by Vani Viswanathan
Sundari’s eyes glistened with tears as she held her newborn. A girl, just like she’d wanted. She’d gone through a hellish pregnancy – what with her being 36, all her years until now focused on establishing herself as a classical singer in Chennai. The baby was squirming, her skin all patchy and wrinkled, eyes tightly shut. When Sundari took the baby to her breast, the baby cooed. “Oh, my little singer!” laughed Sundari. Out of the blue, she said “Aaroha”. Rising, rising to a crescendo. She repeated the word thrice in the baby’s ear, christening her there and then, in a sterile hospital room with white walls and dark green curtains.
Sundari’s music prospered after Aaroha’s arrival in her world. It was as if the baby had brought out all her latent joy that now rose beautifully through her abdomen and throat into melodious notes. Her fan following increased exponentially, and she was performing in Delhi and soon in other countries. When Cleveland invited her for its Thyagaraja Aaradhanai, Sundari decided it was time for little Aaroha to join the world. An adorable toddler in paavadai chattai and a fountain kudumi won the hearts of the audience in attendance and thousands on Facebook. Relatives started conjecturing on how the little one’s talent would compare to her mother’s.
So when Aaroha was three, on the auspicious Vijayadasami day, Sundari brought out her tambura and made Aaroha sit in front of her. Muttering a prayer for Vinayaka, the remover of obstacles and then Saraswathi, the goddess of art and learning, she tuned the tambura and began.
“Sa”
Anjarai kattai. G Sharp. A scale easy for a toddler to pick up.
Aaroha, having heard her mother do this everyday, knew she was to repeat it.
“Sa”, she repeated.
Sundari paused. Aaroha was nowhere close to the scale.
Again, playing the tambura at the note, Sundari sang “Sa.”
Aaroha tried again, this time at a pitch that made Sundari squirm with discomfort. This girl was octaves away!
“Kanna,” Sundari said. “Pay close attention to how I’m singing it. Saaaaaa.”
Aaroha’s next attempt made Sundari put her tambura away in frustration. Could the child not realise the difference? Sundari reflected on her past. She remembered how as a child she would sing with nonchalance as her sister was being taught by their grandmother. She remembered how the following Vijayadasami, her grandmother sat her down, while she fidgeted away to glory, and taught her the sarali varisai in Mayamalavagowla raaga. The seven basic notes, sung to initiate a child into music.
Sundari had breezed through it, all the while pulling at the tail of her frock. She’d been three, just like Aaroha now. One couldn’t say the child was too young – her mother had started at that age too.
But talent comes in all shapes and ages, advised her calm guru. Why shouldn’t Sundari give it a rest now and try again in a few months? In the meantime, perhaps the child could be made to listen to more music, accompany her mother on classes and performances – generally get into the musical way of life?
So over the next year, Aaroha found music all around. She woke up to kutcheri recordings, mostly to a particularly long aalapanai and a screechy violin. There was Carnatic music in the car on her way to and from school. She accompanied her mother to her practice sessions and played outside in the long corridor of the guru’s house. By her fifth year, she’d become quite the expert in playing with basketballs, volley balls and tennis balls. She had also become quite addicted to having music around her, and increasingly began to connect songs that sounded similar because they were of the same raaga.
On Vijayadasami, two years after her first attempt, Sundari got Aaroha to sit with her again. Just a few minutes earlier, Aaroha had made a delightful observation comparing two sets of raagas that sounded so similar except for two or three missing notes.
Sundari knew it was time.
“Sa”
“Sa,” Aaroha repeated.
She’d got it right! Sundari’s joy knew no bounds.
“Pa,” she sang, encouragingly.
“Pa”
Almost, but not quite.
“Sa,” the higher note.
“Sa”
The poor child couldn’t reach that high note and grasped it at a slightly lower scale. That’s alright, the voice is still developing, thought Sundari.
After a decently encouraging “Sa Pa Sa Pa Sa,” the inaugural five notes for any learning session, Sundari clung on to hope and began the Mayamalavagowla raaga sarali varisai.
“Sa”
“Sa”
“Ri”
“Ri” didn’t make it.
“Ga” was disastrous.
By the time Aaroha got to “Ma”, Sundari put the tambura away.
That night, Sundari pondered on why her daughter couldn’t catch the nuances of a simple sarali varisai. Sundari was at the peak of her career at this point, and internet pundits had begun speculating on the latent talent her daughter would likely have. She knew that the gift of song was a gift from God; she knew that it was ridiculous to expect the child to naturally have this talent. She was educated, and she loved her daughter no matter what talents she had. But somewhere, not so deep down, Sundari felt cheated that her daughter, her daughter, couldn’t sing.
And so it happened, that for three Vijayadasamis after that, Sundari would try, hopefully, to get Aaroha to sing. She was somewhat superstitious about beginnings and decided to wait till Vijayadasami each year, especially after the initial (disastrous) attempts.
But there were no two ways about it. The child was tone deaf. While her knowledge of music grew exponentially, she couldn’t, for the life of her, sing.
Finally, Sundari gave up. She could already see Aaroha get upset with her inability to sing like her mother. Sundari didn’t want the child to wilt under pressure to do something she couldn’t and lose interest in music. That she would never be able to live with.
And so Aaroha continued to play all kinds of sports and continued to sharpen her ear to music. By the time she was nine, her mother could quiz her on a range of theoretical aspects and be stunned by her always spot-on responses.
It was after one such session, while tossing and turning in bed, that it struck Sundari that she could nurture Aaroha’s theoretical knowledge of the art. She decided to sit with the child the next day as she planned out her next concert.
And so it happened that the next December season, Aaroha joined her mother on stage as a whiz-kid of Carnatic music, giving the audience stunning revelations about the songs her mother performed. A little introduction to the song, the quirks of the raaga (while practicing together, Sundari had to stop Aaroha from getting carried away and singing the notes herself) and after the song, a hark-back to discuss evocative notes, the subtle emotions and the haunting gamakams, the graceful turn of notes.
The night after one particularly spectacular performance with her daughter, that ended with roaring applause from the knowledgeable (and critical, she thought) Mylapore crowd, Sundari lay in bed calmly, not tossing and turning.
Her aarohanam, her crescendo, had happened, and it was led by her tone-deaf daughter.
