Liquid notes: How water flows through Indian music

Water is intrinsically a part of the world around us, through rivers, rain, rituals and stories. So it is not surprising that it has found a home in Indian music. In music, as in life, water plays many roles – it nurtures, saves, destroys and unites.

Across Indian musical traditions, water has shaped how we feel, remember and imagine the world. This imagination around water is not limited to music alone; it appears even earlier in poetic traditions.

A Sangam poet, nearly 2,000 years ago, wrote Yayum Gnayum Yaaragiyaro. The Tamil love poem concludes with the line “sembulap peyal neer pola anbudai nenjam thaam kalandhanave” – in love our hearts mingled like red earth and pouring rain.

It is one of the earliest poetic uses of water as metaphor.

These poetic images echo a larger worldview in which water is seen as elemental and sacred. In daily life, some use water in rituals for purification, blessing and renewal. Given this cultural significance, it is not surprising that many songs in Indian tradition venerate rivers as sacred.

From this broader cultural reverence, water took on deeper symbolic meaning in the Bhakti tradition. Bhakti poets used water not just to describe the world around them, but to reflect on the inner world of ethics, humility and spiritual longing.

The mystic Kabir saw in water entire philosophical lessons. In his doha Unche Paani na Tike, Neeche hi Thaharay, he uses the behaviour of water to emphasise humility – just as water settles in lower ground, wisdom and grace remain with those who are humble. For Kabir, water becomes a way to reflect on how arrogance leads nowhere, while humility opens the path to understanding.

Like Kabir, the philosopher poet and social reformer Basavanna also used water to push his followers toward inner reflection. In his vachana Neer Kandalli, Basavanna questions the unthinking veneration of objects, reminding us that both trees and water can wither or dry up.

For him, water becomes a metaphor to challenge ritualism itself, urging us to move from outward worship to inward awareness.

Water in everyday life

In folk traditions, water reflects the rhythms of daily life. River songs in Bengal and Assam, monsoon songs in Rajasthan, and boat or fishing songs in Maharashtra all grow out of daily life, the work people do and the emotions of the community.

One such example is the Marathi Koli song Mi Dolkar. Its chorus, “Valhav re nakhava ho valhav re rama” doubles as a rhythmic chant used while rowing, and echoes the pride of the community.

But in other regions, water appears in a starkly different light. Rajasthani women’s water songs, known as panihari songs, express the hardship and hope associated with water scarcity in the desert.

The song lyrics tell tales of love and longing, and sometimes the struggle to find water.

From these folk expressions of scarcity and longing, the idea of water takes on a different form in classical music – one where melody itself is linked to rain and renewal.

When Carnatic composer Muthuswamy Dikshithar (1775-1835) visited the drought-stricken village of Ettayapuram, he prayed to the goddess at the local temple. As he sang the words “Varshaya Varshaya Varshaya” from his composition Anandamritavarshini in raga Amritavarshini, a sudden downpour is said to have occurred.

Apocryphal as the story may be, the raga Amritavarshini has since been associated with rain, and musicians have even sung it during droughts in Chennai. Hindustani music too draws on water imagery through the Malhar family of ragas, long linked with the evocation of rain.

Just a couple of hundred years ago. Carnatic composer Tyagaraja in his composition Sari Vedalina sang of how the river Kaveri flowed abundantly, sharing its waters and enriching everyone in its path. Such compositions reflect a long history of celebrating water’s generosity.

Water in a changing world

After centuries of treating water as a guide for reflection, our relationship with it has become more fragile. The meanings we attach to water have shifted as ecological realities have changed. Even as musical traditions praise water’s generosity, the pressures of climate change have altered how many communities now experience it.

The abundance these songs celebrate is no longer guaranteed.

Musicians such as Bhupen Hazarika responded to this change with evocative songs lamenting how people have become self-centred and society bereft of moral character. In his song, O Ganga Behti Kyun Hai?, Hazarika asks the river Ganga why she chooses to stay silent amid moral and social decline. The river becomes witness and judge.

Water’s emotional range extends far beyond classical and devotional music. In film songs, it becomes a dramatic device that shapes mood and memory. Monsoon rains are perhaps one of the most popular backdrops in filmi gaane.

Rim Jhim Gire Saawan from Manzil (1979), for instance, recently re-enacted by a senior couple on social media, stirred nostalgia for the romance of monsoon songs. From songs such as Tip Tip Barsa Pani to Megham Kottatum, with Kamal Hassan singing, dancing and playing with an umbrella in a downpour, rain sequences have long captured audiences across age groups.

In Ek Pyaar Ka Nagma, water becomes a gentler metaphor for companionship: “Tu dhar hai nadhiya ki, main tera kinara hoon.”

Across classical, devotional, folk and film music, water is more than just an image. It helps shape how different communities have understood the world around them.

At a time when ecological disruption is reshaping our relationship with nature, revisiting these songs offers more than nostalgia. They offer context – a reminder that people have been listening to and learning from water for centuries. And they may still have something to teach us about how to value it today.

To hear these songs now is to remember what connects to one another and to the world that sustains us.

Chitra Srikrishna is a Carnatic vocalist based in Bangalore. Her blog can be accessed here.