Gana ashramamalika
The terms ‘BC’ has taken a different meaning from our school days.. it’s not just ‘Before Christ’ but it is ‘Before Corona’. It is a thing of the distant past that .. when you had to look at the clock on the wall to hint that your guest should leave. Today, you just need to terminate the Zoom video call with a click, and then blame it on the internet. How many of us like the fact that the world can gaze upon you only in the way, you frame it in the corners of your video camera ?
Well, Corona has certainly done different things to different people. I always thought, we would do things on our list if only we found time. Initially, many would have thought, that they will benefit from this forced lockdown and they will be able to focus on their personal life. But I am confident that, there are men out there with really long hair not having dared to go out for a haircut fearing this Corona. In the beginning, there were sincere promises of sharing domestic chores but over time only I was left as the sole warrior handling everything. Anyway, I knew who had mopped the living room as they danced to Sunidhi Chauhan’s singing ‘ Mind blowing Mahia’, who vacuumed the tiniest corner in their bedroom, who had baked brownies, who had washed the dishes just as cheerful as Katrina Kaif did hers, because the Facebook & Instagram was flooded with million such posts. While I am usually active on FB, this lockdown there has been hardly any posts from me ...the reason being, I was REALLY washing, mopping, cooking and didn’t find time to post or even photograph these activities and I didn’t care if anyone was judging !
The reality in many homes was that there was always somebody, looking absolutely unwashed, lounging on the sofa opposite the television with a packet of potato chips perched precariously on their stomach, with crumbs all around, some Coke bottles rolling on the floor..... all this and more as they were making some life defining choices as to what to choose from Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar, Sony liv and mind boggling options to choose from while Tatasky became the new Doordarshan. Remember Doordarshan?
If people thought work from home is easy, their managers had different thoughts... they felt that the time you used to spend in commuting can be now better used to schedule meetings and start work early. Probably they installed some software on your laptop to check keyboard presses, now that they can’t casually peek over your shoulder.
In the beginning, I thought I would read all the books which I had impulsively bought (with the genuine intent of reading) and are lying covered with dust on my bookshelf, take a course in a foreign language, clean my overflowing cupboards, and revamp my kitchen, practise my music, study philosophy, learn the formidable Veda chanting, renew my forgotten painting, search for countless things I have been missing for decades, exercise & take care of my body & health (these are only a few things in the list) but ended up doing very little of everything !!!
Two things which somehow I managed to keep at were studying scriptures such as Adi Shankara’s Tattva Bodha and music .. I must say, that I am grateful music never left me. I feel that music & spirituality align with each other. Both are endless, meditative and nothing else can give you that joy like these do.
I want to state firmly that when I say spirituality, it is not to be confused with religion. People like the most eloquent T.M. Krishna can rest assured, that I am convinced that Sufi music is also a path to the divine as much as the other genres of music ... the paths are different but the destination is the same.
My choice was to first try & understand atleast a few of the scriptures which included work by the Buddhist Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh. I also tried understanding Hindu scriptures, simply because I want to respect and understand my religion, just like loving my family, my lineage, before I respect and love others. This is learning from my Buddhism exploration.
While at this, I had some humorous thoughts about the similarities in music and the 4 ashramas or stages of life, mentioned in Hinduism ....
First is Brahmacharya ... it is like Western Pop music, fast, chaotic, head banging, no need for any tune, no one should understand your words or you, very, very high level of energy. Basically, you shouldn’t follow any rules, better if you can break them, best of you can make your own rules, if you can do that repeatedly, then you are a trend setter and noticeably you will have a gang. And you are going nowhere yet everyone is following you ! My generation will remember wearing bell bottoms, boys growing side locks, swooning over John Travolta’s gyrations in ‘Saturday Night Fever’, listening to ABBA & Boney M and protesting against anything remotely sensible !
Next stage is Grihasta, which is like our own Carnatic Music. It will sound right only when it is measured and balanced with pakkavadhyams of career, family, money etc. They should all be in sync but even if one of them goes off key, the whole performance will suffer. It is serious, often tedious, very challenging and there is constant competition. It is a stage which follows the Darwin’s theory ‘survival of the fittest’ ! You can also get away with some thukkada aspects, but you will be identified & evaluated by only your main piece, which is a big responsibility. You need to constantly upgrade and innovate yourself. You need to deliver and strike a balance while catering to all concerned. Haven’t we all been there.....trying to please everyone, being careful about the future of all who matter, trying to multitask .... all along not deviating from the rules laid down by the predecessors and generally living life on roller skates !
Then comes Vanaprasta, which is like Hindustani Classical Music, this when life slows down and it is time to withdraw, you start singing on one note for a long time, with everyone waiting for you to go to the next note, and as you move to the next note, your co-vanaprast starts the earlier note. There is a lot of elongated drawls sometimes finding the interest level of the audience withering, occasionally even is lost. The more experienced you are the slower is your performance leaving the impatient younger audience looking forward to you moving on and giving space to the next performer !
The last stage is Sanyasa which is like Western classical Music, you know the time has come or is it that your time has gone? You don’t know when the music started, you don’t know how many instruments are suddenly pouncing on you, and just as you are warming up, there is sudden silence. You don’t understand what the hell is going on and you are not even in control, someone else is controlling the baton. Just as the divine conductor is controlling everything for us. Unless they tell you, you don’t even know when it started or when it has ended. This is the time to renounce everything and move on !
Sandhya Shankar belongs to a well respected business family in Chennai. She is a Life Skills & Corporate Trainer by profession. She is an avid reader and a natural writer, who has written several poems and articles. She even presented her poems as a reading at the British council. She has keen interest in all art forms and has explored many different forms of painting like stained glass and Tanjore being among them.
Music being her first passion, she had her formal training under Terakotti Chandrasekharaiah at Bangalore and later briefly under Mrs Champa Kumar. She is a regular visitor of concerts, theatre and other live performances. Her witty reviews have gained a loyal and interactive readership for their sound technical commentary and relevance for every kind of melophile, from the casual-goer to the ragam expert, frequenting Chennai’s rich music scene.
(*The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and not necessarily those of Music of Madras.)
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