‘ Do you know how your Mother started singing?’ I hear Amma while my kids were flipping old album pages. I’m all ears because this is one of my favourite “Amma Anecdotes.”
In Rourkela, which saw me as a baby girl growing into a gawky teenager and a starry-eyed bride, the winter months brought the excitement of picnics and day-long outings. So, one such winter outing took us to the rural outskirts of the steel city which had rustic hills and the beautiful Koel River. Barely 2 years old, chubby me, nestled comfortably in Amma’s arms looked around to see many goats and kids grazing nonchalantly even as the noisy party of merrymakers checked the vantage site for laying out the picnic spread.
Whether it was triggered by fear of the animals around or by the poetic beauty of a picnic day or the glee of having the undivided attention of cooing ‘not-yet- mother’ aunts, I broke out into a bilingual warble- ividellam bakri aanallo .
Literal translation: Ividellam [ Malayalam]: all around here bakri [ Hindi]: goats aanallo [Malayalam] : isn’t it O .
Poetic translation: O, behold these beautiful creatures,
Feeding upon the green pasture;
Goats, aren’t they?
Black, brown and grey!
Upon hindsight, it sounds like a scared child’s whimper to me but, it was no less than music to Amma’s ears. She proudly made it public and I was branded a potential singer. Achu proudly went and invested in a giant of a radio in the following days to provide me constant inspiration.
For loyal years that radio belted out songs from Radio Ceylon and I learnt to sing along. I went for a few music lessons and gained confidence enough to manage a few stage performances in later years.
Now too I love to croon but, for my ears only ( and sometimes to torture my family).
So, what is your first time singing story? Would love to hear them.
Bye, till next time.
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