Defective Chord?

Baji J. Ram Rao
10:06 -0700 Wed. 25-Dec-2015

The Kishore Kumar song,
“चिङ्गारी कोई भड़के, तो सावन उसे बुझाए!, सावन जो अग्न लगाए उसे कौन बुझाए?”
from Amar Prem(1971), was composed by Rahul Deb “Pancham” Burman.
The song follows roughly a मिश्र भैरवी राग pattern.

The song was meant to open with an F# minor chord with the notes F#4 A4 C#5, capped by Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia’s flute playing a C#5 note

Instead Pancham’s rhythm guitarist: Bhanu Gupta (part of Pancham’s core team) played F#4 G4 C#5.
That is: he played the guitar's 3rd string (G-string) open.
Did it sound discordant from the original composition?

Yes. It was an F# suspended flatted 2nd chord instead of the composed F# minor chord.

But R. D. “Pancham” Burman loved it!

Can you see why?
The unplanned कोमल ऋषभ note in the chord added to the भैरवीness of the song, and tremendous feel !
He asked for it to be played again and kept it as part of the original song.

Here I play both guitar chords 3 times to demonstrate the difference.

As composed...

and as played...

Just listen to the first 41½ seconds of this song in राग मिश्र भैरवी.

Of course, in the song, Bhanu ji has played the chord, arpeggiated, but never mind that.