my appa

1921-2011

may his soul rest in peace

one cold january morning...

...it must've been around 4am, i'd have been woken off the red dhurries that lined the arched corridors outside the hall at xavier's. janfest - the indian music group's annual celebration of indian classical music was always neatly timed around my birthday :)
i'd have slept off through the more rigorous daagar brothers...but the moment pt bhimsen inhaled his first lungful to launch whatever the raag it was...that first intonation seemed to travel straight to me in that hallowed quadrangle. gently lifting me from my slumber and into complete entrallment. miyan ki todi, bhimpalasi, puriya dhanashri, multani... didn't make much sense to me then but it simply didn't matter. i was hooked! it was only much later that i learnt that kirana was also a gharana!
he'd sing well past the magical sunrise and we'd applaud and applaud and he'd simply join his palms and bow and shuffle off the stage. i'd turn around to birthday wishes and hugs...and go home beaming ear to ear. the goencho had been corrupted...and happily so :)
as sadanand menon says in the beginning of his obit "may his voice continue to wake us up and keep us alive for generations".