Raga Clock / Rooms / Dusk
A time of day · about 4–7 pmMultani, Marwa and Puriya Dhanashree, as the light goes.
Ragas here: Multani, Marwa, Puriya Dhanashree
The second great junction of the day is sunset, sandhya, when lamps are lit in homes and temples. Multani comes first, as the heat breaks into gold. Then Marwa: no Pa, a Sa touched only lightly, and a pull between flat Re and natural Dha that sounds unsettled as the light goes. Puriya Dhanashree restores Pa and turns the same twilight warm.
Like the dawn ragas, the sunset ragas lean on flat Re with natural Ga and Ni: the "twilight" family that early 20th-century writers used to explain the time system.
Going upNi Sa Ga Ma Pa Ni SaComing downSa Ni Dha Pa Ma Ga Re Sa
A late-afternoon raga of the Todi family, with komal Re, komal Ga, tivra Ma and komal Dha, and with Re and Dha skipped going up. It is sung as the heat of the day begins to break.
Going upDha Ni Re Ga Ma Dha Ni SaComing downSa Ni Dha Ma Ga Re Sa
A sunset raga with no Pa, in which even Sa is touched only lightly. The pull between komal Re and shuddh Dha gives it a restless, searching mood that musicians link to the moment the light goes.
Going upNi Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni SaComing downSa Ni Dha Pa Ma Ga Re Sa
Another sunset raga, close to Marwa in colour but warmer, with Pa restored. It sits right at the junction of day and night, when lamps are lit.
How to read the notes: an underlined note is komal (flat), Ma with a mark (Ma) is tivra (sharp), and a dot below or above means the octave below or above.
Marwa has no Pa, so its tanpura is tuned to Ni instead.
More like this in the library · From our channel, @indianmusiccentral. Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play.
Marwa, Puriya Dhanashree and Shree belong to sunset, and teachers order them differently; the related Puriya is placed at dusk by some and later in the evening by others. Multani is placed anywhere from early to late afternoon, depending on the source. Sunset itself moves through the year, so a clock can only approximate it.