Aswathi Thirunal Rama Varma is a member of the Royal Family of Travancore. He is also a musician – a singer and veena player. He is known as Prince Rama Varma and is known for his efforts to make classical music more appealing to the masses. Perhaps it was his desire to appeal to a wider audience that had him put out this video about Carnatic Music?
He says the phrase in four languages, starting with Malayalam, then Tamil and Telugu and ending with Kannada. He concludes with ‘this is why it's called Carnatic Sangeet’.
A lot of people thought the short video was hilarious. There are more in a series of WhatsApp videos on Prince Rama Varma’s YouTube channel – called musiquebox. Here he shares information about his classes, short videos about different ragas and even a lovely rendition of the Christmas carol Silent Night.
The scion of the royal family, he has performed in many different countries and was also invited to perform at the Rashtrapati Bhavan by the then president, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam
With such linguistic diversity in the country, we Indians always have reason to learn, admire and enjoy different facets of languages that we don’t speak.
Prince Rama Varma’s voice has a warmth and richness that is pleasing to the ears – his speaking voice is as lovely as his pitch-perfect musical renditions.
The singer cleverly uses the words as musical notes and sings accordingly. This is something I understood as a musician myself, though I speak none of the South Indian languages.
Whether one understands the languages or not; has a musical ear or not, this video is sure to make one smile.
While the video was posted earlier, it went viral when it was reposted on Twitter recently. Prince Rama Varma’s strange, quirky but delightful ‘explanation’ for the term Carnatic Sangeet clearly appealed to a lot of people.
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