quality of film songs, and she asked Gulzar to direct. Lekin... (1991), loosely based on Tagore's 1895 story ‘Kshudhit Pashaan’ (The Hungry Stones), took four years.
In ‘Jhoothe Naina Bole Sanchi Bateeyan’ the ghost Reva (Dimple Kapadia) shows Sameer (Vinod Khanna) a performance from the past in a palace music room. The court dancer is Hema Malini, the screen's Meera twelve years before, and Alok Nath plays the ustad, the master. His voice is Satyasheel Deshpande's, opening with an old classical bandish, a fixed composition, before Asha Bhosle takes over. The song is credited to Bilaskhani Todi, and its first word, as Gulzar and Asha have explained, is ‘joothe’ (already tasted), not ‘jhoothe’ (lying).
The film also has brother and sister singing ‘Ja Ja Re’, a teacher-and-pupil scene in Gurjari Todi with only tanpura and tabla; one critic likened it to a practice session. Lekin... won five National Film Awards, the most that year.
Jhoothe Naina Bole Sanchi Bateeyan
Raag Bilaskhani TodiLekin... (1991)
Listen for the switch from Satyasheel Deshpande's opening to Asha, and for her ‘joo-the’.
2009: a duet across four decades
Bade Ghulam Ali Khan died in 1968; four decades later he was on a film soundtrack anyway. For Delhi-6 (2009), A. R. Rahman arranged the singer's own recording of ‘Bhor Bhaye’ (‘dawn has come’), a piece in Gurjari Todi, and laid Shreya Ghoshal's voice over his in parts. He never recorded for the film.
Naushad, one writer has noted, used three classical singers in films: Amir Khan, Paluskar and Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. Delhi-6 brought the third of them into this story.
Bhor Bhaye
Raag Gurjari TodiDelhi-6 (2009)
The piece itself is in Gurjari Todi, Todi without Pa. Listen for two voices four decades apart.
Back to the morning
Five films, five ways of bringing a master in: a voice for Tansen, a contest with Bhimsen Joshi, a sitar master's score, an old bandish for an actor playing an ustad, and a duet across four decades. Through all of them runs Todi, or one of its family. Play any of these songs, then open the Todi page and listen for that small turn home to Sa.
Raags in this story