My early morning headache

Written in July 2000 -

Head ache had already hinted me early in the morning, before I could leave for the office few Saturdays back. It was rather an unusual Saturday as we, around people of 30 set for a trip to a resort just few miles away from Bangalore. More unusual it was, for the metrics data revealed only planning for a trip, without happening it really. This time our forefront running guys after taking the initiative, made no less effort in pulling some of the good looking girls to their stride asking them to become the active lady representatives. This way, at last, by their sheer efforts, the trip didn’t turn out to be just a mirage.

Greenery spread evenly across around hundred acres of land, dark clouds covering the blue sky, when the temperature being less than 25 degrees..even added to the beauty of nature when herbs and trees joined openly in welcoming the spring, coming out of all their inhibitions and disappointments they had in the last punishing Summer. Volley ball, shuttle, tug of war, squash, uffff.. my head ache got even more stimuli. An unhygienic atmosphere I created, troubling my dear friend while playing an unfamiliar and a disliking game, still added as a catalyst, and I decided to move away. I was almost sure to search my array, all those plenty of Ibuprufen / paracetamol combination samples my sister had given me. By the time sun rouse right above my head, people were divided; it looked as if most of them were just waiting for this hour. The categories included the highly experienced, experienced, little experienced, and inexperienced ones. Highly experienced ones - even with glasses of Bacardi rum getting blended with the internal bile juice, still under control; the experienced ones - looking tired with an inappropriate mixture of happiness and sadness, little experienced ones doing different kinds of gymnastics giving fun to the audience, and finally the inexperienced ones. Amongst them, some looking at each other, some talking on politics, movies, music etc, while some disturbed people with headache, absolutely no business on hand, looking at that greenery, the grass with little stripes that had spread like cricket ground in Old Trafford, thinking of some ideas for cartoons.., and the last category, the fairer sex community, who by late afternoon, started cursing the inventor of the compound, Ethyl Alcohol to this world! As I needed to go to my Guruji Pt. Parameshwar Hegde's Bhaitak in the evening, soon after having cups of coffee that I thought would bring my headache down, I left the place, while rest were still enjoying their time out there.

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The enhanced version of my head ache was almost a victim of the black Carbon Monoxide, that was released as an end product of millions of vehicles that travel between Bangalore-Mysore highway. Cool evening, Sun had already started moving towards the middle east countries, when dark clouds and cool breeze slowly had taken the charge. Jhenkara of 2 tanpuras was touching my ears even before I could enter my Guruji's place. Trains from Malleswaram Railway station was very much adamant in adding its frequency to the tuning of tanpuras, swara mandals and tabla. Most of his students present there were already deep into the reasonance it produced. Guruji started rendering a khayal in Vilambit Ek Taal in Raag Jog, which is an early evening raga. Raag Jog (or Sanjog) means the "Union", derived from the Sanskrit word Yog or Yoga, the mood of which is based on the concentration and devotion. It just alludes to the union of an individual with divine. The Vilambit ek taal, which technically speaking is 4 times slower the pace than the usual Ek taal(12 beats) forming 12 x 4 times = 48 beats (akshara / bols ) for every cycle, the musician expands the raaga during the expansion of Taal. One interesting aspect, but bad too is that even the listener needs to be a literate to an extent to understand the technical complexity first before falling in love! At the end of the Vilambit, he started a chota khayal in Drut - Teen taal.

Complete 45 minutes, taking me to the world of Jog filled with the smooth flow of enchanting swaras sa ga ma pa ni sa with both types of Ga - Shuddh and Komal while descending, almost made me forget where I was and where did I come from. I opened my eyes only when he ended the journey. He finally ended the concert after couple of bandish’s and we had a small meeting later after that.

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Finally after that evening extempore, I decided to leave the place at around 8:30 P.M.. My vehicle that was parked in my office, forced me to take an auto, where the whole journey went humming ups and downs of Jog! Reached my house late night, pulled out the newspaper sandwitched between latch and the bolt, sprinkled little water on my eyes and forehead, sat to glance the news, when my mind suddenly thought of re-investigating the problem I owned right from the early morning that was growing like a monster! Well... what was that? yeah...the head ache!! Can u beleive?? there was not even a remnant of it! It was mercilessly flowed down under the tremendous pressure of Jog falls! Isn't it a strange thing?......How my day began, how did it go, and how it ended...like a sinusoidal wave??? I said "Thank you gurugale for ur wonderful drug.....", few minutes later I had gone asleep.