Unleash the violins

Sometime when I was young (really young, ~10 types), I threw a major tantrum during a Kanyakumari concert, clearly expressing my lack of interest in what was going on onstage. My parents refused to take this lying down. What better way to inculcate a liking for the violin than learning to play it? Soon, I had started to go for violin classes.

Despite this history, I seemed to have some decent talent for the instrument. Reached the varnam stage, the first varnam only though. I could also to some extent follow my teacher's alapanai in a few raagas. (the geetham ones like Mohanam, Malahari, etc). I even performed on stage at one of my dad's office functions. This was only Ra Ra Venu Gopala and one piece in Mohanam.

Four years, three teachers, but I still did not seem too interested. One reason was that whenever I changed teachers, I had to start off from scratch as the new teacher invariably had views contrary to what the previous teacher instructed. (classic case, Janta Varisai, whether to use one bow stroke for one swara or two bow strokes one for each swara) Conveniently acads also came to my rescue and my violin career seemed to have ended in class 9. In hindsight, "acads" was not too bad an excuse afterall.

Sometime in the recent past, the urge to pick up the violin again took birth in me. Thinking about it, I seem to have been inspired by junta whom I know. Bhattad (his attempt to learn the guitar), PS(who is learning the violin) and a family friend's son, Arvind ( who is also learning the violin, which I played on when I visited them sometime in the recent past) are the ones in question.

Some enquiring and I found out that there was near my house, this Indiranagar Sangeetha Sabha where violin, among others, was being taught. There were two violin teachers, one who came on a weekend and another Mr. Sivasubramanian, who taught on Mondays and Thursdays in the evenings. Weekend classes would mean the weekend activities would be constrained by them. I decided to join the weekday classes.

Today was my first class. I was rusty, especially the bow-ing. At the same time, thankfully, I did seem to have a decent feel for the shruti. And as usual, the third speed was hajaar fight. Especially the janta varisai. I have been asked to practice the Sarali varisai on my own and the sir started off with teaching the janta varisai. And its one bow stroke for two swaras.

After the class, I made a trip to CMH road and bought a violin, a Chinese-make for 3.3K. (surprisingly here, the Chinese violin was costlier than the Indian one) Nearly 10 years have passed since I last picked up the violin, but the standard book for Carnatic music has not changed. Its still the Ganamrutha Bodhini.

As opposed to the first attempt, the second attempt should be more successful as unlike the past, this time I myself am interested in learning to play the violin well. The first question that the teacher asked was if I would have enough time to practice, and I surely will have enough.

I can fiddle while my food is cooking.

Spam

This was an sms that I got from one, "Astrology", yesterday.

"Worship Skanda Mata today. Ask her for Moksha & be free from mental anxiety. Offer curd rice as naivedya. Call 55315 & find out mantras from Jyotish @ Rs9/min".

Brilliant.

Cricketing Dilettantes

Played cricket with some office junta on Saturday. Unlike the previous time, this time the game was played in a strictly "amateur"-ish (to distinguish from the derogatory "amateurish" ) spirit, red tennis ball and no extra fittings except the stumps in a public ground in Ulsoor where there were many other such games going on. This ground situation reminded me of a time in class 3 or 4 when along with some junta from my flat and from the nearby basti, we used to go and play at the ground opposite Shenoy Nursing Home in Secunderabad.

The best feature of the game was that the junta tried to make it as inclusive as possible. Stuff like if someone bowled, he would bat after the junta who did not bowl, irrespective of talent. 15 overs each side meant that there was enough time to accomplish this even with the matches being 11-a-side.

My team fielded first and I was sent to the square leg boundary. A one bounce catch was my fielding highlight. After a leftie who could not hit the ball on the off side came to bat, I was shifted to the leftie's mid wicket (right hander's extra cover). But soon the leftie got out and then the ball came towards me only once, but the mid off fielder ran and cut it off before I had the chance. This position was also ideally situated under a tree and gave sufficient respite from the searing heat. The opposing team ended up scoring 102 in 15 overs.

Our openers added around 15 runs when one of them got out and I was given the chance to show off my batting skills. Started off pretty ok, taking singles and twos off shots hit along the ground. The batsman at the other end was also doing something similar, and we were moving on pretty nicely at the required run rate of 7.

After running 10 runs or so in the sweltering heat (it was around 4 in the evening), I was totally tired. (well some of the blame has to be attributed to my fitness also) With 8 batsmen still to come, it was time to get after the bowling. But I hadn't bargained for the ineptitude of all the fielders. I got dropped 4 times, this just meant more and more running. And in this manner we reached 47 in 7 overs. Early in the 8th over, I swung at a ball wildly, missed and was bowled. At that time the opinion of everyone in my team was that I had gotten out at the right time, with enough runs left for the others to hit.

But what happened next was a collapse of Indian (or English) proportions. We lost 6 wickets for one run in the next two overs. The match was over. We did have a last wicket fightback. Got it down to 16 off the last over and the stud batsman (the Misbah) hit the first two balls of that over for boundaries raising all our hopes. But we were destined to be the losing team. The very next ball, he got out holing out into the deep, the only catch caught in the outfield throughout the afternoon.

We did try to play another match, but that had to be abandoned after one team had batted. Again I fielded and was the keeper standing in the middle of a game of footer. Overall a pretty enjoyable Saturday afternoon, and some exercise too.