Am I Hearing Bansuri Tune Correctly

Question

I am learning to play Tum Hi Ho via this tutorial

Harsh Dave sings out the saptak (he doesn't write it), hence there is a lot of pause, slow-play, and repeats to understand the notes.

Here at 2:30 I believe he is playing

sa re ga ma re sa re
sa re ga ma re sa re
ni re sa ni da ni pa da ni sa re

However, when he sings out the saptak at 2:50, the first two lines are same, but last third one has an added sa ni, i.e.

ni re sa ni da ni **sa ni** pa da ni sa re

I do not hear the sa ni when Harsh plays it. I don't even hear it being played very fast (Harsh likes to add his own ornamentation, I've noticed)

And when I try to play it, I can only play without the 'sa ni', i.e. if I add it before pa da ni sa re, the tune sounds different.

Can you check Harsh is in fact playing with sa ni, or it is an oversight?

Answer 1

I can hear the extra sa ni in the example he plays, but he makes it sound more like an ornament. When he sings the example the notes sound much more deliberate.

In my experience when musicians are both playing and talking in a video it's much better to orientate yourself to what they are playing rather than what they are saying (or singing).

Answer 2

I'd say Dave is taking the wrong tonic (sa) So (in my view) all his note (names) are wrong. Or if you prefer : off by 3.

That is where he starts

dha sa ga sa ma sa re ni

I'd say it should really be

sa ga pa ga dha ga ma re

Now you can do that to sing/play in the same (absolute) key as the original. But absolute do-re-mi or fixed do solfege is completely wrong way of doing Indian music.

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Added later

I just found this version of Sriharsha Ramkumar

He doesn't make the wrong-sa mistake of Dave. However he skips the lead-up so... Dave 0:34 flute, swaras: 0:45 given as

ga dha pa pa ma ma ga re sa re ma ga

Becomes Sriharsha 3min 44 sec

pa sa ni ni dha dha pa ma ga ma dha pa

Note: He's giving S Indian (carnatic) style note names.