Payaliya Jhankar

For a while now, I've been having what a friend rightly called "singer's block"- I simply haven't been able to sing. Not been practicing, abandoned music classes constantly feeling I don't have time for it, and worse, reinforcing in myself that I simply cannot do it. Grad school has indeed been exhausting, but I can't conscientiously convince myself that I don't have time to sing- it's rather just been a different avatar of plain procrastination I guess. I finally resumed music classes with a lot of push from self and the husband and it feels very rejuvenating! Anyway, all the ranting apart, here's a new song finally. Motivation: a brand new mic my husband got me!

I first heard Payaliya Jhankaar, a popular "chota khayal" in Raag Puriya Dhanashri (Pantuvarali in Carnatic), when I was probably 6 or 7- sung by my cousin who was learning Hindustani. My sister and me used to love this song... And then after many years, there was the silken voice of Hariharan rendering a few lines of the song as a prelude to A.R.Rahman's "Hai Rama yeh kya hua"- what a magical piece of music that was! And then came Ajay Pohankar's very classy "indipop" version which has a natural "instant appeal" factor to it. I'd been wanting to cover his version for a long time but somehow never got around to doing it. It's here now; finally. Thanks to Vijay Narayanan for the vocal-cut track. (I had to then play around with the track to reduce the pitch, so it probably isn't as good as it could've been).

Song: Payaliya Jhankaar
Artist: Ajay Pohankar
Album: Piya Bavari Again
Covered by: Sindhuja Bhakthavatsalam
Mixing by: Karthik Gomadam



Download here.

PS: Hope you like the new look of this blog! :)