Raag Kirwani | Deepak Shah | Piano | Reading | Kala Festival 2025
About This Video
Deepak Shah performed Raag Kirwani on piano at Reading Raga Resonance, held at The Great Hall, University of Reading, on 14 September 2025 as part of Kala Festival 2025. He was accompanied by Hanif Khan on tabla.
Raag Kirwani originates in South Indian Carnatic music and carries the symmetry of the Harmonic Minor scale (S R g m P d N S'), where the lower tetrachord mirrors the upper. It is a late-night raga whose mood rests in Karuna rasa (pathos, weight, and a quality of sustained inner stillness). Its characteristic movement descends through g m P, d P, m g R S before the leading note N resolves back to Sa, giving the raga a sense of inevitability.
On piano, Shah works within the raga's linear grammar: no quarter-tones, but the Harmonic Minor's fixed intervals align closely with Kirwani's scale, allowing the melody to speak. He moves through the aroha and avroh with phrasing drawn from the raga's pakad rather than the keyboard's default idioms. Hanif Khan's tabla underpins the pace, his Delhi kayda vocabulary keeping the rhythm conversational.
Credits
Ragas
Kirwani
किरवानी
Raag Kirwani shows how Indian music can flow between traditions. It started as an important parent scale in South Indian Carnatic music. Later, musicians in North India also began using it, adding new nuances and depth to the raga. Kirwani is usually played late at night, around midnight, because its sound makes people think quietly and feel a gentle sadness. This raga is a reminder to us that music can cross boundaries and touch hearts everywhere. As one well-known saying goes, "Where words fail, music speaks." Kirwani is notable for its symmetry, as both halves of the scale mirror each other with mathematical precision. This balance lends it a Western character and makes it popular in cross-cultural collaborations. At KalaSudha, we regard Kirwani as a raga of pure emotion, relying on the expressive quality of its minor intervals rather than complex movements.
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