Smart advantage

The iPad is how the boys learnt most of their Carnatic music to supplement their weekly lesson.

I love repeat on loop. It drives the mmmmim nuts. He has expressed a certain reservation that I overdo things. And varaveena 36 times in a morning can cause ennui even to the sophisticated ear.

I ignore the mmmim. our mornings are filled with non stop carnatic on the loop. Only one CD, by our guru smt seetha Rajan

I think you can hear some stuff here…

Www.rdio.com/x/QitSHY8/

A few months have passed and now the boys have gotten a clear idea of sharp ragas like mohanam, valachi, amritavarshini, sudha saveri and hindolam …. They can tell them apart and sing them in tune. And we are only a few months into music.

And for me, I can playback music that I recorded in my class. Hear the music when I drive. Sing along. Keep the Talam on a digital metronome, Listen to a tambura shruti, online.

These idevices give a clean leg up for the keen beginner with little or no talent. For sure.

I couldn’t have done it without apple. Thank you.

The month that flew

July whizzed away…
I wanted to tell you many things..

Of how I spend my mornings ironing out a gambira nattai and trying to get a norhythm mind to get the hang of a Talam that is clockwork.

Of how a 10 month no job drought for a relative finally ended. Uncertainty clawed at several loved ones, bared its fangs and hovered like a dementor. My patronus, I think it was a corporeal elephant, finally emerged this month.

I finished re-reading the last two potter books. Was Thrilling to dip back into it because I had Forgotten a good eighty per cent.
So it seemed like a new book!

I am grandma, twice over this month. My sons are preening that they are uncles. Their first cousins gave birth to boys. Can you smell the baby powder?

And I am so thankful that I don’t have to do any of that all over again. No episiotomy. No cracked nipples. No tears and wobbly bellies. No hair washes and hair that won’t dry. No crowds. No advice. Relieved to have crossed that bridge! How beautiful life in my thirties looks…

Of how my kalarippayattu classes turn an evening into sweat and focus. Strong looks like it is attainable. Not this month. But In the horizon. Definitely.After years, of fragile, overweight, clumsy, breathless and infinite tiredness… Strong is a powerful ally to have.

The mmmim missed firstborn’s ninth birthday to visit Mumbai on work. Turns out that Irony was smirking. His boss slept through most of the presentations that day.

I now am hostess to music classes that are held at my home, twice a week. Due to uncertain weather, the class moved from its perfect outdoor setting under a beautiful neem tree to my current residence. Now I am so minding my cushions and cobwebs. The teacher comes home too… The entire universe is conspiring so that sloppiness is me, mim, has to keep one room spotless. Am finding it quite as tough as a double episiotomy.

I have a nephew who has just finished class 12

And he is going through the stomach churn and the mixie of emotions and ambition.

I remember that I was at my worst in the two years that led upto the board examination. I had all the seeds of a writer, fictionally inclined, right brained, and volatile. The cruelty of the CBSE science paper is vicious, to my breed. I couldn’t do the three Rs. read retain and remember.

I would get distracted if the bell rang in the temple a km away, or the theme music for Junoon , the Tamil mega serial, played in the neighbours house, or if the auntie living upstairs yelled at her deaf mum to update her about the family gossip — even Sir cv Raman would be curious, no? Who am I?

My nephew wants to study medicine. It is going to cost a crore of rupees. His father is saying no. His mum is saying maybe homeopathy. The boy doesn’t want to be an engineer. Everyone is glum and overcast.

If I were brave enough to even speak to him, I would only say, what I didn’t know when I was 16…

Teresa of Avila said, “More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.”