Nearest Neighbor - Veena and sitar

 In most situations, we are left to choose either the North Indian sitar or the South Indian Veena. Why should we be limited? Raja places them next to each other – this is a suicidal mission from traditional thinking. They are beautiful cousins as Raja demonstrates them with his work!

The clip below has two tracks, both from Telugu films. The first track is from the interlude of the song ‘EE Chaitra veena’ from the film 'Preminchu Pelladu' (Telugu 1985). It begins with a simple veena melody which is responded by the sitar. The flute joins the arrangement and it is a beautiful Carnatic harmony of these three instruments. The unlikely neighbors veena and sitar are indeed great neighbors as Raja demonstrates here. The second clip is from the song, 'Rangulalo Kalavo' from the film 'Abhinandana' (Telugu 1989). The arrangement is a call and response between these two unlikely string instruments of the North and the South. 

Let’s hear the nearest neighbors – Sitar and Veena…