THE JOURNEY TOWARDS CLASSICAL MUSIC

I was seated on the front-seat of our car and mom was driving it. Dangling my thin legs, I was humming the aalaps which were taught to me by my Guru during the previous class. The car took a turn and entered the galli of my singing class. The feeling that I used to experience after that turn was a horrible mixture of guilt, fear and boredom! Guilt for the fact that it had become a routine for me to rehearse at the eleventh hour…err…or should I say, 59th minute? My riyaaz consisted only of the few minutes of the car-travelling. The one hour of the singing class would be very slow and painful for me as my Guru would repeat the lessons of the previous class. As a 5th grade kid, I found all this quite boring. I would just repeat the lessons like a parrot. I didn’t know for what I was learning and for whom?

My mother had become the target of my temper tantrums, my sulking, my complaining and after becoming vary of all this, she allowed me to go my way and I discontinued with my classical lessons. She was happy with the fact that I was at least taking interest in my light-music classes. But she never gave up her effort to develop interest in my mind regarding Classical Music. She would lovingly take me to classical music concerts, where I would be the only black-haired among the white-haired people. I just remember the two things that would happen- the beginning aalap of the singer and the final applause of the audience which would awaken me!

I hoped to learn classical because I had to, not because I wanted to. The force was always external, never from within. Worse was the fact that my concepts were not clear. For me, there was no distinction between Carnatic and Hindustani music! Taali, khaali, bhaari- all were one for me! For me, catching hold of the ‘sum’ and calculating a mathematical ‘sum’ were equally problematic! My definition of classical music was singing some piece of composition with a heavy voice and then adding jerky and fast paced music pieces called by me as ‘Aaaa’! Maybe what I lacked was not interest, but maturity.

Thanks to the ‘n’ number of attempts my parents made, and the ‘n’ number of the people I had tried to learn from; I slowly started to decode the hidden beauty of the art called as ‘Classical Music’. The frequency of dozing off during a concert reduced drastically and I started making a genuine attempt to guess the taals, the structure and slowly I started concentrating more on the over-all effect, the mood that was created after a performance. And lo! I found contentment! I deciphered the meaning of classical music! I realized that it did not mean chasing the taal or competing with the harmonium but it meant achieving a balance between the musical elements. It means to achieve satisfaction, expression and it meant moving towards a higher level of living.

The so called ‘ugly-duckling’ by me, was developing into a beautiful swan. As I became acquainted with the musical concepts, I found myself falling more and more in love with it. I started realizing how a classical musician had the power to excite people yet sooth them. I slowly started feeling the ‘pull’ towards learning classical music!

To get acquainted with the little drops of this vast ocean, I decided to join the course in Mumbai University and this time it was ‘me’ who took interest! Thanks to the efforts of my teachers, seniors and other staff members, my ignorance regarding the various aspects of classical music was brushed off drastically during a short span of 2 years. I can proudly say, that my journey towards exploring classical music has definitely begun! There is a long way to go, but as it is said, when you have music along with you…even miles are crossed in a few seconds!