t is so easy to be imaginative and curious. Counting on those virtues, I have always wondered, how would it be, had my brain sustained the thought of how I lived inside my mother’s womb. Oh yeh! The brain with its acquired sense might reply, it is easy, you were tiny, a creature of impeccable features, secured and just waited to come out to this despair filled vanity called WORLDLY life. But I don’t remember a tiny peck. I can only imagine what I would have been or my vision would have been, when I was inside the secluded and secured place, for those tiny moments when my mother carried me around.
Until I close my eyes amidst the ambience filled with a mellowed down yellow lamp, a soothing tonal quality of the electronic tempura and the womb, to take me into her custody, THE VIOLIN. I would be insane to compare anything to equal mother´s warmth, but, practicing my violin for 3 hours, with eyes closed, I can safely dire over the risk, of saying, any art, when practiced with perseverance, takes you closer to that insipid feeling of being helpless, at the same time being reckless, just like how you would have been “helpless and claustrophobic“ inside the womb, to kick your mother hard enough at the same time being “reckless“ to kick to spoil the party.
Well it is no philosophical diatribe, but an observation as to how my life unfolded and how it unfolded the way it did, only because I had my violin as my trusted confidant. Had it not been for the art, I would have been just another individual. By saying that, I do not imply, I am an extra terrestrial, but by stating that what I mean is , I didn’t take too long to be friends with myself. Any art form, when started formally, teaches the first lesson to befriend yourself and it does so in style by freeing yourself of all the apprehensions or anxiety you would have ever harnessed. If you start it late, still fine, since it will rip your ego apart to the ground and humble you to swallow mud. Well when I pluck it wrong, I know violin is not at fault. A violin can never be at fault, only I can be. There can be only one culprit who shares the dais as the victim. There it is, I have started being modest.
It is just a memoir to my parents, that they instilled this interest in me from a young age. I just pray that all the kids get the opportunity of having an art to be their aide. It does more than help. Academic education cannot be a guiding light in your life, if you cannot value your own self. Art teaches you all there is to know about yourself. If there are young parents, or going to be ones in the near future reading this, it is a humble request, instill that sense of art form in your child from an early age. Return of Investment, in the modern financial world will be unimaginable. Moreover nothing like Indian art. I have been lucky to have got this privilege to learn an art. It has given me courage, to start all over again, when I did badly. It didn’t grade me as a topper or a failure; it was always there in its case waiting for me to come back to it. It gave me modesty, when I was over confident of it giving my side come what may. It had its moods too, and it was inversely proportional to my ego. It freed me from any fear, as it had no fear. In all, it taught me how much I have to learn. I am still learning, and I still feel blank.
In brevity, in those 3 hours of togetherness with Violin, if you ask me what I thought, I would say I don’t know. Its just like being up from Coma, because the toughest thing after a strenuous practice, especially when your mind wants more, but the body gives up due to lack of practice is, “what Now ?. “ It just seems blank“ after you open your eyes, just like when you cry, being out in this adolescent world, because may be you would have worried, Oh my god, “what now?“. Life seems empty. I don’t know how time goes, when I am playing Bahudari or a Kalyani, but all I know is I am somewhere safe. I am not adorned with a venetian mask, if at all, I am taking all of it, one by one, clothes first, to stand stark naked facing not the world but myself on the other end, the reflection being full of pretense and despair. It is like I could imagine, this is what I will be once I come out of the womb. I am sure every single child visualizes reality, and that’s precisely why it cries on being out. Very few are blessed to chance themselves to time travel and reincarnate again and again as and when they please. I do it with my confidant all the time. My mind is just blank to categorize it into any of the categories of hobby, passion, meditation, expression etc. I just play, because I love it, and I can take birth as an individual all over again after I am done.
In the end, amidst that blank neurology, which is as good as being alive again, is when you realize, how profusely you have been sweating, and the floor beneath your thigh, your palms and your forehead is filled to the brim with it. That’s when realization dawns upon you, with the warmth in your body pushing your adrenalin energy levels up, that `A sweat from the violin never stinks“
