Whenever I think of this song, I think also of Yashodatte, who was our neighbour for a part of my childhood. Her husband, a banker, had moved to our place a couple of years ago from Sirsi and may be because she was naturally a friendly person or because the dialect was the same, she soon became my mother's best friend. This was the time when Pappa was a highly active member of Junior Chamber(JCI) and occasionally even the family would attend some of the meetings. Most of them were all talk and we children spent the time playing outside the hall but this one time there was a singing competition. It was across age groups and yet I would've fancied my chances as I finished my song but unfortunately, the congregation was larger than usual that day. And most of the new faces turned out to be excellent singers and I was steadily downgrading my ranking when I saw Yashodatte get up to go next. I was shocked and looked at my mother for support but she was only smiling indulgently. But what the hell, I hadn't known Yashodatte to be any singer except to make something sound funny and here she was, smiling, going up there and singing "Ede tumbi haaDidenu..." in front of this august crowd! But she wasn't too bad after all, seemingly happier being there and singing for herself than giving me any competition so I had kind of settled down, subconsciously lip-syncing the familiar words when she dropped another bomb. She just stopped after the first stanza, having forgotten the next one's wordings! Soon people started giggling but I just couldn't. I was seriously humiliated now; she was like family and I was almost cursing her for standing there scratching her head(really!), smiling sheepishly and making a fool of herself instead of just removing her sorry figure to her place. It was not to be. Somebody prompted the words and she came back only after finishing the song, not really aware how much she had mortified me in those five minutes and made me forget all about the damn outcome. Anyway, as we were returning home my mother and her had a good laugh and I think I laughed too, finally.
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
Lost Connections
Whenever I think of this song, I think also of Yashodatte, who was our neighbour for a part of my childhood. Her husband, a banker, had moved to our place a couple of years ago from Sirsi and may be because she was naturally a friendly person or because the dialect was the same, she soon became my mother's best friend. This was the time when Pappa was a highly active member of Junior Chamber(JCI) and occasionally even the family would attend some of the meetings. Most of them were all talk and we children spent the time playing outside the hall but this one time there was a singing competition. It was across age groups and yet I would've fancied my chances as I finished my song but unfortunately, the congregation was larger than usual that day. And most of the new faces turned out to be excellent singers and I was steadily downgrading my ranking when I saw Yashodatte get up to go next. I was shocked and looked at my mother for support but she was only smiling indulgently. But what the hell, I hadn't known Yashodatte to be any singer except to make something sound funny and here she was, smiling, going up there and singing "Ede tumbi haaDidenu..." in front of this august crowd! But she wasn't too bad after all, seemingly happier being there and singing for herself than giving me any competition so I had kind of settled down, subconsciously lip-syncing the familiar words when she dropped another bomb. She just stopped after the first stanza, having forgotten the next one's wordings! Soon people started giggling but I just couldn't. I was seriously humiliated now; she was like family and I was almost cursing her for standing there scratching her head(really!), smiling sheepishly and making a fool of herself instead of just removing her sorry figure to her place. It was not to be. Somebody prompted the words and she came back only after finishing the song, not really aware how much she had mortified me in those five minutes and made me forget all about the damn outcome. Anyway, as we were returning home my mother and her had a good laugh and I think I laughed too, finally.
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