If you hail from the south of India, learning a performing art form is not a luxury but a part of your upbringing. The conversations at weddings and birthdays go somewhat like this “My ten year old son is learning the Mridangam (percussion instrument) for the last three years. What about your daughter?” for which a typical reply would be “she learns Bharatanatyam and Carnatic Music since the last four years”. To prove these to the point, the said children would display their plethora or artistic abilities at such gatherings.
Now, some might see this as a tough experience for the child to grow up in such a pressured and demanding environment of public attention, but the ones who embraced it, like I did, can tell you confidently how much capacity we have as children to do these wonderful things at that age. We seem to lose this capacity to be versatile considerably as we grow. But there is a beautiful metamorphosis that happens over time. Your interest in one art form or related art forms deepens as you grow. That is what happened to me. Growing up in a town like Mysore (South India) had one huge advantage. There was no dearth of art classes to go to in the vicinity of where we lived. Sometimes, the classes came to you if you were lucky. I remember the time when I was about seven years old, my sister and I had a dance teacher who came home to teach us Bharatanatyam. I used to have one excuse lined up against the other to skip these classes – tummy ache, fever, sprained ankle you name it. The main reason for wanting to skip the class – my heels and feet ached towards the end of the lesson and above all, I wanted to simply spend that hour playing elsewhere or watching TV. My sister on the other hand, six years my senior, took this far more seriously. The teacher advised my mother that although my facial expressions were wonderful for dancing, she should try sending me to class when I was ‘old enough’ to take it seriously. She continued teaching my sister though. Guess who was the happiest that day to skip the lessons altogether!
My mother, being the wise and steadfast woman that she is, understood my antics. She took me to a Carnatic music class right opposite to where we lived. Maybe it was the proximity to my home, the good sense that prevailed in me or just the lack of body ache in this art form; I stuck to those Carnatic music classes for the next fourteen years. I learned, trained and persevered with my blessed teachers. Over time, that little dancer in me, who had been asleep since I was seven, woke up. This time around, I went to the dance teacher myself and requested her if she would accept me as her student, which she happily did. During this journey, there was a parallel journey taking place on school stages and shows. Be it portraying Michelangelo in sixth grade or playing the protagonist in a Kannada production “Yezhu Samudradhaache” (Seven Seas and beyond) with seasoned artists, theatre, drama and acting was always a part of my growing up years. The drama queen who faked all the tummy aches to skip the dance lessons found her place.
Fast forward 10 years into my life, the place was different, the environment was different, the people were different, but the love for arts, dance, music, and theatre, remained the same. Like an addict who goes around yearning for his poison irrespective of where he is, I looked for art related things to do in Switzerland. To my good luck, I came into the company of like-minded and far more accomplished people in arts and the rest is joyous history.
A pic from the production Trinity Photography: Veeresh AshinalAll this has taught me one thing – No matter how one is made to learn something when one is younger, how much one internalizes it is completely up to oneself. How much you grow with it and learn from it and make it a part of your life is up to you. Exposing children to art forms gives them a lot of perspective. People ask me how I find time for this. If you want to find time for something, you will find it – be it giving up on your Sundays or the leisurely evenings, be it managing your kids in each other’s houses, cashing in on all those friends who wouldn’t mind helping you with your childcare, involving your spouse in some way in your activity so you both have some time together or taking your office calls when you are in your costume. You WILL find time for it. What dance, drama and music have done to me is – they have filled colour and made my life multifaceted, they have given me wonderful friends and they have taught me valuable lessons. Above all, they have given me and continue to give me some cherished moments, which I choose to take with me to the end.
There is something in everyone, which makes us go back in time and relive those childhood days with a smile. Let’s not give up on that pursuit just because we are grown up or older now. Let’s find time, even if it is ten minutes a day – to write, draw, paint, dance, sing, or play an instrument. Let’s remember, the mightiest of journeys also start with the first step.
