And the winner is...

Everybody has a raaga that is closest to their heart - singing or listening. For some it may be a very happy and delightful raaga and for some it may be a touching raaga with a melancholy strain to it. I like raagas that fall under the second category more( no wonder i wrote about charukesi in the previous blog :) ). But of all the raagas in that category the one that moves me the most is Panthuvarali in carnatic --> Poorya Dhanashree in hindustani.
The carnatic version touches the equilibrium Sa and Pa more than R1, M2, D1 and N2. The glides include Pa and Sa mostly i.e N2 is sung with gamaka from Sa and M2 sung with gamaka from Pa and rarely some flat touches on M2 and glides from D to M , M D N etc This makes the raaga less sad and more pleasing for an average listener.
On the other hand, the hindustani raaga touches the non-equilibrium notes totally and beautifully before settling at equilibrium.
The aarog goes like - N2 r1 G2 M2 P M2 D1 N2 S
and avarog - R2 N2 D1 P M2 G2 M2 R1 G2 R1 S
- hence the flows of MDNRNDP, MRGRS etc produce a strain that makes you say "wah". The vaadhi swara is still Pa and samvaadhi is Sa. The usage of Pa and Sa is high but the notes that lead to Pa and the way glides are sung in hindustani make the difference. A splendid example is "payaliya jhankar" before hey raama in rangeela, kaahe ched in devdas. My first exposure to poorya dhanashree was kaahe ched and I was touched totally by the way the raag was handled and the amount of emotion it conveyed.
Not everyone gets touched by this raaga or such sad raagas and even if they do its not something they would want to keep listening to.
A friend of mine pointed out how the non-equilibrium notes raise the tension in a listener and their mind calms down only when equilibrium notes are touched. Another awesome observation by him was that these non-equilibrium notes occur when notes are one semi-tone or 3 semi-tones apart(odd semi-tones). Example S, R1 - half, R1 G2 - one and half -- poorya dhanashree is full of these intervals :)