‘Nama Vadami’ is a composition of Ganapathi Sachchidananda (born May 1942) set to Raag Salaga Bhairavi. A saint from southern India, Ganapathi Sachchidananda has been serving humanity, conducting spiritual healing for the physically and mentally distressed for many decades now. His ashram (hermitage) stands on Ooty Road in Mysore, India, where thousands of devotees still pay visit to him to listen to his bhajans and seek spiritual guidance.

Raag Salaga Bhairavi is not very widely performed and there doesn’t exist a large number of compositions in this raga. It is usually performed as a short recital, the scope of expansion being limited. The Malladi brothers give an elegant rendition with their captivating improvisations of this devotional piece.

This ensemble has a stellar cast with the great Trichy Sankaran at the helm, lending the magic of the mridangam to this composition. The Malladi brothers also leave the door open for Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi to perform stimulating phrases throughout the composition. Giridhar Udupa brings in his youthful energy following Sankaran and uniformly contributing everything the piece demands for its elevation.

Salaga Bhairavi is a janya ragam (derived scale) from the 22nd Melakarta scale Kharaharapriya. It is a combination of the pentatonic scale Shuddha Saveri and all seven notes of Kharaharapriya. Salaga Bhairavi is an asymmetric ragam that does not contain gandharam or nishadham in the ascending scale. It is an audava-sampurna ragam, that is, it uses five notes in its ascent and all seven in its descent. The notes used in this scale are shadjam, chatusruti rishabham, shuddha madhyamam, panchamam and chatusruti dhaivatam in ascending scale, with kaisiki nishadham and sadharana gandharam included in descending scale.

Musicians 
Malladi Sreeramprasad (vocal)   
Malladi Ravikumar (vocal)   
Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi (violin)   
Trichy Sankaran (mridangam)   
Giridhar Udupa (ghatam)   
Priya Sharma & Srutti Suresan (tanpura)  

Raag Salaga Bhairavi, Composition by Ganapathi Sachchidananda (born 1942)