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Thursday, July 29, 2010

Krishna ni begane baaro...

‘Krisha ni begane baaro...’ by Vyasatirtha is a very famous kannada classical song. It means ‘dear (Lord) Krishna I wait for you, please bring yourself to light.'

My mother used to sing the original kannada version of ‘Krishna ni begane baaro’. One of her favourites. She had taken it upon herself to teach me how to dance on this one. She was passing onto me what she had learnt as a young girl.
The lines ‘kaalandige gejje’ (anklets on your feet) would be my bane. She would thump her foot flat on the ground making a loud noise and ask me to do the same. I would invariably apply only the toes and never the heel at the same time.
“Flat, flat, like a chapatti (flat breat) your foot should fall” she would say. I consistently twinkle toed my way around, much to her annoyance. I imagined myself to be some ballerina (1980s had a lot of Russian influence on Indian children). Ballet dancers never went phatak phatak like a chapatti. They were elegant, beautiful people who danced nimbly, I wanted to be like them.
Tempers would soar and sweetness of the song would be lost.
“I don’t like this dance and I don’t want to learn it” is what I told her one day. I must have been 8. I expected fireworks. There were none. She just sighed and stopped teaching me. Strangely, this incident was never spoken about after that. I never thought about it again. Never...until tonight.
I wish I had played along and learnt the dance from her. Maybe if I had performed it in front of her relatives, she would have been so proud. Why was I such a fool and she so giving?
Today, Krishna is here but ma is not!
(Call it karma or coincidence but my husband’s name is Parthasarathi which means Krishna. Mother was very happy to have met him on Oct 8th 2008. She passed away one month later on Nov 7th 2008. As if she were just waiting for him.)

‘Krishna ni begane baaro’....

She sang for him to come soon, for her little daughter. To make sure that her princess was in good hands. And the daughter thought a song was being forced upon her. Such is the irony of fate.

5 comments:

  1. hi!

    just looked up your blog and saw your post-'krishna ne ..' and was touched.

    it is amazing how we have associations with certain songs, places, people that keep recurring in life every once in a while.

    my association with this song - is of a lullaby that my ammama (moms mom) used to sing for us.

    and then hariharan used it in a fusion number in colonial cousins as well

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  2. you are right, sometimes you remember things for such different reasons. the hariharan version has a different texture for me as those were my first few days in Mumbai.

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  3. Beautiful song, one of my fav. too..

    And you were not a fool , you were just an 8 year old.. and she was being your mother..imaprting all the good things she learnt on you.

    Today, it is the same with my daughter and I want het to experience my love of classical music and dance.. she is now with me , but I am sure will soon express her desire for something else..

    It is how it is ..well written Vandana.

    -Subha

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  4. Poignant.... Really touched... But in ur defence you were only a lil girl and we all know how stubborn lil ones can be! :-))). The are times when i hear a song, watch a movie, deal with a sitiuation, or just a memory that floats by .. And i tear up..miss my mom and dad tooo...

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  5. Poignant.... Really touched... But in ur defence you were only a lil girl and we all know how stubborn lil ones can be! :-))). The are times when i hear a song, watch a movie, deal with a sitiuation, or just a memory that floats by .. And i tear up..miss my mom and dad tooo...

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