January 26, 2005 has been dubbed Independence Day by Abdul Rahim, my sweet Indian friend. It was the day that my parents finally left me alone in India. Well, not alone, but as alone as I'll ever be in this country, it seems. Left me in the hands of two sets of grandparents who need more help than they can give.

Just two days after they had left, my life started to turn around. On the night of the 28th, I met new people that I had been chatting with on Indiamike.com, an India Travel forum. We met at Spencer Plaza in a bookstore's coffeeshop. It was my first real night out with no one nagging me, at least no one who could do anything about it. I talked! And in English, too! They were all foreigners here in Chennai for a spell before going to other places in India, or back to the UK. I discovered that I am not completely unable to socialize, just not in Tamil. Learning the particular phrases in Tamil that would express what I'm thinking is important.. just like learning the phrases in Carnatic music while singing ragam alapanai. For both, I have a vague idea of what the thing I want to express sounds like but not clear enough to execute it.

As I was falling asleep, the sounds of the mridangam came to me. Tarikita kitataka, Tikutakatarikita, num kita num kita ta jom taka jom, takadinatalanga, over and over and over. It was beautiful, though, not monotonous.. as if my mind wanted to play all these beats. And so I fell into a dream that I was sitting on the pai at Baktha uncle's house while he and one of his senior students were playing, trying things out. A senior old man was there too, maybe in memory of Nagaraj Rao Sir. A little boy, a very little boy indeed, ran over but stood impatiently at a little distance and told us about his strife. He was having existential problems and brought up philosophical questions dealing with the self and such. He complained that he HAD to write it all down. The old man then interrupted and said in the tone that old men usually take when speaking to younger ones, no, you shouldn't have to. The implication being: no, you shouldn't have to write anything down because it's all inside you. And the little boy kept insisting that no it's just the way I do it, I have to write it down. And I just thought, "Mm, yeah I understand all this, but I wonder why he HAS to do things in such a rigid way. Oh, yeah, no, it makes sense.. it helps to have a crutch in the beginning. So let him do what he likes." The surprising thing was he was just such a little boy, too.. no more than seven or eight and so precocious. This dream sounds a lot like the kind of conversation I have in my own head, between myself and myself. Many more snippets of the dream came to me during the course of the day. I cannot remember them now.

I don't know why but I keep thinking about health and sickness every day, often throughout the day. It occurs to me that we are only here to heal, so life should be full of healing. What use is life if every moment of it is not spent healing? We're so dirty and ill and don't even know the extent of our problems. I don't even know anymore what healing is. Is everything really healing? Like me sitting here typing this nonsense? And every breath I take? Then why is it that only sometimes during the day I designate as healing moments, like when I'm doing Tai Chi or going to the bathroom? The secret of the world is that there is nothing but energy, that we are not in control of anything, and things flow in their own way, as they must. Things flow down. Everything down to the smallest atom is out of anyone's control. The conscious facility that we call ego, that we attribute as the instigator, merely watches and tries to grasp, tries to take responsibility, tries to apply its science of cause and effect to everything it sees.

Last night I scolded myself for being so immature as to not take meditation and healing seriously. Why do I waste my time playing Spider Solitaire when I could be singing or studying Japanese or building energy? Why?!?! What the hell do I have to wait for anymore? Where is the energy in the universe that will pull me so deeply into that meditation that I await, so deeply that even the light of clear mind cannot escape it?

I'm convinced that breathing meditation can fix anything. But I also feel that there are some problems that people face that are too serious. And I feel that if I am lucky(?) enough, I will be able to live this life in relatively good health and use all my efforts to build energy. Unfortunately, I think of that as being lucky, which means that I fear serious health problems. I shouldn't fear them. It's all a coming out of all the crap that's in this particular energy system. It may not even be "my" system (and anyway, what is Mine?) but it's the system of this particular energy here. I think that all energies communicate with one another and pick things up from one another, or respond gravitationally in some way. Empathetically, perhaps. In any case, this is all just musings of an unclear, still fettered mind that has never experienced true peace of mind.

I especially find funny that I speak of energy all communicating and things and here I sit in my room every day, with the door closed, totally secluded from other people. I like it that way, and I keep it that way. I don't like it when people open the door and come in. I don't even like it when they don't come in but just speak from outside the door. Anyway I don't think it's contrary that I seclude myself and yet think of relating. It just seems funny from the outside.

All my life I have been searching for the key to realizing my fondest dream. I suppose everything I do can is just another way of searching for this thing which matters most to me. And if I don't think of the dream when I start a new venture, eventually the question comes to mind and all my efforts seem pointless if they don't point directly to the answer I seek. The decision to take a year off school to learn Carnatic music in India was not made without a sparkling grain of pixie dust of my heart's dream. And having burdened my family with taking care of me for these six months, having seen numerous concerts by both popular and unpopular artists, and having been to more music classes than I could ask for in a lifetime, I feel that this isn't what I would like to pursue. Learning music still offers insights into that dream that no other art touches; but in the end what you end up loving is for the people, the culture, the dynamic life that surrounds it, the human spirit that fuels it. Although I love Carnatic music, I am not satisfied with what the tradition has become.

I have caught an inkling of the culture of Carnatic music today, found it unappealing, and know that it isn't what I want. The days when people would just sing or play an instrument on their front porch for hours every day, and people would gather around to learn and to revel, and they would leave whenever they had to and the music would go on until it felt like ending, those days are over. Today 'performers' (as they are called) get dressed up with flowers and jewelry and starched, heavy, expensive fabric, sit like scintillating rocks on some stage in some hall under high-wattage bulbs beating down and the audience way off in the distance and microphones and speakers and wires and plugs and feedback and all kinds of silly nonsense all just to please an audience who is paying valuable Rupees to be entertained. The audience is not there to learn or to revel but perhaps to escape from their boring and sad lives.

Fortunately, I have had a wonderful vocal teacher who has shown me worlds of music that I had never before imagined, solicited my thoughts and feelings on the music that I heard, advised me with tips for performing well, encouraged me to learn music from a variety of sources--it has been a valuable educational experience. But my case is an unusual one. Typically, students go to a music class for an hour maybe once a week, the dedicated ones perhaps three times a week. Instead of learning ragam and creative components of music, they usually just learn songs. They may sit down to practice once a day for about an hour, spending the rest of the time doing other things and listening to their favorite popular music CDs. When, if ever, they sing on stage, instead of letting the natural beauty of music shine through their voices, it sounds rehearsed and well-constructed for maxiumum audience pleasure. And in fact, that is the case, as no longer are we continuously surrounded by music in an atmosphere of joyful collaborative music-making with an attitude of respect and humble curiosity. The beauty of music shines when it is produced for its own sake, without preconceptions or expectations, when it is allowed to show its true nature.

As much as I refused to believe it at first, I have seen that the world of music for music's sake and the world of performing for an audience are completely disjoint. I don't think this is a schizophrenia that I can handle. I see no reason to compromise 100% soul just to keep some people who have never heard real music awake. So what if a seasoned artist decides to sing slow, sleepy songs rich in melody and soul and ragam essence and put the audience to sleep or watch them walk out disgruntled? No one is begging them to listen. If they don't like it, let them walk out. Why should it hurt anyone's feelings? We musicians are not being hired as a circus performers in a King's Royal Court. People who want to listen can come to listen and we will make music as such our spirits are moved. Simple.

I have about twenty minutes before the start of a concert. I'm in the second row in the center. My mridangam teacher is to play for Malladi Brothers, two young singers. After hearing Nedunuri, I haven't been in the mood to go to concerts, but I came out tonight because these brothers learned from him. My current still-living favorite vidwan, Nedunuri Krishnamoorthy--an old dude (80+ years) from Andhra Pradesh who only comes to Chennai once a year for the December season. And this past December season I was lucky enough to attend his concert sitting in the front row. It was the best music I had ever heard (so I felt at the time). Its effect on me was so great that I felt that if I couldn't make that kind of music, I may as well not make any music at all. I feel differently now, but still long to be surrounded by such beauty and scholarship and power and emotion. After that experience, I couldn't stand listening to anyone who didn't express that kind of musical genius. Every phrase he sang rang with the ragam essence, as it is called, and rather than displaying his technical skill, he used his ability completely in the service of bringing out ragam essence. His grasp of layam (rhythm, flow) was astonishing. Even when he improvised complex rhythms, the ragam essence still shone through. He lives and breathes musical beauty. Old guys like him probably literally never spent a moment outside of music their entire lives. Carnatic music has such a complicated language. And after so many centuries it is still so pliable and conducive to creativity.

Some things he said during the concert:

• The Hall's organizer, during the speech, said, "You came to Tamil Nadu from Andhra Pradesh (where they speak Telugu) and yet you didn't sing a single Tamil song." His response, "Music is universal."
• "Young artists today should seek the praise of real knowledgeable people, vidwans, not the general public."
• Hall organizer said, "The kind of knowledge and musical genius that you have, no one has that these days. We are really blessed to hear you sing today." His response, "My guru's knowledge was expressed in everything he did. His music dripped with gnyaanam. From that I got maybe just one drop of the knowledge that he had."
• (He continued) "It's difficult to find a guru like that. Finding a true guru is extremely difficult. But also difficult is finding a good student who can understand and receive that knowledge."

his words still ring in my mind today. but i shouldn't look to him as a role model for carnatic music. if he really only has a drop of the kind of gnyaanam that his guru had, then i should look to his guru, perhaps. but since his guru is dead, there is in fact no one to look to... no one but myself. we should look into our hearts and make the music that lies within. i mean how did all those great composers do it? they didn't look anywhere but inside the music itself.

Tonight there was a wedding reception for some distant relative of my dad's parents, for which my teacher sang. So that made a double obligation that I should go. But I managed to wheedle my way onto the stage next to my teacher and sing along with the songs that I knew. Or else I'm sure I would have done something else fun (but it would have been a stretch since nothing else was going on).

Again I learned some new things. I had never sat on stage while someone else was performing. These really little kids kept coming up to the stage as if they had never seen such a spectacle before. While the mridangist was playing, they actually tried to touch one of the faces, haha.. and tried to speak into the mridangam's microphone. The mridangist was good-humored about it. I liked it, too, actually.

Back in the day, people never sat on stage so far away from the audience. Curious young children would have gotten a good look at what the mridangam was doing, and probably would get to try playing it themselves. Such was the informal atmosphere of that time. Concerts would be little get togethers in someone's house or in some outdoor arena, and music would be made which people felt like making. People would gather around as they pleased and leave when they liked and leave money under the mat if they wished or else just sit and revel in the music. Music wasn't for anyone. Not for money, applause, fame, whatever. It was for God, the beauty of the music itself. So I just felt so fake sitting up there tonight all decked out in jewelry and heavy fabric with bright lights and photographers. Bleh. Sickening. But the days and ways of yore have long since passed.

And yea I agreed to give a concert (April 20th) before I had this particular on-stage experience, otherwise I would not have agreed. I have been on stage many times, but never as the person I am now, I suppose. I have a sort of fuck everything that doesn't matter attitude a little more these days, maybe. Like... I've become so disgusted that I don't even respond to people who say "your dress is pretty" or "those are nice bangles" because I'm too busy suppressing the urge to slap them. I suppose there aren't too many peope in the world who feel the way I do about the Carnatic music culture and the way music ought to be made in general... or maybe they do but there's some uncontrollable force pushing things in a different direction.

This morning I went to a big group singing homage to Saint Thyagaraja, a great composer from the 1700's whose pieces are still sung predominantly today in Carnatic music. I sat on stage in the back. There must have been twenty female singers, five or six violins, seven or eight male singers (one of them also a flutist), and ten drummers. I sat in the back with my eyes closed listening to the music and keeping the beat.

I heard something I have never heard before. Maybe it was a phenomenon of the genius of the lead drummer (my mridangam teacher), but I understood layam for the first time. Layam is the soul of music. It's the rhythm inherent in the composition. And I knew this but never so dramatically, pointedly. With my eyes closed I could hear and feel the mridangam's sound as completely intertwined with the melody. Usually, the way it's seen and done in this culture at least, the melody gets the emphasis. When people say they're learning music, they mean that they're learning the song, the notes. They don't care about layam, but they implicitly learn that as well because it's part of any song. And if they're learning mridangam, they wouldn't say that they're learning music.

It's a load of crap.

You have to learn both together. If you really want to experience the true inner beauty of the music, you can't compartmentalize and only pay attention to one or another aspect. It's a damn shame that more students and performers don't get a more synthesized understanding. Anyway, I'm grateful to my teacher for being different, for being so in tune with the music, because all I had to do to understand this new thing was to listen.