Whenever I come home to Chennai, I
usually conduct my soul-searching saunters near Venus Colony, a posh locality within Alwarpet in South-Central Chennai where I live. It is one of those relatively
tranquil and bosky neighbourhoods, serrated with trees, a welcome change from the
otherwise pullulating metropolis, that envelops every other step I cover.
Today was one of those fine
mornings, when I made a bee-line for Venus Colony. I was in a fairly meditative
mood, pursing my lips and chewing them a good deal while I was brooding over my
career, future or some such rot that I can’t exactly recollect, when I was shaken
up from my reverie by a gallimaufry of sounds emanating from the precincts of a
house snugly ensconced towards the end of a cul-de-sac on the left. The keen discerning
ear could detect an assortment of musical voices springing forth, with varying
tenor and intonation. There was a deeply mellifluous feminine voice, which
intertwined with the baritone which was unmistakably suggestive of one who was uninterested
but was forced to do a spot of singing. There was one distinct masculine voice
which thundered with bellicosity, while there was a chorus of shrieking squeals
in accompaniment. All in all the cantative spirit on display combined to
produce a cacophony which threatened the peace of the environs, and I decided
to ascertain the facts once and for all. Taking a detour, I approached the
house and saw a board hammered to the gate, blaring the words
“Rasika School of Carnatic Music”.
Of course it had to be! What
else could I expect from this part of the city where arts and culture took
center-stage particularly amongst the gentry, Carnatic Music in particular
being nurtured, developed and promoted under the auspices of institutions such
as the Narada Gana Sabha and Music Academy at close quarters, and a good
portion of the populace residing in these parts belonging to a certain
community patronating the development of singing skills in their offsprings virtually
from the moment they hatched from the egg.
While I was reminiscing with a
hand resting firmly on the gate, there was a sudden shrill that rent the air
“Shreee Ganaaaa Naatha…” In the minute that had lapsed there had been a one
minute hiatus, possibly a water break where the music teacher undoubtedly had
some heated words for a lesser disciple who sang a different verse. So the
shrill, goaded by the teacher, came at a good bit of jarring intensity. I had
enough. I quickly beat a hasty retreat to my walking route, massaging my aching ears.
But there was something in the shrillness of that voice giving me a feeling of déjà
vu, and in an instant I was taking
a trip down memory lane.
Rewind to almost a quarter of a
century earlier, when I was a stripling of about 5 I have a faint recollection
of my first Carnatic music class somewhere in Adayar in South Chennai where we
initially resided. The reasons for my enrolment were manifold but
straightforward. Belting out the top ones that come to my mind are:
a) The community from where I
hail, where it is almost sacrilege to not be part of the Carnatic Music circuit in some way, shape or form. Either you had to be au fait about the latest trends in the field if you wished to
command a certain degree of respect within the social circle, or at the very
least show your inclination towards the field – switching on a radio that
blares ‘Suprabhatam’ by
M.S.Subbulakshmi every single morning or some Kutchery of some accomplished
singer blaring on Sunday TV are handy pre-requisites at the very minimum.
b) It was a certain zeitgeist,
to learn Carnatic Music, a peer pressure of sorts, in the 90’s which stood at
the cusp of the new millennium waiting to herald in an era of technological
revolution. It was a time where TV & Computers were becoming increasingly
accessible and newer forms of media began to proliferate. TV channels
mushroomed quickly sensed the need to appetize hunger for entertainment and
these channels carved out reality shows and programs to spot and hone musical
talent. I remember TV shows such as Samsung Sapthaswarangal, Raagamaliga etc.
garnered fair share of the TRP ratings, so much that 90’s kids like myself keep
harking back to those heydays on Youtube. All in all when yealings of 8 or 9
showed off their precocious singing prowess on air, my parents used to start
kicking up my backsides!
c) My grandmother was one of
the most instrumental forces in the attempts to sow the seeds of musical
inclination in the fecund yet barren mental field of a stripling of five. A
lady who herself brick by brick built herself a name in the field of ‘Bhajan’ and ‘Namasankeerthanam’ (Devotional Singing), a Bhagavatha Sironmani
herself, she has been running the Sri Kamakshi Mandali and Sri Geetha Govinda
Mandali, since 1976 under the patronage of TAMBRAS and Bhagavatha Seva Trust.
She and her troupe have performed in Bhajan carnivals across the length and
breadth of the country, and is a highly distinguished and respected figure in
the field. So it was natural to assume that a lady who has helmed an assortment
of middle aged ladies to keep doing this for nearly half a century, would find
it child’s play to assert her dominance on me. She was (and still is!) a
forceful personality, and even though her intentions were genuine and has the
milk of human kindness sloshing forth in her otherwise, one cannot take away
the fact that it was a fool-hardy enterprise to assume naturally that I would
take to Carnatic Music like fish to water. It was initially under her tutelage
that I began to learn my ropes. Over time with her influence and guidance I
began to learn music under eminent singers in the Carnatic world such as Rukmani
Ramani and Suguna Purushothaman.
d) On a personal note, which I
must admit must have been the cardinal factor that led to my learning Carnatic
Music (and eventually my growing distaste purely from a singing perspective)
was also one that excited my parents to no bounds - My voice! I had
a voice that could pierce through the ozone layer if required. It was one of
those shrieking voices that could stop a thousand clocks and bring life to the
deafest of ears. My levels of decibel intensity touched such dangerously dizzy
heights, that my parents thought, if there was one chap who could thwart the
accomplishments of luminaries in the field such as Madurai Mani Iyer or Balamuralikrishna,
it invariably should be me.
Discarding all the above
factors, however the biggest error that my parents committed or rather an
oversight that should have never been overlooked during such unwieldy
deliberations was to ascertain if I was personally inclined to be signed up for
it. They took it for granted that I would have a natural inclination and proclivity
towards singing and Carnatic music. At age 4 0r 5 or 6 your faculties are so
under-developed you don’t rebel or talk back. So naturally I was introduced to
the field as a fait accompli. I
outperformed other students when it came to the department of voice. My voice
stood out distinctly amongst the others and my music teacher, a wizened old
lady who herself was a big name a few decades earlier, discerned an incredible
singer lurking beneath. She used to tell my parents that my voice could single-handedly
take me to great heights even if there was work to be done in the Raagam (a set of rules for building
a melody) and Thaalam (Beat)
departments.
Despite bouts of schoolboy
recalcitrance, I was nonetheless forcibly thrust into every possible
opportunity that came my way to showcase my singing proficiency. Whenever
guests used to come home, it was some Geetham
or Varnam of sorts such as the famed ‘Ra Ra Venu’ or ‘Ninnukori’ that I was ordered to whip out, and almost everytime I
left the guest amazed with the shrillness of my voice. These were followed up with
concomitant platitudinous blandishments that if I kept my focus and diligence
intact I could peak empyrean heights in the field of music. All this encouraged
my parents a great deal which meant that wherever we moved during childhood
(Thanks to my father’s travelling IT job we saw a good deal of Bangalore, New
Jersey and shuttled within Chennai a few times), my Carnatic Music coaching inevitably
followed. As age progressed, my interest in my own learning of the art began to
visibly wane but my parent’s prodded on by my grandmother only increased with
an equal if not more intensity. I vividly remember even in New Jersey where I
studied my 4th grade, my father used to drive me down 22 miles
one-way every Sunday morning from East Brunswick to Plainsboro, where one of
our ilk, an NRI taught Carnatic Music at $10 per hour. During the December music
season of Margazhi (The unofficial winter month of Chennai) where temperatures
take mercy on the soul and plummet to 23 degrees in the night, I was taken to
attend Kutchery (Concerts). All these were designed with the sinister intention
of forcibly implanting a desire to cultivate the seed of Carnatic music.
However, if there is an
inherently mutual incompatibility latent all along between two entities, then
try as you might, you cannot reconcile both of them. Whenever singing of
Carnatic Music and self were involved, try as you might to marry us both, we
were destined to come apart sometime or later. There was one such incident
which hammered the final nail into the coffin of my singing career. And that
came during my sacred thread ceremony in 2003.
Even as a small kid, I found
rituals and other concomitant appendages to religion and spirituality which lacked
in science and rationality jarring. Be spiritual but why making a fucking show
of it, has been my life-long argument. The sacred thread ceremony was one of
the most bitter experiences in this regard where I was made to undergo torture
for a couple of days – sitting in front of made up pyres, chanting mantras and
being forced to undergo utterly useless and archaic procedures done to
appease specific societal expectations. What added a strikingly repugnant
note to it was it was planned in March of all months, just as the searing
Chennai heat begins to pluck out the juices and hangs the body dry. On the
second day just as the ceremony was coming to an end towards the closure of the
luncheon hour, I wanted to get back home to catch the start of the World cup
semifinals between India and Kenya, when I was held back by my family.
Apparently my dad had organized a small get musical get-together where friends
and relatives could spend some time showcasing their musical talents. Therefore
it came as no surprise that I was forced to belt out a couple of Carnatic songs
which I had been learning.
The watershed moment had
finally arrived! The straw that would eventually break the camel’s back was
placed on top of it. I gave a look lacklustre to the drop and with all my
effort sung the worst song of my life, in a countertenor much to the shock of
the audience who had gathered to hear the heights of my voice in all its glory.
It indubitably set the years lent to development of my Carnatic music skills,
quivering in it’s foundations. That was my swansong (pun intended) and since
then I have never been asked to sing, much to my peace and satisfaction.
After several years, on
retrospection, it indeed sounds ironical today, I must admit! Had I persevered half as much as my
parents did, I might have made some kind of mark in the field and it possibly could have paved a way for me into playback singing. Considering
Sid Sriram and self were born just a few months apart, I might have given the
bloke a run for his money, who knows! But fortunately I don’t have regrets. I am happy to
addictedly play ‘Ennadi Maayavi Nee’
or ‘Inkem Inkem Inkem Kavale’ on loop as
his fan and be an armchair critic in equal measure if needed, while I continue to ply my
trade as a capacity planner with Amazon Customer Service.
To each his own, puts it about mot juste. But those truly were the years
of tuneless caterwauling!
