Do Re - Mi story

You do not qualify for a singer when you sing in the right pitch or when you get the rhythm or the tune right. It’s at that moment when you let yourself free and sing just what runs in your mind, like there is no one in front of you. It’s when you know music is inside you.

Do a deer is from the classic ‘Sound of music’- sung by a governess to the children to help them remember the English notes Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do.

It goes like Do a deer, a female deer

                  Re, a drop of golden sun

                  Mi, a name I call myself

                  Fa, a long long way to run

Recently, when I saw this part of the movie for the first time, I was so uncomfortably deported back by some fifteen years. Many a times when baby madhu cried, immediately his little brother came up singing “Doe a deer a female deer, Ray a drop of golden sun…” It worked with the crying but I always wondered what is the connection between a doe and a ray and why should I call myself when I have to run far.  Sadly that was the only sensible song taught during music classes at school apart from the national anthem. And it has taken all this time for truth to hit my head like a thunderbolt- laughs.

Music at high school went exactly opposite the way it was supposed to. All I remember about my music teacher was his golden ring with a dull red stone. Pretty well because that finger came up so eagerly to pinch our earlobes to derive that sadistic pleasure – for forgetting our music notebook at home.  Perhaps that way he has brutally reinforced his meaningless version of this song into our brains.

And disaster did not end, the second year he asked us to bring the same notebook we used before (for the second stanza of doe a deer). I remember the pinchy! So for all the petit seminarians who would feel meh right now, guys its alright, and its ‘Do a deer’!

I did not qualify for the choir (which contained almost half of the entire class) and all my songs at intra-school dint even manage to change the monotony on his face. But hell yeah! The more he made music so unreachable the more I tried jumping to reach it, I guess. I believe music is written in your destiny. When it is supposed to be a part of you, it will – cutting through all odds! And it did.

I am a great fan of happily-ever-after endings. So, years later… It was another afternoon outside the auditorium when VB asked me “shall we make some music?” I was really happy someone asked me that and even before I could prepare the songs I knew or even think of a song, he was already on the guitar and strumming. I look around the hall, no one, happy. “what can u sing” was the next question. And around that time ashish had joined too and I said I can try carnatic. He connected the mike, thought me a plain tune and then what happened was just magic. I did not know what raga I sang, no pitch, nothing but it was a perfect jam. Eldo, drummer heard us from groundstairs and he came up with the beats. WOW! And that- That was my moment!

The graduation cultural nite. The photo had to undergo layers of editing due to the continuous instability of my dad’s hands caused probably by an intense emotional outburst.

Suresh Sangeetha wedding. Awesome moments! Felt really nice to sing in front of a multi-lingual/ ethnic audience. Probably the first time I sang Carnatic somewhere other than a home. I was nervous from top to bottom :D Thanks for the photo suresh n manni!