First Major Appreciation For My Singing

My relationship with music as I said in my profile itself was from my early childhood. I was such a boy who used to capture the tune of any song within seconds of hearing that. My parents and all our acquaintances used to get really surprised to see this quality in me.

We were living quite close to where my grandparents,mother's parents, were living. Very often we go there. My grandpa, a musician himself was a very talented person having very good knowledge in carnatic music. In addition to being a good singer he also used to write songs in Tamil. He was a very respected person in the music circle. Many famous musicians from Madras(Chennai now) like M.D.Ramanathan(vocalist and music academician),GNB(vocalist),T.N.Krishnan(violinist) whenever they come to Calicut for recording in AIR used to come to his place and used to have discussions on music for hours,. I have seen many times they all having very heated arguments also...mostly on music related matters.

My grandpa used to make us, children - we four brothers and my cousins from Trichur whenever they come, listen to him singing for hours. I was not at all interested to listen to carnatic music in those days. My eldest brother Mani liked carnatic music , or at least pretended to be liking in front of grandpa and was his favourite amongst all of us. However as I was very scared of my grandpa as he was a very short tempered person and may punish if we, children, don't listen to what he says. But I would admit that he was too good in singing with great voice too. Always used to have the "vettila paakku" in his mouth. with full of the fluid of "vettila" in mouth he will keep humming with nose. I still remind my mother by imitating the way he used to do the 'khun khun khun' (humming with his mouth shut). But I was upset for his hatred for film music, a genre I am very fond of. I always thought that he was not being fair as when he forces us to like 'his' carnatic music why cant he appreciate 'our' film music?

One day when I was singing a hindi song.I was about 5-6 old years that time. I was in fact singing as if to myself while playing with something. I did not know that my grandpa was listening to me standing just behind me. I kept on singing the song and after sometime got up from there and was going to the attic room. Then my mom called me and asked

"Were you singing any song, sitting there"

I said "yes"

"Which one? " she asked.

I told her. " Why? Why are you asking all these questions?" I asked her.

"I dont know periappa (that's what we call grandpa) is calling you ...go and find out what he wants...".

I almost wet my trousers. At the same time I was getting rebellious too...So what if I sang a song ?, I thought. Doesn't he sing too? If this is the case I would never come here anymore.. I decided to tell mom my decision on whether I should come here any more or not after listening to whatever periappa had to say.

With great worry and fear I went to his room - a small dark room with an easy chair occupying most of the space it had, on which periappa always sat relaxingly. In a corner there is a big shelf with lots of books stacked on it - much more than it can actually have. On a centre-table near the easy chair was kept a Violin (Fiddle as periappa preferred to call it).

I entered the room almost shivering. Asked him if he wanted something. I was expecting at least a few outbursts from him. But to my surprise he was smiling at me. A really rare gesture from my periappa. I could not believe what I saw. I rubbed my eyes and started to look at him with more concentration ...yes he was indeed smiling. I too smiled at him with extreme happiness. I stood waiting for his further actions...

"Nanna padriye...."(you are indeed singing very well)

"mm" I could not say anything else..

"I liked it very much. You have sung with very good expressions. Sing that song fully here in front of me tomorrow"

I was soooo happy that I did not wait to hear anything more ...just ran away from there to tell mom what he said...I was damn sure mom would not believe what I say. She would think that I was cooking up a story.

That was my first major appreciation received for my song.

Well...enough for today..