A song to remember…
February 16th, 2009
” That’s it! I am not going to the music class at Padma akka’s house anymore !! ” I said to my mother with a firm resolve that could not have been broken even if Lord Brahma would have requested me to.
” But, Pray tell me! Why not ???” My mom had asked with a curiosity tinged voice.
I was seven years old but already a fiesty one, unruly at most times. Let me tell you, being born in a traditional andhraite dravidian family it was but natural that I learnt Carnatic music. Something that was the norm and my mother thought I should too. For me music didn’t mean much at that age but Padma Akka lived in a big house in the nearby town and the journey from the camp in the jeep kept me entertained enough.
As if this was not sufficient Akka would cuddle and give plenty of chocolates and treat me affectionately. It also meant meeting her friends. For a young girl the youthful ladies, their matching attire, eavesdropping on their entertaining conversations was an exciting prospect from the dull drab of frocks that I wore, and the kids my age I frolicked along with.
So, My mom couldn’t really understand the trigger for my sudden defiance to avoid going to Akka’s place. ” Now, you can’t be serious, tell me what happened !” she coaxed me again.
” While I was singing Padma akka and her mom were smiling at each other and saying that I had “hiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh pitch”, I am not going! That’s final. How can they call me pitchi and that too hiiiiiiiiigh. If they had said loooooow it was okaaaaaaay but pitchi that too hiiiiiiigh. I will never visit them again !!”
Let me tell you pitchi in the “Italian of the east”, for the uninitiated, telugu is called Italian of the east, means a “mad one”. I was not willing to learn music at a place where they termed me pitchi and that too hiiiiiigh.
It is an altogether different matter that most of my close friends now label me as “mad mona” and I take that in my stride but not in those days.
Ma laughed aloud and explained to me about the high pitch and finally some sense prevailed into my little pistachhio brain and my tryst with Carnatic music wasn’t interrupted.
As I grew older my father gave me umpteen record albums of movies and ghazals. My first experience of english music was “like a virgin” by Maddona and I learnt pretty fast to tell my dad, “Papa, don’t preach..” If that upset him I knew how to sing, “Daddy, daddy cool!”
Are you guys wondering, ” Does she have a point !!”
I am mad, but sometimes I too make sense.
” But, Pray tell me! Why not ???” My mom had asked with a curiosity tinged voice.
I was seven years old but already a fiesty one, unruly at most times. Let me tell you, being born in a traditional andhraite dravidian family it was but natural that I learnt Carnatic music. Something that was the norm and my mother thought I should too. For me music didn’t mean much at that age but Padma Akka lived in a big house in the nearby town and the journey from the camp in the jeep kept me entertained enough.
As if this was not sufficient Akka would cuddle and give plenty of chocolates and treat me affectionately. It also meant meeting her friends. For a young girl the youthful ladies, their matching attire, eavesdropping on their entertaining conversations was an exciting prospect from the dull drab of frocks that I wore, and the kids my age I frolicked along with.
So, My mom couldn’t really understand the trigger for my sudden defiance to avoid going to Akka’s place. ” Now, you can’t be serious, tell me what happened !” she coaxed me again.
” While I was singing Padma akka and her mom were smiling at each other and saying that I had “hiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh pitch”, I am not going! That’s final. How can they call me pitchi and that too hiiiiiiiiigh. If they had said loooooow it was okaaaaaaay but pitchi that too hiiiiiiigh. I will never visit them again !!”
Let me tell you pitchi in the “Italian of the east”, for the uninitiated, telugu is called Italian of the east, means a “mad one”. I was not willing to learn music at a place where they termed me pitchi and that too hiiiiiigh.
It is an altogether different matter that most of my close friends now label me as “mad mona” and I take that in my stride but not in those days.
Ma laughed aloud and explained to me about the high pitch and finally some sense prevailed into my little pistachhio brain and my tryst with Carnatic music wasn’t interrupted.
As I grew older my father gave me umpteen record albums of movies and ghazals. My first experience of english music was “like a virgin” by Maddona and I learnt pretty fast to tell my dad, “Papa, don’t preach..” If that upset him I knew how to sing, “Daddy, daddy cool!”
Are you guys wondering, ” Does she have a point !!”
I am mad, but sometimes I too make sense.
My eternal love by now everyone knows is solitude and soliloquy. I thought it was time to introduce the second love. Someone quoted once, ” Doctors may save lives, but music, musicians make it worth living. ” I could not have agreed more. From the days gone by till now, if I have been swept by myriad of emotions in this constant flux of change that my life went through then music stayed with me every passing minute.
If life dealt me with deception, atleast music remained my companion. Any occasion and I have a song from Eagles to Beatles, from Pink Floyd to Andrew Llyod W, from Rafi to Rehman, from foot tapping to soft crooning, from hair raising to heart tugging, from the depths of sadness to the peaks of happiness, be it love or longing, separation or desperation, from emotions to bubbles, from glory to pain music has always been there.
Many people who walked into my life, made their presence felt. To each one of them I gave a small corner, with them I made a song. A song to remember even after they were long gone. The song brought the freshness of the memories back. In an instant the distant recollection would become a matter of ” here and now “.
Just as these people have meant something special however insignificant their life span was with me, music made the remembrance sublime and divine.
Here is to music and those who brought music….Who else, but the original voice of Rod Stewart to say,
PS Those of you who want to know if I still sing, here goes, gaate nahi gungunate hain…gaa bhi lete par kya karien sur aur taal donon ki kami hai !!
