Re-finding & Re-connecting - Of Nostalgia, A Quest and More...
The last couple of months have been nostalgic in many ways. We were forced to go back to a time when time would stand still and we would watch paint dry. Just like that. A time when summer vacation days meant finding ways to kill time from morning to evening. 2020 - Lockdown with the gift of technology as a saving grace. Among many other things, I decided to take up an unfinished task that had been pending for years or rather decades. I started my Carnatic Music lessons in a structured way when I was 10 in 1995. My first guru is Gnanam mami who used to live in Viswanathapuram Madurai. She is a gem of a teacher and a perfectionist in every sense of the word. My memories of paatu class in those years are very pleasant. My voice was supple (it hadn't broken then) and I consider those 5 to 6 years of learning music from mami my best learning years. I loved to learn from mami. I used to have classes every weekend - Saturday and Sunday. Initially, I used to take the public bus for tra