86 days to go..
It was during the school days, while watching (yet another) ‘Sachin
tribute’ video that I came across some beautiful music. It took me a week and
some more days before I found that it was a composition by Ludovico Einaudi.
All I could make out from the music was that there was violin involved and that
the violin got me involved too. A few years of being high on Pink Floyd and
Einaudi ensued. But the attraction for violin never ebbed.
It was during one of the depressed days of the first
semester in college when I decided to stop being worried and become awesome.
And then it dawned on me, the perfect springboard to that would be Violin. I
wanted to be the next Einaudi or maybe at least the next Yuvan Shankar Raja
with his copied Irish countryside music. Summoning all my sources (Google), I
tried to find the best violin in town that wouldn’t earn a straight ‘no, I’m
not buying that for you!’ from dad. After a bit of negotiations when I turned a
salesman for violin in front of my dad, when my dad had to listen to all the
stories of Ludovico Einaudi, Irish songs, Ilayaraja with a ‘when are you going
to stop this lecture’ look, he had two options in hand. Either put up with the
salesman-pitch-son or find peace. He chose the latter and decided told me one
day, “I’ll get you a violin under certain strict conditions”. Curious to know
what they were, I egged him to elaborate. “You have to get proper tutelage. So
find a right teacher. Practice at home when you are alone, initially. It will
be peaceful”. Unaware of the things he implied, like when I install new
software, I agreed to all terms and conditions put forth.
The next issue was buying it on a perfect day. After dad
proposed the day of ‘Saraswathi poojai’ as the day I get my hands on ‘OMG!
Violin!’ I agreed and we reached a consensus. It is an auspicious day to start
anything new, the day when Kindergarten schools would mint money for a ‘noble
cause’ and new Yuvan Shankar Rajas will create their first piece of
(distasteful) music.
I found a nice teacher although I was not always on the
right notes. He welcomed me with a promise to allow me perform at the yearly
musical show of the academy. Motivated enough, I used to carry the violin to
the classes back and forth like a soldier carries his solemn gun. Two months
went by, the horse-hair on the bow gathering dust regularly. The C sharps and F
sharps would make me feel guilty before I go to sleep. One day, as the teacher,
was trying to help me out with the majors and minors, I had the big picture in
front of me- I would never major in the art. Semesters went by, Saraswathi
poojais came when the Violin was kept in the forefront during Navarathris (causing
huge embarrassment every time someone asked me to play it) but the ‘Violin-touch’
never came.
To make the Violin find some purpose in the concrete
dwelling, I lent it to the family’s female Ravi Varma so she can draw it. I
hoped she would paint a picture of me holding the violin and in high tones. But
the violin had its revenge- she painted the violin with the background of a
thick bush- indicating the dust it was gathering day in and day out.
I’ve discovered the truth. Dad had told me, “Practice at
home when you are alone, initially. It will be peaceful”. He probably meant his
peace. Maybe the teacher, in promising a chance during the music show, forgot
to add “If you still keep coming” to his promise. Maybe, I should have
symbolically bought a veena instead of violin to earn the goodwill of Goddess
Saraswathi. Now, I will probably do a dubsmash with a violin audio and try removing
the ‘dubsmash.com’ watermark out of the video.
P.S. Violin for sale. The above statements would go a long
way in indicating that it is a ‘new piece of equipment’.
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