The flutist in me

Just yesterday, Srikant, one of my buddies, had come home. He played some amazing flute. Mind blowing!

Actually, we used to learn flute together under the guidance of the same guruji a few years ago. The difference  being, he pursued it for a longer time than I did.

Flashback.. 2004

3 idiots join a flute class. Needless to say, I happen to be one of them.

I happened to listen to Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia's performances. Deeply impressed, I decided to give it a try. After all, it is not so difficult, I thought. A veena has a number of strings, and we are required to tune it, use all the 10 fingers, and most of all looks bulky. A mrudangam uses leather membran and my conscience wouldn't allow me to use one. (FYI - I neither use a leather belt, nor a valet, nothing that contains leather)

After all, a flute having 6-7 holes and seemed very easy to play. Most of all, I loved the bass tone of a bansuri.  Also, having seen many hawkers play and sell it on the streets, I thought it to be a rather simple instrument.

I was in search for a guruji, and found one at Kuvempunagar in Mysore. To my surprise, two of my buddies decide to join me. The music institute founders appreciated our interest to learn classical music. They lauded our respect for Indian values, art, culture, etc.. And after a while, our first class commenced.

On the second class (there used to be only two classes a week), we were given our flutes. The music teacher started guiding us. Unlike laymen think, bringing out a flute-like voice(noise?) from a flute is not all that easy, more so if your flute is screwed up. We were taught to get some noise out of it. In total contrast to the melodious soothing flute played by my inspiration, it turned out to be rather irritating.

The disappointment took its first toll on the very first week. One of my friends decided to drop out. My only other flute-mate dropped out after 3 weeks. I remained undettered & committed. However, my practice was interrupted by complaints from my neighbours and my own family members. People complained that they were having headaches after listening to my music. All my close acquaintances expected a jukebox out of me. They thought I could play any tune just like our  kannada movie hero who mesmarises his heroine in a typical setting through his music. They did not realize that I was just 2 months into my learning and was just mastering the art of playing the very first pitch - "sa" out of my flute.

Quite expectedly, I too dropped out. My friends and neighbours were relieved. I guess, even my guruji was!

Who knows, in the process, India might have lost another Chaurasia in the making! :)