Morning Raga is a 2004 Indian English-language musical drama film written and directed by Mahesh Dattani, and produced by K. Raghavendra Rao under Arka Media Works.

[3] The film focuses on three main characters — all Telugu — whose lives have each been ruined by past tragedies and how they are united by circumstance.

[4] The film begins with a collage of idealised village life in south India, with a Carnatic classical song in the background, being rendered by Swarnalata (Shabana Azmi), the lady of a prosperous land-owning family.

It is the death anniversary of Abhinav's parents, and his grandfather performs the usual Hindu ceremonies on the riverbank, like every year.

A car suddenly appears and almost crashes into a distracted and careless Abhinav, but swerves away in the nick of time and hits some bushes.

Swarnalatha is a classically trained Carnatic singer who lost her son and best friend, Vaishnavi (Ranjani Ramakrishnan), in a bus accident.

Next morning both Abhinay and Pinky set out for Hyderabad to seek the perfect artists for the proposed troop, and they get a guitarist and a drummer, Balaji Shaleen Sharma.

Shabana Azmi was trained intensively in Carnatic music by Ranjani Ramakrishnan before she was allowed to sing during the film.

The house used for her character's home is a historic zamindar country mansion and estate near the village of Kulla in East Godavari district.

[5] A critic from Rediff.com wrote that "The film is excessively escapist in terms of human emotion, and relies on everybody eventually liking everybody else in the end, and confessing all.

Moments of conflict and inner turmoil in Morning Raga are like item numbers, quick and engaging, but utterly disconnected to the rest of the film".