Encounter, Enter - Mrs Gomathy Jaychandran
She is my third music teacher. After moving to Dallas, I was apprehensive of finding a new carnatic music teacher. So I just kept pushing away the task of finding one. In my heart and mind, I yearned to continue with carnatic music. It took 2 months, a lot of patient search and push from my husband, and then a phone call to find another great Guru. The first call told me she is pious and a meeting revealed the secret that she adores music. The only hurdle to it all... she is here visiting her children. After 6 months, she'll be leaving to India. That hurt me. Now I wanted to call it quits since I was looking for a long term commitment with a single teacher. My next week was spent with chaos echoing in my head. My husband's words made the decision for me - "Even a moment with a great Guru can provide you the knowledge that you might have gained in eons. You have nothing to lose. Just enjoy the time with her". Thus started my journey with my new carnatic music Guru - Mrs. Gomathy Jayachandran.
She is 70 years old with a voice and heart that would live forever. Sometimes at the end of my classes she would suddenly sing. The only audience me, felt privileged to sit by her and be lost in her music. That day, she sang - Ranganathashtakam. Her Bhakthi and love for God translated to such heavenly music that I cried hearing her. Yes, I was given the opportunity of meeting someone so close to God and maybe someone who knew too much about life that she had transcended it all to create magic.
This time, it was Krishna Janmashtami and my teacher wanted me to stay to listen to her sing during the puja. She dotes on Lord Krishna! When she sang for him in the next half hour, it was like the universe engulfed me to show me something beyond space and time and NOW. My teacher forgets everything and anyone around her when she is singing. It's like she has gone into deep meditation where the "real" world ceases to exist. There is tears in her eyes, the deep love for God(or whatever it is) had translated to uncontrollable emotion. She stopped signing..cried her heart out and continued. Here was a truly enlightened person. Never in my entire life had I ever ever seen or met anyone so deeply involved with something beyond life. Questions kept running in my mind - How do I fathom this? What does this mean to me? Isn't the mind a total mystery but also so powerful? Here was my teacher just telling me on my face - Just believe and the universe will reveal itself to you.
Each day of my life I questioned my own decisions. I had almost ceased to believe in anything but in questions and seeked for proof. That day, she opened my mind's windows to just breathe...live...and believe in the universe. Believe in all its chaos, believe in all its self destruction, believe in we humans who seem to outwit universe, believe in men waging wars, believe in the pain caused by dear ones, believe in the everyday struggle. For in this belief lies the answers to emerge out with an understanding of the truth. Make peace with everything.
She is 70 years old with a voice and heart that would live forever. Sometimes at the end of my classes she would suddenly sing. The only audience me, felt privileged to sit by her and be lost in her music. That day, she sang - Ranganathashtakam. Her Bhakthi and love for God translated to such heavenly music that I cried hearing her. Yes, I was given the opportunity of meeting someone so close to God and maybe someone who knew too much about life that she had transcended it all to create magic.
This time, it was Krishna Janmashtami and my teacher wanted me to stay to listen to her sing during the puja. She dotes on Lord Krishna! When she sang for him in the next half hour, it was like the universe engulfed me to show me something beyond space and time and NOW. My teacher forgets everything and anyone around her when she is singing. It's like she has gone into deep meditation where the "real" world ceases to exist. There is tears in her eyes, the deep love for God(or whatever it is) had translated to uncontrollable emotion. She stopped signing..cried her heart out and continued. Here was a truly enlightened person. Never in my entire life had I ever ever seen or met anyone so deeply involved with something beyond life. Questions kept running in my mind - How do I fathom this? What does this mean to me? Isn't the mind a total mystery but also so powerful? Here was my teacher just telling me on my face - Just believe and the universe will reveal itself to you.
Each day of my life I questioned my own decisions. I had almost ceased to believe in anything but in questions and seeked for proof. That day, she opened my mind's windows to just breathe...live...and believe in the universe. Believe in all its chaos, believe in all its self destruction, believe in we humans who seem to outwit universe, believe in men waging wars, believe in the pain caused by dear ones, believe in the everyday struggle. For in this belief lies the answers to emerge out with an understanding of the truth. Make peace with everything.
posted by Rashmy at 6:26 PM
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