Circa 1991. There was a huge influx of my neighbourhood friends and my maternal cousins towards the mushrooming music hobby classes jutting up from here and there. My mother, too, wanted to engage me in a suitable hobby class after my drastic failure in growing interest in Kathak or other dance forms. The lady who taught me kathak for 1 month was indeed a very sincere teacher, but what is sincerity in front of an unwilling horse! The proverb says: You can take a horse to the water, but cannot make him drink. So, I was that unwilling horse.
Maa, in one of her regular visits to Kolkata (then Calcutta), bought an harmonium and brought that straight to Durgapur. She had the notion that I had a beautiful voice (that notion was limited to her and my music teacher only, I feel) and I must start taking music lessons. Buying a harmonium during those years was not a matter of joke. She diligently saved her hard earned money for this. So, hence started my music lessons.
I used to go to my music teacher's house on Thursdays. She started teaching me the basic 'Sargams', then Hindustani or North Indian gharana of classical ragas. The first Raga which I learnt was "Yaman" or "Iman" as called in Bengali. I loved the chota khayal which started with "Piya ke nazariya........" I won't lie to you all. I tried to learn very sincerely and obediently whatever she taught. Till here, it was pretty fine going and smooth. But things took a different turn when the colleagues of my parents visited occasionally to our house and asked me to sing. They hoped that their words of appreciation would encourage me. But, as I told you, I was and am a different fellow altogether. I could not tell them that I won't sing in front of them, but to stop them asking me, I devised a new plan. I willingly drank cold water or get drenched in rain (the activities which were a strict no-no for me as I suffered from Sinusitis), so that I can catch cold and not sing.
My teacher advised me to do daily "Riyaz" or practice so that my voice modulation improves with time. Now, that is very obvious for a student of hardcore classical music as you have to do aalaps half the time you sing. But again, I had a defiant trait of not heeding to anybody's advise. I stopped doing "Riyaz". The only day and time I would start playing the harmonium and sing was the Thursday afternoon before going to the music class. Actually, this defiance came from the fact that I did not have the quality of perseverance. I don't like practicing same thing again and again till I get it correct. Inspite of all these, when I was about to grow the interest back in learning music, I suffered a major setback from the Tabla classes. The person who played the Tabla, when I sang, was a very strict person. A wrong turn and pick up in the rhythm, and he would start bashing. Even my parents never scolded me in the way he did. In one of the occasions, when I was studying in class 10 (1999-2000), he started scolding me for a silly yet a major mistake in a "Tritaal" based song. He demanded an explanation about why I didn't practice the song properly and strongly stated that I had a bleak future in academics. This statement made me seethe with anger. I, however, never answered him back. My outside appearance was quite cool when I left my music teacher's house and came back home. I silently cried, suffered this humiliation and took the pledge of not going to music classes again. I shunned the harmonium too and was on the verge of throwing or locking away the music note books. My parents and my teacher literally pleaded me to start learning again. They claimed that I was wasting my voice. But, I did not pay heed to them.
Presently, I started to realize what I have lost. I want to sing again, but my voice wouldn't support me. I had tortured my voice a lot with repeated shoutings demanded by my teaching profession. I caught hypothyroidism due to life's stresses which have totally destroyed the tonal quality of my voice. My harmonium is still locked in our Durgapur house with the music note books and notation books bearing a sole testimony to my vocal music lessons. And, my ever encouraging parents, have travelled to their new abode probably somewhere upwards. But, still, I again want to sing. I want to sing with the badly damaged hoarse voice. I want to sing with the voice possessing a funny vocal range. My teacher taught me some beautifully melodious songs but I was quite obstinate to not realise what I was losing when there was still time to salvage the tonal quality of my voice. She tried hard yet she failed to instill in me the love for music. It was not her failure, but the failure was mine, solely. I visit her occasionally. We share a strong bond, yet, I feel that I would never have the guts to own up my mistakes. I have already paid for my mistakes with the part of my struggling life where there were no songs I could sing to ease out my journey through the struggles.
Maa, in one of her regular visits to Kolkata (then Calcutta), bought an harmonium and brought that straight to Durgapur. She had the notion that I had a beautiful voice (that notion was limited to her and my music teacher only, I feel) and I must start taking music lessons. Buying a harmonium during those years was not a matter of joke. She diligently saved her hard earned money for this. So, hence started my music lessons.
I used to go to my music teacher's house on Thursdays. She started teaching me the basic 'Sargams', then Hindustani or North Indian gharana of classical ragas. The first Raga which I learnt was "Yaman" or "Iman" as called in Bengali. I loved the chota khayal which started with "Piya ke nazariya........" I won't lie to you all. I tried to learn very sincerely and obediently whatever she taught. Till here, it was pretty fine going and smooth. But things took a different turn when the colleagues of my parents visited occasionally to our house and asked me to sing. They hoped that their words of appreciation would encourage me. But, as I told you, I was and am a different fellow altogether. I could not tell them that I won't sing in front of them, but to stop them asking me, I devised a new plan. I willingly drank cold water or get drenched in rain (the activities which were a strict no-no for me as I suffered from Sinusitis), so that I can catch cold and not sing.
My teacher advised me to do daily "Riyaz" or practice so that my voice modulation improves with time. Now, that is very obvious for a student of hardcore classical music as you have to do aalaps half the time you sing. But again, I had a defiant trait of not heeding to anybody's advise. I stopped doing "Riyaz". The only day and time I would start playing the harmonium and sing was the Thursday afternoon before going to the music class. Actually, this defiance came from the fact that I did not have the quality of perseverance. I don't like practicing same thing again and again till I get it correct. Inspite of all these, when I was about to grow the interest back in learning music, I suffered a major setback from the Tabla classes. The person who played the Tabla, when I sang, was a very strict person. A wrong turn and pick up in the rhythm, and he would start bashing. Even my parents never scolded me in the way he did. In one of the occasions, when I was studying in class 10 (1999-2000), he started scolding me for a silly yet a major mistake in a "Tritaal" based song. He demanded an explanation about why I didn't practice the song properly and strongly stated that I had a bleak future in academics. This statement made me seethe with anger. I, however, never answered him back. My outside appearance was quite cool when I left my music teacher's house and came back home. I silently cried, suffered this humiliation and took the pledge of not going to music classes again. I shunned the harmonium too and was on the verge of throwing or locking away the music note books. My parents and my teacher literally pleaded me to start learning again. They claimed that I was wasting my voice. But, I did not pay heed to them.
Presently, I started to realize what I have lost. I want to sing again, but my voice wouldn't support me. I had tortured my voice a lot with repeated shoutings demanded by my teaching profession. I caught hypothyroidism due to life's stresses which have totally destroyed the tonal quality of my voice. My harmonium is still locked in our Durgapur house with the music note books and notation books bearing a sole testimony to my vocal music lessons. And, my ever encouraging parents, have travelled to their new abode probably somewhere upwards. But, still, I again want to sing. I want to sing with the badly damaged hoarse voice. I want to sing with the voice possessing a funny vocal range. My teacher taught me some beautifully melodious songs but I was quite obstinate to not realise what I was losing when there was still time to salvage the tonal quality of my voice. She tried hard yet she failed to instill in me the love for music. It was not her failure, but the failure was mine, solely. I visit her occasionally. We share a strong bond, yet, I feel that I would never have the guts to own up my mistakes. I have already paid for my mistakes with the part of my struggling life where there were no songs I could sing to ease out my journey through the struggles.
