THE IMPACTS OF MY SINGING CRAZE – SHADES OF THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE SAD

Although I was a day scholar at college, I frequented the hostel at least two days in a week. Settling in a corner of my friend Manokaran’s room, I would start singing. Jayaram, who also sang, would join me sometimes. Hostel mates would slowly come in and in about thirty minutes, there would be a good crowd listening and calling out for more songs. After each such session, when I travelled back home, I just could not think of anything else other than songs. I consider such wonderful moments with friends to be very precious. Even today, when there are small unions with friends, the same singing happens, but still, those times at college remain as beautiful patches.

I had a cousin sister with whom I had the opportunity to discuss many Malayalam songs. She was blessed with a great voice and there were songs that I always wanted her to sing again and again. She also would very keenly listen to the songs I sang. There were many moments we spent, singing and discussing the finer aspects of the songs. In 1993, in her twenties, she left for her heavenly abode after a battle with aplastic anaemia. In a forest, where lots of birds sing, even the absence of one, makes a difference. Her songs still remain in the song space that surrounds me.

My marriage was in 1993 and my wife never knew about this craze that I had. Whenever we went out together, I always had a song running on me, either humming or singing. My wife often nudged me to draw my attention to people who were watching me. She found this to be very embarrassing and calls me crazy. I have still not got out of this habit as yet.

On an afternoon in the hot month of May, 1996, my colleague, who is my good friend and I, stepped out for lunch and were walking through the shop floor. This was while I was with my first employer. I never knew that he had actually come out after a hot board room discussion. We moved towards the company canteen silently and I was humming a favourite song that was on my mind, a little louder. I knew that I could hum it even louder as my song would never be heard by anyone 15 feet away due to the din of the machines around. I sang a little louder. A third person joined us while we were on the way. He was part of my colleague's team and on seeing him, my colleague started off with the same topic that had been discussed in the board room. I was still humming and singing a bit loudly. Seeing my casual demeanour while such a serious topic was being discussed by him, he suddenly yelled a question "Why can't you keep quiet?” at me. It really rattled me. I should have been careful I thought. He immediately apologized for what he did, but I too felt I should have desisted from such behaviour that time.

In 2000, my first employer sent me for a management training programme at Lonavala. This was for a week’s duration. There were participants from several corners of India, belonging to the same company. One person named Kumar, with whom I was teamed up for working sessions and presentations treated me with sheer disdain, right from day one. It really put me off and also hurt me so much, that I could not focus on the sessions that were running. I really did not know why he was doing that either. On the last day, there was an open session around evening time, where the participants could entertain the gathering. I was also one of the few who sang a few songs in Hindi and Malayalam. Kumar came to me and was effusive in his praise for my singing. Thereafter, the way he talked to me and treated me was so different. That evening, many other participants called me to their places in the hotel, where they were meeting as small groups and made me sing.

In the year 2003, I joined my second employer at Kolkata. My wife and daughter had not moved with me as she was into an established job at Chennai and my daughter was into school. So I was shuttling between Kolkata and Chennai once in three or four months. The Howrah mail took a long time and so the Coromandel Express was what I always preferred to for coming down to Chennai. The return was by flight, as that way crunched down on the sad period of thinking while leaving home. I had a good Walkman with me and I had just caught up with Salilda's Bengali film songs. On one such trips to Chennai, I was on the middle berth and with my earphones on me, I was singing along while the song was running. I never knew that my singing was that loud. When we touched early evening and I had climbed down from my berth to sit down for a while, a Bengali lady who was travelling with her little son complimented me for the singing. She also gave me a Chocolate pie that they were having then and told me to always keep singing.

Kolkata gave me a new high in singing. There was a corporate Anthakshari competition, for which I also had mailed in my nomination. I still don’t know Hindi although I keep singing a lot of Hindi numbers. On the night before the competition, my friend and roommate Ankur, spent his valuable time, to explain the meaning of the songs that I had selected for singing. I had written down the script in English. In the first round which was an individual round, I sang three Hindi songs and I got lots of appreciation from the judges for my voice and singing. And then, they started talking to me in Hindi on something else they wanted me to sing along with another colleague. I did not know how to respond. The colleagues with whom I went were also new to me and they also did not know why I was displaying an embarrassed silence when the judges were asking me. I did not want to show any sign of my ignorance of Hindi as I thought that it would go in as a negative point. Nevertheless in the team round, we as a team could not qualify and move further. But, that was the first time, an external judge was complimenting my singing and it gave me real confidence. The very next week, I was on a stage at Kolkata and I sang a Hindi number.

The singing craze still continues even when age is going up in numbers. Many times I wonder if it’s time to keep quiet. But frankly, am not able to.

I BELIEVE IN MY MAD PURSUITS

Last Sunday, me and my family, were driving back from church, after the release of "Yeldho", the CD containing songs sung over the last 20 years plus by our church choir, the Celestial Voices. Several thoughts on this drifted through my mind and what dominated more were those about the singing madness that still persists within me.  We had slogged through several weeks of practice sessions and recording sessions at the studios, that had run into late hours in the night to get this done. And now, it was a great feeling to see it getting released. Listening to the song from the CD with all the music and harmony is one thing. But when I was sitting under a tree shade for practice in our church premises, along with the bass singers of which am a part, I could hear the plain raw melody of the supranos who were practicing inside the church. Their song slowly and softly spread all around the church, as though going up the church steeple, when the group hit the high notes. There was no music accompaniment, but still, that was a unique feel.

These days if I love a song, I keep humming or singing that, right through the day, especially on weekends. My family often would ask me whether I had got hooked on to it so much that I cannot sing something else. My father in particular, would sometimes tells me, that I am old and that people around are going to think why I am singing all intense romantic songs describing women and their features:) Now this clearly meant that all of them were yet to see a real worth in those singing attempts. Of course, they would love to hear Christian songs being sung during prayer time, but they would not believe that anything  beyond it, was worth trying now.

In the early eighties, I was approaching high school and that is when I got too passionate about songs and started singing them, sometimes right through the day. My father seeing me in this state would ask me whether my focus was in the right direction. But I was clearly mad about singing and I think he was very circumspect about acknowledging it, lest I lose focus on my academic pursuits. But singing in me, never died and I often went full blow when my father was not there at home. And in case he was there, I would get into the singing mode, while in the restroom.

But as we all know, madness and passions stay forever at least in some dormant form, how much ever these are ignored by the world around. And what lay dormant for about four to five years from then, started slowly but diffidently showing its face while I was into college. For me to realize that I was good at anything and to be confident about it, I had to always look up to my father to acknowledge. And so, if he had not acknowledged my calibre in an area, to me it was like I was really wanting in something in those areas. So, this meant that I was always a person who wanted to sing, but who was at the same time, not free and confident on stage to sing. My college mates had to keep pushing me to sing and my first stage performance was a classic royal fiasco, where I stood breathless on stage with the song all stalled. But still, my friends found me good and took me along wherever they had a get together and so I had a chance to belt out Hindi, Malayalam and Tamil songs in these small encounters. And this continued even after I got into organizations for work and is happening even now. I have sung for small groups and on stages,in these places, all without music accompaniment. Now, this for me is like being in a radio mode, to sing when friends demand. We could also term this as Music as a Service, if we align it with the latest trends in Cloud Computing:) It's only that instead of paying me money, they very liberally praise me. But then, this never fetches one an identity.

In the late eighties, while I was yet in the last year in college, mp3 players, cd players and mobile phones were still technological marvels yet to sweep India, though am not sure where else in our world they had taken off. The radio was still a big thing. My journey to college was through the public road transport and I would get to hear film songs being played at shops and marriage halls while travelling. I must confess that many times on my journey back to home, I have left the company of my friends in the bus and got down, hearing melodious songs being played at these places. Such was the madness in me and am sure I would have driven my father into a rage if he had got to know this. There have been several instances, when my wife and daughter have nudged me, because I was loudly humming or singing some song that I was mad about, in public.

It was just the day before that I had spotted an article on the Hollywood stunt director Lee Whittaker. He was the brain behind the stunts that we got to see in films like Viswaroopam, Linga and Bahubali. He grew up on a farm near a lake in Kentucky and was always jumping off the barn, riding horses and motorcycles, driving boats and swinging across creeks on a vine. He was wild and adventurous. No one back home believed he was doing action, because in his small town, Hollywood was never a real entity. Well, when madness takes a direction and brings in an identity or a monetary angle to it, that's when acceptability sets in. And until then, every person with several items of madness of this type that he or she pursues, will be looked upon as truly mad or crazy beings. It is ironical that until we build an identity or strike a monetary return, the many things that we pursue with our heart and soul into it, will remain many times as pieces of madness on the outside.

These days, an identity in solo singing comes when you penetrate into the last three or last two rounds of some reality singing show. Most of them prefer a Carnatic base. Otherwise it is the pure Carnatic singing road that is there which is a much tougher turf. But for Christian folks, carol singing and choir singing are great opportunities, though these belong to a different genre. Once we are able to fit into a group's harmony, we are in. For me, this has given me an identity. I began singing for carols when I was just 8 years old. The expectations in carol singing are not that demanding. But choir singing demands more accuracy and therefore more focus. For me, choir singing remains to be a very humbling experience because, whenever I think that am a great singer and that my voice should be heard more, the choir reminds me that I have to listen to the others and sing in harmony. That's because choir singing is not about one person singing but it is about a huge group striking a super level harmony.

Looking back, I believe, that it is important to believe in these pieces of passion or madness that each of us have in different forms and to slowly breed them, even if the whole world around thinks otherwise. After seeing the CD released and listening to the songs, my family sees value in my pursuits. But then, to polish my singing, I had to hold on to my restroom singing for decades. We never know when our pursuits will gather force and give us an identity or monetary returns. There is no doubt that when life drives us to mad corners, with its several vague twists and turns, these pursuits of madness, will come in handy and save us from really going mad.

THE MADRAS ORHODOX CHOIR -PARTS HARMONY

It is a wonderful feeling to realize slowly, the transformation that the Orthodox Church is going through in music and it is very satisfying to be a part of that metamorphosis.

It is great to see the the first of the many outputs come through after a lot of hard work. The bass group had to go through a real grind with Fr.John Samuel everytime he demanded perfection. I believe it was the same situation for the other voice groups too.