Oct 15, 2015 Culture, Ramblings and Musings
As a young teenager, I used to wake up to all the songs on this album, and this one always moved me deeply, both for the beautiful pentatonic scale (1, flat 2, 4, 5, flat 7, 1 – or, Do, flat Re, Fa, Sol, Flat Ti, Octave Do –for those who want to know) of Revathi Ragam and MS Subbulakshmi’s heart-moving singing.
Tears sting my eyes now, as I listen to this, and it’s impossible to tell why — I mean I hardly know anything about this song, nor do I understand the words (it’s in Telugu, not my language). What this song does for me is to recreate an entire way of life, along with the song itself. It’s ringed about with devotion and quiet contemplation. It’s redolent with the scent of sandalwood or champa, or amber incense sticks which my parents would light in front of the gods in the mornings on festival days.
It reminds me of when I was a two-braided student, ugly, earnest and geeky, worrying about the shape of my toes and fingers, and practically everything else about myself. It was hot, hot as an inferno down South where we lived, and the air shimmered with salty heat. Sweat and humidity were part of simply being alive there. And we were SO alive, so full of vivid and vibrant energy! My father was alive back then, my parents were happy, my brother was an adorably charming, beautiful little toddler, and my sister was at IIT, singing like an angel, and studying and making new friends. And life was simpler, and I longed to grow up and face the world and make my own decisions, and … here I am now.
It reminds me of Tamil cultural events happening in my neighborhood, of the singing teacher next door, out of whose open windows would come the sounds of students earnestly learning Carnatic music, and being mostly in tune. I’d sometimes go to the terrace, to play at being a schoolteacher, and talk at the top of my pre-teen voice to unseen students, while I waved a branch from the drumstick tree that drooped over the other side of the terrace.
It reminds me of my mother’s exquisite singing voice, as she sang along, while making Madras coffee (the best filter cafe au lait in the world), and our breakfast. My mother’s voice contained in it (and still does, even if she doesn’t sing much any more) worlds of longing, of devotion, of pain, of contentment, of love and sacrifice.
On a more gustatory level, this song reminds me of upma, and dosai and idlis, and tengai chutney, sambhar, and rasam, and kootu, and porutcha kozhambu, of chakkarai pongal and venn pongal, and gotsu, murukku and ten kozhal, and patchadi, and … and temple bells, and marigolds, and of starry-white clusters of blooming jasmine and other swoon-inducing flowers in our garden.
It reminds me of Sunday mornings, when I’d lie in bed and read Tennyson, or D.H. Lawrence, or Jung … for FUN! Or, when I’d read the Oxford English Dictionary — for FUN! Or wrote poetry — for FUN! Or, played the guitar — for … well, you know. (Yes, I had no life, I’m sure!)
And it reminds me of how music always, always speaks to me.
An entire culture and way of life, and I don’t have it here, in these benighted States! And the sad thing is, I don’t even try and seek it.
Because, I say to myself, I’ve created my own culture — with our own music (Indian and Western), our home-grown fresh food, our own cadences, our own lovely day-to-day routines. Because, I say to myself, I dislike following rituals, dislike tradition which forces me to do more work than is necessary (and yet, we celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas in a vegetarian fashion). Because, Indian culture is hard to follow in a foreign land without getting together with a bunch of traditional people, and that has its own baggage.
And yet … I want my daughter to have it all, too.
All mothers want their daughters to have the sum total of their life’s experiences without the pain, or the sweat, or the tears, or the doubts, or the poverty, or the fear of what tomorrow might bring, or the heartbreaks and losses.
Ah well! Someday (soon, I hope), I shall resolve this matter.
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Tags: A way of life, culture, festivals, Indian culture, M.S. Subbulakshmi, music is life, North Indian Classical Music, Revathi Ragam, tradition
Mar 15, 2015 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries
What I shared a minute ago on FB today:
Nostalgia of an Ex-Pat Indian
By Vijaya Sundaram
©March 15th, 2015
We Indian Ex-Pats (yes, ex-pats!) are a strange lot, and vary wildly from sub-group to sub-group.
What I do know about myself now, is this:
I may not follow most of the customs of my birth culture (mostly because of lack of time up until now — let’s see about next year — or perhaps, it was a lack of initiative or interest, since I was too absorbed in making music, or learning to be a teacher, and now, being a mom, and being in the day-to-day, here-and-now part of existence). I may not be religious in the least. I do not subscribe to any of the unthinking superstitions that governed previous generations.
And yet, and yet … there was certainty and comfort in their ways, the ways of the older generation. There was predictability and safety in patterns of existence, and ways of communicating.
What we are now engaged in doing, we Indian transplants, (or at least ex-pats like me) is the act of creating our own culture, grafting that which we can do onto that which we *do* do (no jokes here, please!), trying on this, and shrugging off that.
But these are what I miss:
I miss the smells of Diwali morning in Madras (Chennai), and in Pune — a mix of sweets and savories freshly made, of crackers going off in the mornings, of jasmine flowers and marigolds, of champa and sandalwood agarbattis, snaking past our noses into our clothes, our memories, our bones.
I miss the oil-baths with heated sesame oil, and shikai shampoo, which we had to endure, grumblingly at 4:30 a.m. on Diwali morning.
I miss the smell of Kancheepuram silk long-skirts and blouses, which were our parents’ gifts on Diwali morning.
I miss the sweetness of my mother and father blessing us, as we bent down to the ground in respect before them.
I miss the sweet ginger paste and juice especially made for that day by my mom, to help with digestion, after all the heavy sweets we would all eat.
I miss the casual ringing of the doorbell, which is standard in India, and the raucous entry of relatives or neighbors trooping in to wish us, and of our doing the same to them.
I miss Pongal, and Kanu, and Karthikai, and Ganesh Chaturti, and Krishna Jayanthi, and Dassera, and Saraswati Puja, and everything.
I miss the cries of vegetable-vendors and clothes-to-vessels peddlers (the batli-wallahs).
I miss the carts which would trundle through neighborhoods, where the man pushing the cart had a coal-filled heavy iron, which he’d use to press your clothes into creased perfection.
I miss the dogs on the street, causing chaos at any time of day or night.
Oh, and the pigs, the goats, the cattle, the crows.
I even miss the casual burning of rubber tyres by the poor on the sidewalks, to stay warm on cold Pune nights.
I miss the smell of mint rice, and methi parathas, of potatoes and peas curry and of aloo parathas, of thengai rice and lemon rice, of rasam chatham, of rotis and curries being made in neighbors’ flats or houses, and wafting past my senses, making hunger come on suddenly and fiercely, despite the fact that I might have just had a delicious lunch.
I miss the kindness of passersby, if you were in distress, and yes, people have been kind to me (don’t think that all of India is like how it is depicted in all this recent news about Delhi).
I miss it all.
And my heart aches with nostalgia.
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Tags: #Nostalgia, Ex-pat Indian, festivals, India, Missing home, Reminiscences