triveni spotlight: 27 october

triveni spotlight A FEATURE EVERY ALTERNATE DAY! hosts: Teji Sethi and Kala Ramesh host editor: Teji Sethi

Theme: Raga in Nature

Journal: haikuKATHA

what sound

do sparrows make

when sad …

all we ever talk about

is the birds’ happy chirps

—Gauri Dixit

From the tanka prose ‘Rains’

There is no end to seeing and hearing. The structure of the universe is infinite. Endless vibrating expansion.

~ Nanak

There are myriad sounds which pre-exist in nature and can be perceived by human ear. It is completely natural, both animals and humans to have profound reactions to certain sounds. Some songbirds sing from repertoires which use the same rhythms and note combinations as modern composers. For example, the canyon wren uses a 12-tone scale. The hermit thrush, on the other hand, sings in a five tone penta-scale which is common in Asian music. The tanka I have chosen to showcase, exquisitely capture the ‘music in nature’ be it the sound of ripples, a bird song, a cicada’s mating call, the rustle of leaves or the lament of paddy fields!

Teji Sethi