Strictly not just music!

He looked us closely in the eyes, then tuned his harmonium, then looked again at us after adjusting his dhothi and glasses. This time a quizzical look. Then wiped the beads of sweat on his forehead and folded the handkerchief very very neatly to have it fall back in  crease and then said , “Sing after me…Sa….pa …Sa…pa…sa…”. He was the new music master. Character-spotting is a favorite pastime of all who regard themselves intelligent. Popular myth has it that you can tell someone’s ‘true character’ from the way they dress, how they shake hands or how they react to crisis. No matter how innocuous the mannerism, there will be someone who professes to see the course of another’s life in it, from the way they fold their handkerchief! Well this wisdom and alike has only crept in now in my post 30. It was bull’s eye when after the first class the 4 of us crowded outside, in my portico to ‘discuss and analyse’ our music master. “He is very strict. Did you see the way he folded his handkerchief!” Ha ha! The best part is, the confidence with which these rules are asserted is usually hopelessly misplaced, and the thought that familiarity with them constitutes the wisdom of age is quite laughable. By the way we were 8 years old at that time!!

He came home in a cycle and I can vividly remember that each of us took turns to take the harmonium from his cycle basket and we of course felt knighted doing that. After a few varnams and kritis, was a coffee break and my mom would religiously bring her strong narasus filter coffee in a stainless steel tumbler and davara for him. Now this break was good and bad-good because it smelt of narasus for the next 45 minutes  as we sang and bad because. as he drank his coffee, my mom would do her complaining about how much she was after me to practice the latest kriti and how I had gone off to play badi or basketball or watch Wimbledon at home(all three were blasphemy for the ladies at home!). Not sure how many households had this take that sports is a bad idea and they were bearing with us and our interests. Of course, at home appa was an exception as he too got accused for encouraging me. At the end of the coffee break, the master will look at my friends and me and say that practice makes perfection and statements alike which at that time was GIGO(garbage in garbage out)!

He would passionately explain the Telugu kritis with meaning and it sometimes was more of a literature class than a music class. I loved those parts especially the Thiagarajar kritis about Lord Rama.  One striking feature that I realize was the cause for all the complaints was we lacked the bhava in alapanai. The emotions were lost, perhaps, a corollary to young age and I hate to admit that it was also a lack of many hours of practice that we failed to put in. Our teacher was anything but strict. He patiently taught and re-taught till we grew confident of it. He would smile when we slipped a thalam or didn’t sync the shruthi or even misplaced a swara position. 12 long years and today as I look back the mistakes we committed were big and absurd.Yet the man just persevered. There was a time when my brother called me a “Varsha Varnam” as he heard me  sing a varnam for a whole year! He would also make fun of my Navarathri spree by saying “Show time”!!

Whatever we seemed to lack or we learned, as I sit down at katcheris today I confidently shoot the raga(sometimes I do get it wrong!), hum along, snap the thala right and enjoy the song. It drowns me, engages me, captivates me and also makes me marvel at the so many different ways of singing the raga. Beyond this line, lies the innovation of the artist. In Carnatic music, like in any other art form, ‘deliberate art’ takes you a few yards but ‘non-deliberate’ art spins you into a space of greater imagination where the thala, raga and the bhava come alive very differently. The technical prowess will only  run you through the various aspects of this music correctly,  the beauty and the artist's identity in the piece happens at a much higher level of understanding of the raga and innovating the new ways, within the boundaries of the raga.That’s what tells the difference between a ‘good listener’ and a talented artist.

I am happy knowing this and often thank god for my great master who taught me more than just music by just being who he was- passionate, determined,  tolerant,  and definitely not strict!!