I always knew this phone call would come. Just not when.
And the final phone call came as I was driving to work on a Monday morning. Sitting in heavy traffic on the highway, practicing one of my tapes as I have a show coming up, as soon as I saw that it was an India number I knew what it was.
Yes I listened, and there was sorrow and grief. And I made phone calls to pass on the news and to talk to some of Master's other disciples like Leena and Prema.
I call Madras and speak to members of his family, his sons, one of his daughters, some of his grandchildren.
At this point I know that I am one of many: he had many disciples, some from well before my time. He is a father and a grandfather with a large family.
This is it. This is how it feels when someone you know passes on and the there is a "full stop" to their life and you know you will never speak to them again, never see them again, never sit down to a meal together again, never write a letter to him again. And with Master, now I know, we will never sit down together in that little room on his terrace to do nattuvangam for an "alarippu" again, we will never sing together again, him facing me, just the two of us on that terrace in the late afternoon or evening, like we used to, many times. And when I go to Madras again, he will not be there at the end of that long journey to greet me when I come to his house with my suitcases, as he used to.
But he had a long and rich and very full life. I am not sad for him about his death. I am very happy for him about his life. I am sad for me and the rest of us: if only we can have a life even a little bit like that now. Is it even possible today? It seems like all that, that kind of clarity and authenticity and magnanimity - is from another age.
And all that time time time. How much time he would take! He was never in a hurry to finish anything, he would take however long it took to polish something and make it beautiful. And he was from that age before there was any awareness of "publicity" or "media awareness". Can we wipe that out now and go back to that state of innocence?
How quickly years go by in a blur! How quickly it is all over! When I try to remember any one thing, a whole jumble of images and memories come tumbling out, and it is an overwhelming mess.
I call and speak to the two or three grandchildren I am closest to. His ashes were taken to the sea and scattered. To Marina Beach.
Outings:
I remember our Marina Beach outing from 2001 now. One Sunday, my day off, I came back from outings with the hired car and it was still early in the day. I said to him "come with me to the beach, let's take little vasanth and the three of us, let's go, please, let's go" and I kept insisting and needling to get him to agree. "Its Sunday" I said "everyone needs a day off. You can't be trapped in this house all the time, you need an outing." The little grandchild was like five or six at the time, I think. We went off to the beach and went right up to the water's edge. Master sat down and the driver sat down on the sand and I was playing in the water with little Vasanth who kept making delighted noises everytime a wave came up! We went somewhere else on the way back and stopped for a little snack.
Oh those outings! What fun!
One time I organized a similar outing for the whole family in 99, to the Vandalur zoo. I hired a van, and this rickety dreadful minibus contraption came: I was sure the door was going to fly open and that there would be a terrible accident, but there wasn't. We all went, the whole entire family. And Master. We walked and walked and walked. My legs were killing me, but Master wasn't the least bit tired. I kept telling him to stop and admire the animals, but he kept going right past.
And the first trip to Pandanallur.
Also in 99, around Pongal time I think. Everyone went from Purasawalkam to his house in the village. We all got in the train and got out in the morning and we drove past little huts and fields and ponds with lotuses right to his house. In the back, behind the kitchen, there was this area for bathing. They filled these big vessels with hot water for my bath and closed the kitchen door and I went out in my towel with my little bag containing my shampoo and my conditioner and began to bathe. The fences are not particularly tight and from somewhere nearby a stray dog, a rooster, and a large pig wandered into the compound and the dog settled down and the rooster as well as though this were a performance and they were the audience! I felt so odd. But I began bathing and lathering up. The pig, (it was so large!) slowly and aimlessly wandered around the garden until it was very close to my shampoo bottle. I couldn't find my glasses, but when I put them on looked, the pig was sniffing at my little bottle of shampoo. I yelled and shouted at the top of my voice to chase that pig away but it just grunted and ignored me. Some of the boys and men came out of the house to see what was the matter and I told them "the pig! the pig!" but they looked very amused so I realized I was making a fool of myself and stopped.
Antharangamai Thane
My favourite varnam is Adimogam, and the line I sing the best in there is "antha rangamai". All my singing learnt only from Master of course, no one else. I went back one year with the "adimogam" he sang for Prema and recorded it into multiple copies. I put a player in the kitchen, one in the living room, one in the bed, one in the bath, one in the car and had it on 24 by 7 for like six months: at very low volumes. But it was always on. Some of the tapes burnt out and I threw them out. I figured this would be replicating as much as possible the actual environment, where even if they weren't learning, it was always going on in the house so you either heard it or saw it even when you weren't paying attention, so you were always learning even when you weren't consciously learning.
And it worked. I came and the song just flew off like it was meant to be. Master was overjoyed and thrilled and he began teaching me all these runs (I call them) and trills. Since I had it down, I wasn't bothered about setting up recordings during those lessons and I would just coast along trying whatever he was trying. I knew it so well that I could catch and repeat every little twist and turn that he did. It was like playing ball. On the terrace, in the afternoons, we would just go up and down "adimogam" as the light kept changing color from one to the other to the next until finally it was dark. They were building some kind of addition to the flat next door and those construction workers would be finishing up at the end of their day of hard physical labour just as we would start singing. They would lean against the edge of the wall next door and listen for a little while before going away.
And if there is a heaven, if there is some kind of spiritual or immortal life after death, then this is what I want repeated: Master and me, meeting on a terrace just like the one in his house for one more singing lesson, on an afternoon when there are pleasant breezes blowing, to sing together for a few hours until sunset.
