That I miss....

I love Susheela Raman. Yes me too, after reading about her in Vaish's blog, I followed the links and oh my god! i got goosebumps. Nagumomo was so stellar, that I sat under my desk near the comp tower to hear it better at work. Her voice is so seductive and sexy and yet well traditional and thats what blew me away, her music is like us South indian women always straddling the modern and the traditional. ofcourse when mom heard she was so over wrought with emotion, that Vaish and I have proposed to start a "our moms cried for susheela raman" fan club. Its verry much in the offing.

I don't know if the music connects better with south indians, but for a moment there, it threw me back to a time, when I was little where i spoke only kannada with my parents and fancied wearing jasmine flowers on my hair. a place which was rife with sandal wood and bharathnatyam dancing and the ocassional brush with the tanpura. when summers meant guarding over ajju's rice crispies drying in the sun from crows. I've definitely moved on from that realm, i'm no longer thrilled at wearing a mysore silk saree and the like. and then there are these sudden attacks that tradition throws at us renegades, like poojas for instance where I feel totally alien, instances where mum and her ilk are completely at ease knowing what to do, while i stand awkwardly in a corner looking on helplessly.

there's a rift in me, a rift that susheela so elegantly sweeps away for a few minutes. for the duration of that song my mom and I share the same heritage. oh i love her for that!