A Musical Journey

On a bright Sunday morning, I half-heartedly got ready to go for my harmonium class in my school. My legs froze as I reached the door. Could I just vanish in thin air? I was forced to join this class & I didn’t want to go. I was only 11 years old then. I loved singing instead. But who would listen to me? My parents wanted me to pursue learning harmonium. They grew up with hardships and were deprived from learning it. So they wanted their daughter to fulfill their childhood desire.

My classes began and I started taking interest in the lessons. But I found it exhausting. I was required to play the keys as well as move the bellows (Bellows pump the air into the instrument and is the other end of the harmonium) to and fro. This was quite a challenge for my little feeble hands. I looked at the other girls in the class who could easily do both, while it tired me. Our Khanna Sir had to move the Bellows for me while I played its keys. This arrangement worked very well for me.

After several classes, I found the whole thing boring and I was far from enjoying it. Though I knew this, I was far from voicing it out to my parents for the fear that they would be angry at me. ‘Dear God, can you please do me a favour and tell my parents that instead I would enjoy learning to sing, please God, please help!’

I would see myself giving a stage performance and the audience would applaud for my wonderful vocal rendition. My singing teacher, my parents would look at me with admiration. I would frequently wake up to find that it was only a dream. Someday my dream would surely come true but didn’t know how and when.

One Sunday, at the class, our Sir started with a different exercise. ‘I want everyone to sing the notes that I have taught you to play so far. Every artist, who plays musical instruments, is required to learn to sing so that he learns to identify the notes that are being played’, he told us.

So each of us sang the notes from ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa’ (the same as in Do Re Me Fa So La Ti Do). I started singing as Sir played the same notes on the harmonium. I listened to my voice and felt that it perfectly blended with the notes that were played.

‘Aap bajane se gaati bahut accha hai!’ (You sing better than playing the instrument!), Sir said.

Overwhelmed at this, I went home wondering how do I get rid of this boring class.

I reached home only to find my parents talking about my harmonium class to my aunt who had visited us that day.

‘How is your class going? Are you enjoying it?’ Mom asked me.

Without giving a second thought, I replied in a rather shaky voice, ‘No mom, I can hardly move the bellows of the harmonium. All that I can do is to play the keys.’

While I was only too glad to voice my thoughts, I also feared of what would follow next if I told about the incident in the class that day. It’s now or never. I narrated the incident at the class.

‘I hate going to the class. I don’t want to learn to play the harmonium anymore!’ With a firm voice, I told mom.

‘What are you saying? Why?’ she asked.

‘The harmonium is too heavy for me to play by myself and today my Sir told me that I can sing better than playing the instrument. So I would love to learn to sing instead.’

Disheartened, mom told me, ‘Fine child, but there’s no singing class in our area’.

That was the end of my harmonium class. ‘What a relief! Thank you God!’

To my dismay, there was no singing class in the surrounding area though I secretly waited for such a class to come up. After several years, I heard from my cousin that she had joined a singing class.

I was eager to hear from her. ‘Hey Namita, how is your new class going?’ I asked her, my youngest cousin.

‘Oh! It’s great! I’m learning Indian classical music from my new neighbour aunty and she’s a wonderful teacher!’

It was only after continuous nagging, that mom agreed for me to join the singing class at the new teacher’s place which was near my house.

What a wait it had been! Finally I’d be able to learn singing that I was so passionate about and was excited to begin learning. I was in class 10 by then.

It’s a dream that has come true! The first singing class was over. I drifted into a world full of harmony and music where nothing else existed.

The audience applauded for a while and it broke the chain of my thoughts. Here I was attending yet another classical music concert, all mesmerized with the magic of sounds full of rhythm and harmony! My music lessons continued for almost over a span of 10 years and today I may not be a professional singer but I can recognize few Indian classical ragas, the quality of its rendition and so on. The musical journey continues and still takes me into a different world!