Those good old days.....

I am posting this on behalf of Rama:

This song dates back to my 8th grade days, way back in the 70s when my mom forced me to learn Carnatic music because one, that was what most Tamil and Kannada Brahmin parents did in Bangalore- send their children to sangeetham and Bharatanatyam classes and two, she happened to overhear me imitating a popular Kannada film song that would play faithfully on our radio every morning. So it was generally agreed that I could sing in shruthi. The music teacher happened to be a relative, probably an aunt many times removed. She lived close by so I could walk to her house for lessons. Since I would perpetually hang out at my friend’s house every evening after school and this friend also happened to be musical, both of us decided to learn together. Because the teacher was a relative, there was no fee expected or given by us but there were other students who paid her. Following dictates of tradition, my mom escorted us to the teacher’s house and asked me to give half a dozen bananas, jasmine flowers from our garden and tamboola [betel leaves and supari] to the teacher, introduced us to her and left. My friend’s mom had died long back but we were sure she was present in spirit. Both my friend and I already knew most of the beginning lessons as we had heard them many times over when our elder sisters [privileged first borns who had a teacher come home and teach individually] were singing or practicing. When she learned this, right from day one our teacher decided that we were going to start learning krithis. Again following tradition, she started to teach us a krithi on Ganesha in Gowla ragam, which I have sung here. Ms. P. Devi, our teacher was around 30 years old, single, already graying, slim and tall. She lived with her older sister’s family as her parents were probably dead and single women didn’t usually live by themselves then. Her mannerisms were a little awkward and you would often catch her smiling and talking to herself. Since no one paid undue attention to that, neither did we. As a teacher, she was a tough task master. She would reprimand me at every lesson and praise my friend unfailingly because my friend could imitate the intricate gamakas perfectly and I faltered a lot, particularly when the song reached the higher octave. When ever she scolded me, my friend used to burst into giggles. I asked her why and she said ‘did you notice, she was scolding you but looking at me!’ I felt humiliated both for myself and my teacher. I was told by my parents that the teacher can never be wrong and I had to show ‘implicit’ obedience [my mom’s favorite expression] to parents and elders. I felt bad that I wasn’t doing the gamakas and getting scolded, and I also felt bad that my teacher was laughed at. I never progressed beyond this krithi with Ms. P. Devi because she would insist on perfecting that one line before moving on and I never did even after trying many times. Telling myself that I could never sing perfectly like my friend, I stopped my lessons with Ms. P. Devi. Looking back, after nearly 25 years in the field of persons with disabilities, I realize that the modern day scholars would classify Ms. P. Devi as being autistic or having Asperger syndrome. She was socially very awkward, talked to herself, was musically gifted and pretty inflexible! She wouldn’t give eye contact, as illustrated by my friend’s remarks above. She had dropped out of school after 7th grade because she failed it many times and that indicates that she had cognitive processing issues as well. Luckily for her, she was born way back in the 40s when people in India did not know the word autism and the society had embraced her in its protective fold, without anyone having to rehabilitate her! Her sister’s family had recognized her musical abilities and had turned it into a vocation for her! Here’s my tribute to Ms. P. Devi. My mom said that she passed away couple of years ago. Ms. P. Devi’s probably smiling (or frowning?) from heaven because I still struggle with gamakasJ.

Here's me singing Pranamamyaham.......