During the last month of the year 2004, the chill was indeed in the air. The temperature readings were down to single digit, before dawn and after dusk. It was a dreary month, with cold waves lashing from the north. Foggy mornings and evenings made life difficult. Still I considered winter the best time of the year, frankly because one never feels tired, even if tons of work is done. Afternoons were a pleasant time and on all holidays, I found myself in the Rose Gardens.
The afternoon sun was warm and cozy. We played chess. My father read newspaper and my sister, well, sort of interfering with me or my mother or the chess coins. Then the game used to end then and there, for neither of us could concentrate. My father would more often than not find himself in a deep slumber with the newspaper in front of him.
The winter vacations started and it was time for less study, not necessarily more fun. On the third day of my winter vacation, we had planned to go to the Thyagaraja Auditorium to witness a musical evening by S.P.Balasubrmanian and his troupe.
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Ever since childhood, I was introduced to both carnatic and film music. I became an ardent fan of Sudha Ragunathan and Nithyashree Mahadevan. The songs sung by these artistes not only captivated my mind, but also gave me peace of mind. I knew being connected to carnatic music shall help me a great deal, and hence there was no question of quitting mridangam. Some day, I knew, mridangam shall do me some good. All I had to do was to remain patient, bide time till the right time arrives.
I hardly listened to film music. But if I did, mostly it was Balasubramanian’s as far as Tamil film music was concerned. So, it was no doubt that I was well aware of the type of songs I would listen to at his concert. I was looking forward to it.
****
Had my parents not seen the news that day, we would well have been on the way to the auditorium. Perhaps, it was not my day to be one of his audiences. There was a massive earthquake in Sumatra, Indonesia, the news flash read.
“So what?” I asked out loud.
“Tamil Nadu too is an affected party”, my father replied.
He continued explaining how the undersea earthquake had triggered tsunami. It’s a word never heard before, I recalled.
The news flash explained further the definition of tsunami, large sea waves caused due to undersea quake. The waves were of enormous size, for they could not have otherwise travelled the distance between Sumatra and Chennai, via Sri Lanka and Andaman islands.
The effect of the undersea quake had its effect in Australia as well. It was a multi-national calamity, I noted.
Goodbye, the live performance of S.P.Balasubramanian, I told my mind.
****
Time flew by. Five years and ten months had passed. I was growing older. Hints of beard and moustache became apparent on my face. But the only medal I had won years earlier at the Nehru Bal Mela never got company. It indeed was the only prize I managed-the sole achievement that was followed by subsequent defeats which more or less spelt doom for Kaushik, the mridangist. Or was it not?