Megh Raga

Its been raining again this past week and the weather is all nice, cool and cozy and I just feel like curling up with a good book and sipping some tea while listening to the pitter patter of rain drops hitting my window awnings. Alas, I have work to do, classes to teach and assignments to grade so I’ll just settle for talking about Megh Raga, the node of the rainy season and will show you pieces inspired by the Megh Family from my Ragamala Collection. Take a Look.

Megh or Megha means clouds and the Megh Raga stands for invocation of the Rain Gods or to be sung as celebration of Rains. Sometimes it is sung as a prayer in anticipation of rains. Rendition of the Malhar Raga – The Megh Malhar or the Malhar family -Gaud Malhar, Sur Malhar by experts is said to bring torrential rains. There is a story among the Tales of Akbar, that bears testimony to this which I’ll narrate in an upcoming post on “Dipak Raga” as these two are related.

Parent Raga: Megh Raga
Wives: Sorathi, Gaund-Malari, Asa, Gunguni, Sooho. Sons: Biradhar, Gajdhar, Kedara, Jablidhar, Nut, Jaldhara, Sankar, Syama…Source (Wikipedia)
Megh Raga is sung at night and during the monsoon season. Carnatic equivalent– Madhyamavati

 Megh Raga necklace – Asymmetrical necklace of glass, ceramic and coiled wire beads with lengths of chain and Glass pendant of Krishna dancing with gopikas in the rain signifying megh raga, squiggly prong set with silver plated brass wire.  This design started as a rectangular glass pendant without a bail as I couldnt find any good glue-on bails locally. So I decided to wire wrap it. From my previous experience with rectangular pendants I also know that are pretty hard to get an even bezel wire wrap so I decided on a prong set. But I had only done a 4 or 6 prong before and realised that it wouldnt work for this piece as it would cover the most important aspect of the image.

Megh Raga necklace

I challenged myself to set a fairly heavy glass piece in a continuous three prong setting where the prongs would be asymmetrical and slightly turned away so as to not hide the image. At First it looked impossible then, I found my inspiration in the most unlikeliest of places (and things) – The female reproductive system chart of humans!!

Okay Please don’t get shocked. In School I used to draw these sketches on the blackboard in my biology class in 9th and 10th as I was good with drawing so it kinda got burned into my brain. The back of this pendant is based on the reproductive system concept with the two ovaries on either side of the uterus. I figured, if such a setup was strong enough to carry a baby, it would be strong enough to hold a glass pendant and it did. I did add a thin resin glaze at the back to protect the paper used for the image and to seal in the wire

Megh Malhar Necklace – this necklace of frosted pink beads and crystals brings about the splendor and joy of monsoon. Here krishna is seen blowing his conch to welcome the rains. I created this piece, almost at the end of the collection as I felt that I hadn’t represented the joy of rains appropriately in my collection. I chose pink  frosted beads for this design as it reminds me of the pink flowers that used to bloom after the rainy season at my childhood home and how they would be frosted with dew the next day.
frosted beaded Krishna necklace
Sorathi – Decoupaged and gold cord rimmed acrylic pendant of Sorathi ragini with peacocks on a cord knotted double strand green glass bead necklace. Sorath or sorathi ragini is the wife of Megh raga. I designed this piece just after a couple of blog hops where I saw a lot of designers using knotting as their primary technique and it lead me to make three pieces based on knotting in this collection, Sorathi being the chief among them.
This one and the one below were highly experimental pieces that were reworked many many times because of the pendant. I started making them using Mod Podge acrylic shapes and dimensional magic which became sticky (read yucky) in Chennai heat and humidity, I had to scrap the images and redo them atleast three times before they looked decent. It was a boring and painful process but then I learnt my lesson.
sorathi beaded necklace with decoupaged pendant

Gaundmallar –  Decoupaged and gold cord rimmed acrylic pendant of Gaundmalar ( Lady playing dumrhoo before the rains) with simple blue and yellow bead necklace. Gaundmallar ragini is the wife of Megh raga – Its mood is joyful because the rains cause the crops to grow and the flowers to bloombeaded necklace with decoupaged pendant
So how do you like these pieces? I hope you find them interesting
Its been a while since I started writing this post as I have been sick on and off. We finally figured out that I have Typhoid (God knows how?!). Unfortunately all my design plans have to be put on hold while I concentrate of gaining my strength back so that I can go back to teaching and finish my portions. I guess I got my wish of curling up and reading a book even though its the last thing I want to do now. Like they say – “Be careful what you wish for, you might actually get it”. So on a slightly moody note.

Cheers

Find other posts on the other Raga Families here:
What is Ragamala?
Bhairav Raga – Raga of Autumn
Megh Raga -Raga of monsoon season
Malkaus Raga – Raga of Winter
Hindol Raga – Raga of Spring

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7 responses to “Megh Raga”

  1. Neena Shilvock avatar

    Beautiful images and artistry Divya. I would have loved to see the back of your gynaecological pendant 🙂 – and the colours are exciting. Good luck with your recovery
    Neena

  2. Divya N avatar

    Thanks Neena, I did take a picture of it, but cant seem to find it and the piece is sold.I will look again to see if its there somewhere

  3. Cinnamon Jewellery avatar

    An ingenious solution to your prong setting dilema!
    Hope you feel better soon 😀

  4. Little Treasures avatar

    I wasn't shocked and it is a great solution 🙂

  5. Divya N avatar

    Thanks Maya

  6. Radhika avatar

    Interesting pieces Divya .. knotted beads sorathi raga is amazing ..experimental pieces has come out quite well i love them ..:)

  7. […] Find previous posts on the other Raga Families here: What is Ragamala? Bhairav Raga Megh Raga […]

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