Can you Hear the Notes of my Heartstrings?

by Priya Mahadevan

[box]In a heartfelt piece, Priya Mahadevan grows nostalgic about the music of her growing-up years, and also talks about how music has pervaded her life today, particularly with respect to her three children who enjoy music too and have their own musical tastes. Read it for this is sure to make you smile.[/box]

I think I am not alone when I say that I cannot remember a single day when I haven’t heard at least a single note of music. Seriously!  As a child I remember waking up to the beeping of the Akashvani news on my dad’s old Grundig radio and after the news was over, my dad would switch over to the Carnatic music singer du jour and that was how my day began. With my mom, we curled up with the transistor on summer afternoons listening to Vividh Bharati’s old English and Hindi songs. The Srilankan (Yazhpanam) radio station was the best – they were clear and they also played a lot of our favourite music. On the many days of festivities that India boasts of, the early morning blaring of religious music, L R Eshwari’s ‘Mariamma, yengal Mariamma’ or Seergazhi Govindarajan’s soulful rendition of ‘MarudaMalai Mamaniye Murugaiya’ were positively annoying – positive because it reminded us that it was a holiday from school, and annoying because it disturbed us on the one day we could actually sleep in!

My dad himself was a Carnatic music singer and sang at the AIR – although the songs were familiar from hearing him sing often, that genre of music was not “appealing” at that time of ignorance.

Wednesday evenings were spent crowded around our Dyanora TV waiting for ‘Chitrahar’, the Hindi music show, praying to not see white rain or have power cuts during that measly half hour of our favourite TV show. On Thursdays – if my memory serves me right  – we watched the highly anticipated ‘Oliyum Oliyum’, the music show that gave us the first peek into new songs from upcoming or just released Tamil movies. And let me not forget to mention the two mega Sunday radio shows, of ‘Thiraiganam’ and ‘Neengal Ketavai’!

I remember we were one of the first in our neighbourhood to acquire a colour TV and before we knew it we had a massive gathering of unknown people, neighbours and household help in our verandah, eyes peering through the grills on the window of the living room where the TV was.  Many of them just let themselves in to our home and snuck out before the big lights were turned back on. But most of the shows on radio and TV almost always centered on music. My sister went abroad and brought on her first visit back home a tape recorder with many Billboard hits and American Top 40 songs on tapes that got worn out from being played. I was graduating into the new age pop music world. I was 16 when I got my first Walkman – a rather large and heavy device that I was so attached to that I slept with it, walked around with it and studied with it, much to the chagrin of my parents and siblings. But anyone who has passed teenage knows how wrapped up one can get with music and lyrics that we take so much to heart, as if each word is being sung for us personally!

Flash forward here with me today, 20 odd years later, to my life in the USA. There is no noise to be heard except the whirring of the AC or the fridge, unless you leave your windows open to hear the sounds of traffic and nature. I am married with children and music has come to mean so much more to me than ever before.

I stir at a feather-light kiss that my 16-year old son plants on my forehead. He’s woken me up thus since he was about seven or eight years old – I am happy about the kiss, a half smile forming on my dry lips, but a bit grumpy that it’s another morning already and time to wake up and get the day going. I hear the fridge door open and the rustle of the bread bag. Footsteps head towards the toaster and I hear its spring pressed down. My ears follow the footsteps to the piano room and momentarily, the minute waltz streams through the house. I smile fully now. Meet my son, the piano maestro. It was not so long ago that I took him to his first lesson with his music teacher at school. She was strict without being mean, but laid a good foundation by teaching him sight-reading of notes. It is a long course to take in piano when you compare it to the Suzuki method of teaching that is based on rote memory. I still recall the shy young seven-year-old second grader and his large black eyes as he waited for his turn to do his first piano recital. I was a bundle of nerves for him. But he went to his seat and played without missing a note … I was SO proud, beaming from ear to ear at how confident and at ease he was with this big percussion instrument.

Now, nine years since that first recital, I am still mesmerized by his piano playing. The piano keys wait in anticipation of his fingers’ caress. The music lilts into my room and I open my eyes much happier with the day. The music lasts for a minute or two exactly. He has timed it to coincide with the popping of the toast from the toaster. He is back at the dining table slathering peanut butter on to his toast, sprinkling some spicy idli powder over it, a patented combo in our home. He is now flipping through The Economist as I hear his father join him in the kitchen. I hear the water kettle being switched on and my stomach gurgles happily – soon my husband will be bringing me a steaming cup of coffee, the ultimate “get up, now” message.  How I will miss this routine when my son goes off to college next year – tears  well up in my eyes as I think about that eventuality, exciting in many ways for him and me, but saddening in that life as I know it with my three children will never quite be the same. But the piano will be here for whenever he visits home and will sound even sweeter.

My daughter is upstairs, slowly stirring. The bathroom door shuts and soon I hear her burst into a song – she is my singer. She knows all the lyrics to all the ‘in’ songs, just like I did when I was her age, and has recently taken to singing jazzy, blues-y songs from the 50s and 60s. She does not miss a beat or a note. Her voice has learnt to do all kinds of cool things like vibrato.

When she was a wee little infant of eight months, her ears would prick up to the tune of the mobile phone. It used to play “It’s a small world after all.” I hadn’t met a more enthusiastic human until she came into my life. She loved learning and just the word ‘school’ would bring a huge smile to her face. She was eager to join school and every time I dropped my son off at pre-school she would want to linger, join in their circle time when they sang songs and danced along.

In the blink of an eye, she has become a teenager, as musical as her brother, auditioning for musicals and playing the violin and piano. She amazes me with her talent to pick up any song or music and play it on the piano, just like that.  Her voice carries down the stairs to the family room as she croons in the bath anything ranging from Bhajans to Jason Mraz to Sinatra to soul and jazz singers from the 40s whose names she and her dad alone know. But I enjoy it and revel in it, breathing a sigh of happiness that these tunes will fill my home and heart for another three years before she takes wings and flies away to college.  My heart would lose another note.

That would leave me with my toddler who was born with Broadway in her blood. At three years of age, she has heard pop, country, funk, folk, jazz and blues, some clean rap too on Sesame Street –at her teeny tiny age, she has been exposed to all of it thanks to her older siblings. And she has been exposed to Sufi, Carnatic, north Indian classical, Bhajans, Bollywood songs, Ghazals and every other kind of Indian music. Beethoven, Bach, Mozart and Vivaldi for kids? Yes she has heard those too!  She is a sponge, eagerly soaking up languages and music, so much so that her head is abuzz with notes and tunes. She is bursting with tunes and has even memorized the interval music that comes in between songs and classical pieces. I remember our recent visit to India when she was so fascinated by the Bollywood tunes that played as taxis backed up – wonder why this wonderful idea has not occurred to the Americans yet – there would be fewer accidents, wouldn’t you say?

She was late coming into my life, but happy she will be there for a lot longer than her siblings. She will fill up some of the musical void that my older two would leave when they go off to pursue their college degrees.

Just like I did when I left my parents’ home to embrace my future.

Now I catch a few American Idol episodes in place of Chitrahar (since I don’t subscribe nor have the time to watch the Indian shows);  a multitude of XM stations on car stereo in place of the little portable transistor, and the portable device called the iPhone/ipod, an outstanding invention to store all the wonderful songs of my childhood and those from my present life. Change is inevitable. But my life is still a sweet song and I enjoy hearing every note of it.

Priya Mahadevan is a writer and food blogger with a background in Journalism. She was a political and feature correspondent for a prominent Indian newspaper in the 90s before moving to the U.S. She lives in Virginia with her husband and 3 beautiful children.  She now dabbles in poetry writing, travelogues and is currently working on a series of children’s picture books. You can find her world of vegetarian recipes athttp://priyasnowserving.blogspot.com.  

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