For once it was good fun not driving my car into the city! Thanks to Bangalore Metro Rail Corp Ltd. the entire stretch of Kanakapura road between Konankunte cross-road and Banashankari bus stand has been converted to a construction zone or a war zone to be more precise. The construction islands created by BMRCL by putting up artificial metallic barricades to carry out uninterrupted pile foundation work has taken away a good 75% of the road surface which was once available for the unending number of 2, 3, 4, 6 and 10 wheelers plying on this road. The narrow stretch left over on either side can only allow a self regulating single file of vehicular traffic much like the way ants behave while moving from point A to B. The recent incessant rains, doing a catch-up of sorts after playing truant at the beginning of the monsoon season, have only made it worse. With nowhere to flow, the stagnant puddles make the surrounding mud slushy and with each heavy vehicle passing over it, this small puddle deepens into a cavity before becoming a crater making the craters on the surface of moon pale in comparison. With rain water filling these craters, it is quite impossible for the first time users of this road to gauge the depth and they end up going either too rapidly through the pothole splashing the muddy slush on innocent pedestrians or too slow in their attempt to be cautious and end up becoming a speed-breaker to the vehicles following them. The determination to sit on the horn only intensifies; adding decibels to the general cacophony.
Interestingly, city of London did the honors by operating the world’s first underground suburban metro link in the year 1863. With multi layers of tracks criss crossing the city, it is the second largest urban metro after Shanghai Metro with 400 KM route length and serves 270 stations. While it is popularly known as ‘The Tube’, more than 55% of its route is over ground. Our very own ‘Namma Metro’ is scheduled to commence commercial run in December 2010 between Baiyappanahalli and MG Road. With just 20% of the track underground, ‘Namma Metro’ cannot be compared to ‘The Tube’ in any which way. While 42 KM of the route length will be fully operational by December 2011, it is estimated that by 2014 our city will boast a total length of 111 KM of track, still a far cry from the existing 400 KM within London. The routing is on the North-South and East-West corridor more like a diameter connecting the gigantic ring road on the periphery of this ever ballooning city. Come to think of it, we are roughly 150 years behind London Underground.
Running a slight temperature and all my joints groaning with pain, I decided to take a bus to Yediyur lake to attend to a family function on Thursday last week. Earlier during the day I had applied for a day off from the daily grind at office to relax and recoup from my brief illness. With the bus stand just a 2-minute walking distance from where I live, I found hopping onto a bus at 12:30 PM in the afternoon a cake-walk. I was even able to get a seat to park myself for the entire journey that lasted a good 45 minutes. There is a big difference between sitting behind the driving wheel and sitting on a back bench in a rickety contraption called ‘bus’ operated by BMTC – Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corp. Sitting high above the road surface, one gets a vantage view of the surroundings which is quite different from the confined tunnel vision while driving a car. I was able to observe quite a few things that would not have been otherwise visible in case I was driving and I found this a pleasant change. I was able to see quite a few workers sleeping in the islands created by BMRCL on stacked steel plates meant for construction purpose, quite oblivious of what was happening in the surroundings. It was a wonder how one could sleep amidst all the honking, the clutter and the noise from the construction drilling and pile driving machines. Well, if the erstwhile Prime Minister of India could be caught snoring in the Parliament when his fellow colleagues ran to the well of the house under the slightest pretext to shout slogans and throw missiles at each other, I guess lesser mortals like us should be excused in case we try and catch up with a power nap during our endless meetings!!
With the horrendous rattling noise inside the rickety bus as it inched along the crater ridden Kanakapura road, I found it pretty strange to see almost all the passengers sporting a cell phone; not just sporting it but also quite busy talking into the instrument. Strange, because I wonder how they could hear the other person above the din of the moving bus; leave alone the external noise that kept sailing in from all known directions. To make themselves heard they were shouting on top of their voice much to the irritation of their fellow passenger. At best they could probably hear each other talk and not make out what the person at the distant end was saying; this was my firm conclusion. It was a comical sight when the conductor came around for tickets; fellow passengers ignored him under the pretext of using their cell phone. This only helped in earning his wrath. The conductor got into an endless tirade against usage of phones in the bus, but during one of his quieter moments when all passengers had been issued their respective tickets, we too spotted him using his cell phone. One of the passengers was so engrossed in his phone conversation that he missed getting down at his scheduled stop and no amount of pleas helped make the driver make an unscheduled stop. The conductor was having his last laugh and suggested that he talk his way back from the next stop. ‘Serves him right’ he was found to be mumbling.
Not satisfied with the din and bustle inside the bus, there was one bright guy playing songs on his mobile and quite loudly at that. It was funny to note that he also had his ear phones on. I mustered some courage to ask what the logic in having the ear phones was and also play through the speakers. With a cold glare that I got for my question, I decided for myself that I must confine my questioning within the four walls of my home or at the office, lest I get clobbered for being nosy. While it was quite irritating to see my immediate neighbor blowing large bubbles with his bubble gum, I decided to keep mum and not act brave by commenting or asking him some crazy question; my mind was behaving like a streaming video. Lost in our own thoughts, a sudden brake jolted us out of our respective dreams. A quick peep and we realized that a bevy of ladies had crossed the street unmindful of the chaotic traffic and almost landing below the wheels of another onrushing vehicle from behind, hell bent on overtaking our bus. Looks like people train themselves to be focused when it comes to spotting a public transport. Much like the way Arjuna of the Panch Pandavas fame told his teacher Dronacharya when asked about what he saw, when he had positioned an arrow on his bow and was taking aim, ‘I can see the object’. No wonder our folks fail to exercise caution when they spot a bus; their focus turns to getting in at any or all cost. Seldom do they watch out for their personal safety.
Further down I spotted a fairly senior couple trying to cross the road. From their behavior it seemed obvious that they had returned from a foreign land. They would take a hesitant step thinking that it was time to step forward and then an oncoming vehicle with its horns on full blast would make them quickly retreat. The bus in which I was traveling was stationary and I was able to observe their adventure or should we say misadventure. Finally the lady, more pragmatic between the two, started giving instructions much to the irritation of the husband who was finding difficulty combining his feet movement with his thought process. At this time, our bus started moving and I will never know how the couple managed to cross! However, one thing is for sure; eventually every wife with time begins to behave more like a mother to their husbands – the continuous stream of instructions on the dos and don’ts never seem to cease. I myself kept getting calls from my wife who, of course with very noble intentions and genuine concern was checking whether I had to wait for a long time at the bus stop, did I get the right bus, what was my relative position with respect to each time she called, would I reach the venue in time, did I know the address of the venue so on and so forth. It was a wonder how one could keep such a close track and monitor progress through a series of well intentioned and logical set of questions. It struck me then; perhaps, she might make a better manager than me – with such a meticulous follow-up, virtually nothing could go wrong!!
Indeed, I reached just-in-time as the ‘Blessings’ ceremony was coming to an end and plantain leaves were being neatly arranged for the meal to be served. After a tasty and sumptuous meal my wife and I headed straight home and on the return trip we hopped on to a three wheeler – my wife was right when she said that if its two then an auto works out more cost effective…I thought only I was paranoid about being cost conscious!!
I did enjoy my adventurous outing and given a chance, I will board a BMTC once again without hesitation. It brought memories of my earlier and more energetic days, offered me small pleasures and the freedom to sit and observe which I would never get from the confines of my own car. And, I look forward to the day we can use the Metro to commute to office and back. Only time will tell whether I would have retired by then!!
Cheers!!
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Enormity of Scale...
I wonder how many of you while reading the newspaper today gave the small print ‘37.2 mm of rainfall yesterday in Bangalore’ a second thought! Just to give you an idea of scale, just look at the sheer volume of fresh clean potable water and ready for consumption, nature has given us in the short two hours of rainfall: Since it rained all over the city pretty uniformly, we can presume that an area square of 30 KM would have been covered and I am being conservative out here. The total volume of water Mother Nature showered on us works out to a staggering volume of 33,480,000,000 liters (33.5 billion liters).
A typical urban Indian uses on an average 175 liters of water each day. Mother Nature’s bountiful supply of freshwater in less than 2 hours could then support 190 million individuals for a day. With the population of Bangalore at 6.5 million today, this volume of rainwater could support all the people in Bangalore for 29 days – a month, almost!!
Mind blowing, isn’t it? Try computing the figures and the number of days the entire city would have survived in case we had some ways of capturing the entire rainfall during the Year 2005 floods in Bangalore. It is said that the next World War would be fought over water. Mother Nature knows no boundaries and rivers flow in countries small or big, rich or poor and so long as they do not place a barrier in its path, there is plenty for all. In the name of risk mitigation & better utilization and presuming that Mother Nature will behave irrationally, the smarter and mightier nations create artificial barriers in the name of dams and stop the flow to the countries downstream. Like the three primary colors that create a million other hues, water, air and sunlight is the essence for sustaining life on earth and no single individual or a country should lay exclusive claim over this common nectar that supports life of any form.
In case you get a chance to read the chronology of conflicts throughout the world over water, you will note that in almost all the earlier wars fought, military used water as a strategic tool to end a conflict. The Goths gained supremacy in Rome in 6th century AD by cutting all aqueducts leading to the city of Rome. The strategy known as the ‘Dutch Water Line’ and as the name suggests, Dutch used it successfully by flooding the land to break the siege of Spanish troops in the 80 years war in 16th century AD. Tension between India and the erstwhile East Pakistan started developing when India started constructing Farakka Barrage across the river Ganges at the border town between two countries. A thirty years treaty was signed finally in 1996 after three short term treaties were signed between India and the liberated nation of Bangladesh post the 1971 war between India and Pakistan. Dispute between India and Pakistan on the sharing of Indus river water irrigation continues to be a sore thumb even today. While a world Bank led negotiation concluded in 1960 after 12 long years of protracted discussion, each country is quick to blame each other for the vagaries of nature no individual human has a control over but collectively mankind has caused a permanent damage to the environment.
Closer home, the twin states in south who enjoy the waters of river Cauvery during peace times of healthy monsoon activity, are quick to whip-up emotions of hate during a failed monsoon. Come to think of it, ‘hate’ is the strongest of all emotions known and felt. It takes years to build ‘trust’ but a moment to hit the frenzied emotional state of ‘hate’ and this emotion could make a person kill without rationale or even commit suicide. I am sure between two human beings even the end stage of divorce may in all likelihood have begun with ‘love’ at first. As the story of togetherness slowly unfolds, simple acts of jealousy leads to minor skirmishes in a clash of ego, later with fights and then a war of nerves as to who will blink first before reaching the point of ‘no-return’ after a brief period of mayhem. What acts as a tonic in this saga of estranged relationship is the emotion called ‘hate’ and if uncontrolled and allowed to fester, an end to the relationship is the only logical solution.
Our Machiavellian and manipulative politicians know it very well and are quick to exploit the benefits that this four letter word can do to their selfish career to amass a mass following and gainfully horde material wealth that would perhaps last 3 generations beyond theirs. If only they could be a bit magnanimous and work the math on what Mother Nature bountifully gives without having to ask, and work for the betterment of society at large, the world would have been a much better place. It is ridiculous to find politicians fighting over something that is rightfully not theirs. Knowing that we have merely borrowed this planet from our children may hopefully bring a sense of much needed responsibility.
Cheers!!
A typical urban Indian uses on an average 175 liters of water each day. Mother Nature’s bountiful supply of freshwater in less than 2 hours could then support 190 million individuals for a day. With the population of Bangalore at 6.5 million today, this volume of rainwater could support all the people in Bangalore for 29 days – a month, almost!!
Mind blowing, isn’t it? Try computing the figures and the number of days the entire city would have survived in case we had some ways of capturing the entire rainfall during the Year 2005 floods in Bangalore. It is said that the next World War would be fought over water. Mother Nature knows no boundaries and rivers flow in countries small or big, rich or poor and so long as they do not place a barrier in its path, there is plenty for all. In the name of risk mitigation & better utilization and presuming that Mother Nature will behave irrationally, the smarter and mightier nations create artificial barriers in the name of dams and stop the flow to the countries downstream. Like the three primary colors that create a million other hues, water, air and sunlight is the essence for sustaining life on earth and no single individual or a country should lay exclusive claim over this common nectar that supports life of any form.
In case you get a chance to read the chronology of conflicts throughout the world over water, you will note that in almost all the earlier wars fought, military used water as a strategic tool to end a conflict. The Goths gained supremacy in Rome in 6th century AD by cutting all aqueducts leading to the city of Rome. The strategy known as the ‘Dutch Water Line’ and as the name suggests, Dutch used it successfully by flooding the land to break the siege of Spanish troops in the 80 years war in 16th century AD. Tension between India and the erstwhile East Pakistan started developing when India started constructing Farakka Barrage across the river Ganges at the border town between two countries. A thirty years treaty was signed finally in 1996 after three short term treaties were signed between India and the liberated nation of Bangladesh post the 1971 war between India and Pakistan. Dispute between India and Pakistan on the sharing of Indus river water irrigation continues to be a sore thumb even today. While a world Bank led negotiation concluded in 1960 after 12 long years of protracted discussion, each country is quick to blame each other for the vagaries of nature no individual human has a control over but collectively mankind has caused a permanent damage to the environment.
Closer home, the twin states in south who enjoy the waters of river Cauvery during peace times of healthy monsoon activity, are quick to whip-up emotions of hate during a failed monsoon. Come to think of it, ‘hate’ is the strongest of all emotions known and felt. It takes years to build ‘trust’ but a moment to hit the frenzied emotional state of ‘hate’ and this emotion could make a person kill without rationale or even commit suicide. I am sure between two human beings even the end stage of divorce may in all likelihood have begun with ‘love’ at first. As the story of togetherness slowly unfolds, simple acts of jealousy leads to minor skirmishes in a clash of ego, later with fights and then a war of nerves as to who will blink first before reaching the point of ‘no-return’ after a brief period of mayhem. What acts as a tonic in this saga of estranged relationship is the emotion called ‘hate’ and if uncontrolled and allowed to fester, an end to the relationship is the only logical solution.
Our Machiavellian and manipulative politicians know it very well and are quick to exploit the benefits that this four letter word can do to their selfish career to amass a mass following and gainfully horde material wealth that would perhaps last 3 generations beyond theirs. If only they could be a bit magnanimous and work the math on what Mother Nature bountifully gives without having to ask, and work for the betterment of society at large, the world would have been a much better place. It is ridiculous to find politicians fighting over something that is rightfully not theirs. Knowing that we have merely borrowed this planet from our children may hopefully bring a sense of much needed responsibility.
Cheers!!
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Sounds of Music!!
At the age of 7 when my father took me to the most well known ‘School of Music’ at Durgapur, I was not sure what instrument he had in his mind that I must learn to play. Neither did I have any choice of an instrument that fascinated me. Music as they say runs in the blood…aha! I wasn’t sure that was the case with me. Honestly, I am sure I couldn’t have copied even a donkey and his fine art of braying, let alone mastering the art of repeatability. Both my elder sisters however were learning vocal under the famous Mrs. Rangan of Durgapur. She had a very strong and distinct south Indian accent when she spoke Hindi – literally speaking a perfect give-away! It became my responsibility to accompany my 2nd sister during her trips to Mrs. Rangan’s house when my eldest sister went out of town for her graduate course in science. With apparently no ear for music, the 60 minutes wait for my sister to complete her classroom training used to seem endless and a torture. Generally afternoon and evening hours were reserved for playing with friends and acquaintances and Durgapur being a sleepy colony town there was no dearth for play grounds. Being stuck at Mrs. Rangan’s house seemed a waste of precious play time. What is amazing however is the way the notes, sahitya and the tune have a stickiness in the mind. Four decades and five years later, I can still recall the tune of songs sung by my sister and it is coming in handy as I learn to play the violin now.
Coming back to my first day at ‘School of Music’, I was led by my father to a tabalchi teacher Shri Moni Das from the Allahabad Gharana and that is where my suspense ended. I was destined to learn Tabla. What struck me as odd was the friendly disposition of my tabla teacher. A teacher is a teacher is a teacher, or so I thought. The mind associated a teacher as someone who would be a task master, giving tons of homework, have a very serious air around them and have no tolerance for erring students. Contrary to my expectations this teacher was, to put it simply, just the opposite. He would shower heaps of praise if I just positioned my hands and fingers correctly on the instrument. His demonstration of joy new no bounds if I struck the notes correctly. It was so enchanting that I just wanted to be repeatedly perfect in the way I held my hands and played the beat. It was that instant recognition that was so gratifying and on hindsight it probably made me want to practice and play more, just to impress. Music or the science of rhythm and beat was just incidental. What was even more exciting was the lack of home work. The next class would be a week later and this would most often be a repeat of what we had learnt earlier. We were allowed to learn at our own pace, something that we couldn’t dream of in our regular classroom. In those impressionable years, I have only fond memories of my attempts at learning to play a percussion instrument.
It continued this way for the next seven years from being a beginner; I appeared for both written and practical exams. What I lacked was the experience in accompanying vocalists. The ‘School of Music’ at Durgapur made us proficient in playing the instrument and they were also quite efficient in making us overcome our stage fright. We were all asked regularly to appear as big teams playing this instrument in unison in front of large to very large gatherings. But when it came to accompanying other musicians and vocalists, we drew a blank. I got accidentally initiated into this by my brother-in-law who is a self taught singer and a harmonium player. With a very keen sense and an ear for music, he would urge me to accompany whenever he played the harmonium or sang light music numbers (film songs of the yester years). This unexpected, yet, a necessary exposure came in extremely handy when I joined the engineering college at Trichy in Tamil Nadu. Students with additional skills especially if it was connected to playing an instrument got instant recognition. They would automatically get initiated into a motley set of budding artists and proudly call themselves as THE college band. It also had some side advantages as one would get ragged less and RE College Trichy was pretty well known when it came to creativity in ragging styles. Although shy by nature, I must admit that I got my fair share of brand recognition. On the graduation day speech, Major Srinivasan, our kind and lovable Training & Placement Officer; he chose to prefix my name with the word ‘Tabla’ and said Tabla Rama Rao believes that all individuals must work hard for themselves. I am not sure I understood the context when Major uttered these words, but the words were indeed absolutely prophetic! I couldn’t have found a better mission statement that would describe me, myself and I, in a more apt manner, without the prefix, of course.
Incidentally and for some odd reason I have never been known by my first name. My title Rao has got stuck with me amongst my friends and colleagues + clients as well. The only person who used to call me by my full name was my grandmother. My wife has settled for an abridged version and addresses me as Vish, her Wish I guess! When my engineering career took me to Mumbai in 1982, I developed a close circle of friends in Kannada Association at their club premises located in Matunga near the well known landmark, ‘King’s Circle’. I got together with a few like minded folks and we formed a troupe of sorts. We started with group songs with yours truly playing the tabla. We even experimented with a few skits but they invariably ended in a disaster. What we considered humor was disdainfully looked upon as a serious attempt at slapstick. However, Kannada folk music was a big hit and we stuck to it much like the way a drowning person would hold on to a twig in the ocean to stay afloat. With continuous practice, we even got a bit famous in the circle of light music lovers and were invited to record for a small fifteen minute program in All India Radio’s Bombay ‘B’ service. I continued my association with a similar Kannada Sangha when I moved to Calcutta in September 1983 and associated with an active group out there. However, the Calcutta unit wasn’t as active or progressive as the Bombay Sangha and my visits to these places dwindled with time. So were my skills at playing tabla. Without practice and encouragement any art however well learnt can eventually fade into oblivion.
To a small but limited extent, it was rekindled and revived when I was asked to accompany a large group of vocalists during Rang Tarang after joining HTMT. I was encouraged when our friends from US came on their annual visit and we had cobbled a team to sing a few popular group songs in an in-house entertainment program. Like in the college I discovered that having some additional skills made a person stand apart from the masses however small or big, whether a teaching institution or an organization. While the urge was always strong to learn an additional instrument, I had not conjured enough courage to search for a teacher or decided on an instrument to dabble in this fine art. During a casual conversation with Madhu, I mentioned to him that if I were to get an opportunity to learn play the violin, I would make a serious attempt, however late in life. Madhu, who is always the adventurous kind and with an ever willing attitude to learn and master new subjects responded saying he would come back to me in case he found a good teacher closer home. He did come back a couple of months later and excitedly told me that he had found a very good teacher; someone who had taught for a long time, first in Chennai and then in Singapore before deciding to make Bangalore her home. On 25th November 2009, Madhu introduced me to his teacher Ms. Venkatalashmi, who is an accomplished violinist with a distinguished career as an artist and now a teacher.
I am sure she was skeptical when I met her for the first time, whether I would be willing to commit the time on a regular basis to learn the instrument. Violin is by far the most difficult instrument to play as there are no frets to stop the string. One has to intuitively feel the way with the left hand to arrive at the correct position to play the note through practice and ear training. Combined with the bow movement which runs perpendicular to the movement of fingers on the finger board, it takes a while for the brain to figure out what’s happening and what instructions to give each of the hands and fingers. I was all over the place when I started learning and am sure it must have been a pretty comical sight. Beginners sometimes rely on tapes placed on the fingerboard for finger placement, but usually abandon the tapes as they advance. Another commonly used marking technique uses the white marker, which wears off in a few weeks of regular practice. My violin teacher helped me by using a white ink marker and thankfully traces of it still remain on the finger board guiding me the relative positions to play each note. While a percussion instrument like the tabla can at best be an accompaniment, music from a stringed instrument like the violin can act as a close substitute to a vocalist. It can produce the same variations that any vocalist can do with their trained voice. While the South Indian violin is almost identical to the Western violin, it differs from it in tuning and playing position. It is traditionally played, sitting cross-legged, with the scroll placed on the player’s right ankle and the back of the violin resting on the player’s left shoulder. This position gives freedom to the left hand to play Indian Musical Gamaka or pulsating rhythm.
While all of these details sound nice on paper, practically holding the violin between the left shoulder and right ankle, and placing the bow close to the bridge to bring out the best quality of sound can be an enormous challenge. Pressing the bow very hard on the string can produce a very harsh cracking sound while gliding it softly on the string produces a very feeble sound. One needs to find the right balance of pressure and smooth glide. The bow is typically 75 cm in length and has a ribbon of white horsehair and needs a firm rubbing with rosin to make it grip the string intermittently causing them to vibrate. Another big challenge is to move the bow in a manner that it connects with only one string at a time. The dos and don’ts can indeed be mind blowing.
While I had bravely joined the class and also went ahead and bought myself a fairly expensive violin, I wasn’t sure whether I would be able to cope up with the daily grind and the lessons. I even went to the extent of asking my teacher whether I, at the age of 51 could still indulge in learning this fine art; not just holding the instrument in its correct position but also produce sounds of music. It was music to my ears when she grandly stated that she had a few accomplished violinists while at Singapore and these students had started to learn at the age of 70! It gave me the much needed courage and I am glad that I continued to practice under the teachers trained eyes and ears. It used to be an effort to play the seven swaras in the beginning and with a childlike enthusiasm I would ask my wife and boys to sit and hear me play the seven notes. By itself these seven notes does not constitute music, but the fact that such unending permutation and combination of swaras can create such enchanting music is unfathomable until one gets a chance to dabble in them. Ten months into my lessons, I am now able to play a few beginners’ bhajans with fewer mistakes and my music loving family, my wife is an accomplished vocalist in Hindustani style, my elder son is a keyboard player and my second son is a fine tabalchi, do not have second thoughts when I call them to listen while I play. To me, that is a big endorsement and I am grateful to them for their patience and endurance!
Cheers!!
Coming back to my first day at ‘School of Music’, I was led by my father to a tabalchi teacher Shri Moni Das from the Allahabad Gharana and that is where my suspense ended. I was destined to learn Tabla. What struck me as odd was the friendly disposition of my tabla teacher. A teacher is a teacher is a teacher, or so I thought. The mind associated a teacher as someone who would be a task master, giving tons of homework, have a very serious air around them and have no tolerance for erring students. Contrary to my expectations this teacher was, to put it simply, just the opposite. He would shower heaps of praise if I just positioned my hands and fingers correctly on the instrument. His demonstration of joy new no bounds if I struck the notes correctly. It was so enchanting that I just wanted to be repeatedly perfect in the way I held my hands and played the beat. It was that instant recognition that was so gratifying and on hindsight it probably made me want to practice and play more, just to impress. Music or the science of rhythm and beat was just incidental. What was even more exciting was the lack of home work. The next class would be a week later and this would most often be a repeat of what we had learnt earlier. We were allowed to learn at our own pace, something that we couldn’t dream of in our regular classroom. In those impressionable years, I have only fond memories of my attempts at learning to play a percussion instrument.
It continued this way for the next seven years from being a beginner; I appeared for both written and practical exams. What I lacked was the experience in accompanying vocalists. The ‘School of Music’ at Durgapur made us proficient in playing the instrument and they were also quite efficient in making us overcome our stage fright. We were all asked regularly to appear as big teams playing this instrument in unison in front of large to very large gatherings. But when it came to accompanying other musicians and vocalists, we drew a blank. I got accidentally initiated into this by my brother-in-law who is a self taught singer and a harmonium player. With a very keen sense and an ear for music, he would urge me to accompany whenever he played the harmonium or sang light music numbers (film songs of the yester years). This unexpected, yet, a necessary exposure came in extremely handy when I joined the engineering college at Trichy in Tamil Nadu. Students with additional skills especially if it was connected to playing an instrument got instant recognition. They would automatically get initiated into a motley set of budding artists and proudly call themselves as THE college band. It also had some side advantages as one would get ragged less and RE College Trichy was pretty well known when it came to creativity in ragging styles. Although shy by nature, I must admit that I got my fair share of brand recognition. On the graduation day speech, Major Srinivasan, our kind and lovable Training & Placement Officer; he chose to prefix my name with the word ‘Tabla’ and said Tabla Rama Rao believes that all individuals must work hard for themselves. I am not sure I understood the context when Major uttered these words, but the words were indeed absolutely prophetic! I couldn’t have found a better mission statement that would describe me, myself and I, in a more apt manner, without the prefix, of course.
Incidentally and for some odd reason I have never been known by my first name. My title Rao has got stuck with me amongst my friends and colleagues + clients as well. The only person who used to call me by my full name was my grandmother. My wife has settled for an abridged version and addresses me as Vish, her Wish I guess! When my engineering career took me to Mumbai in 1982, I developed a close circle of friends in Kannada Association at their club premises located in Matunga near the well known landmark, ‘King’s Circle’. I got together with a few like minded folks and we formed a troupe of sorts. We started with group songs with yours truly playing the tabla. We even experimented with a few skits but they invariably ended in a disaster. What we considered humor was disdainfully looked upon as a serious attempt at slapstick. However, Kannada folk music was a big hit and we stuck to it much like the way a drowning person would hold on to a twig in the ocean to stay afloat. With continuous practice, we even got a bit famous in the circle of light music lovers and were invited to record for a small fifteen minute program in All India Radio’s Bombay ‘B’ service. I continued my association with a similar Kannada Sangha when I moved to Calcutta in September 1983 and associated with an active group out there. However, the Calcutta unit wasn’t as active or progressive as the Bombay Sangha and my visits to these places dwindled with time. So were my skills at playing tabla. Without practice and encouragement any art however well learnt can eventually fade into oblivion.
To a small but limited extent, it was rekindled and revived when I was asked to accompany a large group of vocalists during Rang Tarang after joining HTMT. I was encouraged when our friends from US came on their annual visit and we had cobbled a team to sing a few popular group songs in an in-house entertainment program. Like in the college I discovered that having some additional skills made a person stand apart from the masses however small or big, whether a teaching institution or an organization. While the urge was always strong to learn an additional instrument, I had not conjured enough courage to search for a teacher or decided on an instrument to dabble in this fine art. During a casual conversation with Madhu, I mentioned to him that if I were to get an opportunity to learn play the violin, I would make a serious attempt, however late in life. Madhu, who is always the adventurous kind and with an ever willing attitude to learn and master new subjects responded saying he would come back to me in case he found a good teacher closer home. He did come back a couple of months later and excitedly told me that he had found a very good teacher; someone who had taught for a long time, first in Chennai and then in Singapore before deciding to make Bangalore her home. On 25th November 2009, Madhu introduced me to his teacher Ms. Venkatalashmi, who is an accomplished violinist with a distinguished career as an artist and now a teacher.
I am sure she was skeptical when I met her for the first time, whether I would be willing to commit the time on a regular basis to learn the instrument. Violin is by far the most difficult instrument to play as there are no frets to stop the string. One has to intuitively feel the way with the left hand to arrive at the correct position to play the note through practice and ear training. Combined with the bow movement which runs perpendicular to the movement of fingers on the finger board, it takes a while for the brain to figure out what’s happening and what instructions to give each of the hands and fingers. I was all over the place when I started learning and am sure it must have been a pretty comical sight. Beginners sometimes rely on tapes placed on the fingerboard for finger placement, but usually abandon the tapes as they advance. Another commonly used marking technique uses the white marker, which wears off in a few weeks of regular practice. My violin teacher helped me by using a white ink marker and thankfully traces of it still remain on the finger board guiding me the relative positions to play each note. While a percussion instrument like the tabla can at best be an accompaniment, music from a stringed instrument like the violin can act as a close substitute to a vocalist. It can produce the same variations that any vocalist can do with their trained voice. While the South Indian violin is almost identical to the Western violin, it differs from it in tuning and playing position. It is traditionally played, sitting cross-legged, with the scroll placed on the player’s right ankle and the back of the violin resting on the player’s left shoulder. This position gives freedom to the left hand to play Indian Musical Gamaka or pulsating rhythm.
While all of these details sound nice on paper, practically holding the violin between the left shoulder and right ankle, and placing the bow close to the bridge to bring out the best quality of sound can be an enormous challenge. Pressing the bow very hard on the string can produce a very harsh cracking sound while gliding it softly on the string produces a very feeble sound. One needs to find the right balance of pressure and smooth glide. The bow is typically 75 cm in length and has a ribbon of white horsehair and needs a firm rubbing with rosin to make it grip the string intermittently causing them to vibrate. Another big challenge is to move the bow in a manner that it connects with only one string at a time. The dos and don’ts can indeed be mind blowing.
While I had bravely joined the class and also went ahead and bought myself a fairly expensive violin, I wasn’t sure whether I would be able to cope up with the daily grind and the lessons. I even went to the extent of asking my teacher whether I, at the age of 51 could still indulge in learning this fine art; not just holding the instrument in its correct position but also produce sounds of music. It was music to my ears when she grandly stated that she had a few accomplished violinists while at Singapore and these students had started to learn at the age of 70! It gave me the much needed courage and I am glad that I continued to practice under the teachers trained eyes and ears. It used to be an effort to play the seven swaras in the beginning and with a childlike enthusiasm I would ask my wife and boys to sit and hear me play the seven notes. By itself these seven notes does not constitute music, but the fact that such unending permutation and combination of swaras can create such enchanting music is unfathomable until one gets a chance to dabble in them. Ten months into my lessons, I am now able to play a few beginners’ bhajans with fewer mistakes and my music loving family, my wife is an accomplished vocalist in Hindustani style, my elder son is a keyboard player and my second son is a fine tabalchi, do not have second thoughts when I call them to listen while I play. To me, that is a big endorsement and I am grateful to them for their patience and endurance!
Cheers!!
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