To Sir, with love

You know, I never ever referred to him by name or said Chittibabu, been so rudely familiar and all that? Before I started blogging? I always referred to him as Guruvugaru. That was what he was to me.

The first year I started learning from him (I started on Ugadi) I went to seek his blessings on Vijaya Dashami and I found I wasn't the only one (auspicious day and all that). Yeah, yawn, Missus Em will tell you about calendars and festivals and rites and rituals later. Let us just stick to the story right now shall we?

We students used to infest the house and trouble our Gurupatni no end. She'd serve coffee, feed us if we were on extended lessons; she took care of us just as much he took care of us.

But Guruvugaru was capricious; he would call at 6:30 in the morning and tell me to come for a lesson. He never considered my other occupations and concerns as worthy of a thought. He felt like teaching, so I should present myself and be taught and that was that. He recognised no other occupations or timetables.

I'd go for my lesson. Sometimes I'd find him reading newspapers or pondering on a chess endgame problem, sipping coffee (Sudha, I need a cup of that brew you used to make, I tell you), and he'd nod at me. That meant 'go up and get warmed up and get ready, and maybe I will come up and teach'.

Then I'd go up to the first floor, take the students' veena out of it's stand (I used to be terrified doing that…what if I dropped it, knocked it against the sides of the cabinet, what if what if), and sit down with it, check the tuning and play the latest lesson he taught. Repetition of lessons is how rote memory works, after all.

Oh, the days he went back to sleep after asking me to come for a lesson, I'd have the pleasure of going through the whole lot of the elementary exercises that are taught to students of Carnatic music. Sarali, Janta and Datu exercises, before I launched into the latest lesson. But heaven forbid I reduce the strength of strike or volume. If he was only reading the newspapers or pondering a chess puzzle, he'd yell up at me asking if I had perished and reached the Pearly Gates already. My fingers used to go numb, recover, go into cramp and recover before he'd deign to come up and sit behind his wondrous veena.

If he did. I used to be superstitious and count as lucky the days he wore a blue shirt.

There used to be days when he abandoned teaching and applied himself to elucidating a Raga for me. I may be the only person who heard him play Viriboni in all the three tempi, just to deliver a lesson on time keeping and multiples. He was generous that way. I had private elucidation of how a Kalyani musing and Alapana should go, and where and when a niraval would work just right in Khamas.

With two veenas between us was but one aspect of our relationship. He read me, the amateur poetry I wrote and decided I was better suited to words than tones. He understood my passion for language and shared it, to an extent. The only other person I can think of who had the complete GBS is my father, good grief.

Some days though, he'd just call up to me and say that he didn’t feel like teaching. He'd invite me to try to figure out the chess problem or tell me about the books he ordered and that would arrive shortly. He could and did used to make atrocious puns; we both loved P G Wodehouse. Ogden Nash, too. K and Guruvugaru got on like a house on fire. Similar minds and musical musings.

Every Diwali, I used to take my offerings to the kids, always reserving two huge clay flowerpots for him to set off, just like my father did back home, when he came back from his club. That used to be the signal to wind down our celebrations.

We students used to throng and greet him, and mingle with the kids. His eldest gave me tips on tackling the Rubik's Cube. The kids were a source of joy whenever I had a moment from being tyrannised by Guruvugaru.

He taught. He taught as he pleased, according to his judgement of the student and he taught with immense dedication to the task and great passion. He loved teaching and moulding his students, by singing and generously playing again and again. You haven't heard the best of Chittibabu if you weren't a student.

And when he taught, the lesson always took. I can't play 'Lambodara Lakumikara' on my veena without hearing him play that baby-song for me.

You live on, Sir. Happy Birthday up there and give Narada et al a good run for their money. You rocked, you rock and you will rock, always and forever. Thank you for teaching me.

Goodnight Sir, but please keep an eye on me as I try to learn Anandabhairavi and the ata tala varnam as it ought to be, you and Syama Sastry both, I beg you.

Cheers!