Recently, I started learning Hindustani classical vocal music. The elementary classes involve singing the notes in various combinations. Some are easy; some, difficult. These vocal acrobatics thrill me since I have longed to learn for many years. Usually, when my teacher explains the combinations to me, it is easy peasy. She sings a line, and I repeat after her like a parrot, elated at my performance. But all good teachers push their pupils now and then. It’s like teaching a child the basic tricks of a swimming stroke and then asking him to do it himself. The child is puffed up with confidence until the parent is swimming along. The waters seem choppy as soon as he is left to find his way. The stroke is but all forgotten in nervousness. The same child swimming like a pro a minute ago can be seen flailing his limbs in panic.

Something similar happened to me during one of the practices. I began most confidently, singing the introductory notes and combinations (known as alankars). After that, I had to sing a slightly tricky alankar that I had been taught in the previous class. Very nervously, I attempted it.

Each time I found myself getting stuck at the third step. Determined to get it right, I would quickly move to the first step before my teacher could correct me. This was very subconscious; it happened a few times. Suddenly my teacher asked me to stop.

“Wait. Hold on. It is the third step you’re getting wrong. The rest of it is okay. But you are moving way too quickly for me to help you. Why so much self-doubt? Why are you not allowing yourself to make a mistake?”

That’s the inimitable genius of a teacher. In the course of a music lesson, she had read me as a person. I am a hardwired perfectionist. And I guess I have groomed myself to be like that over the years. It has probably stemmed from the need to be organised to overcome my absentmindedness. Growing up, I found my parental house very chaotic. My working parents did not have the time, energy or inclination to keep the house in a ship-shape. It was functional but far from inviting. I grew up with the desire to create a pleasant space that could cradle a tired ‘me’. Together, my husband and I created a lovely therapeutic space we call our home.

Secondly, I had worked very hard to be accepted into my husband’s family, which is culturally quite different from mine. It is difficult to tell when and how one aspect of your character begins to spill over into all compartments of your life. My music teacher could sense that weakness immediately.

Trusting my teacher, I let myself go. Yes, I made mistakes, but this time she could help. Ponting to the next alankar she said, “try it; you’ll do it easily.”

I smiled sheepishly, unsure of myself. It was a new alankar; I had never sung it before. With some prodding from my teacher, I attempted it and found myself singing the entire piece most comfortably. How could I do it? I was amazed. How was my mind making connections not apparent to me? My music teacher, while smiling, was not surprised in the least. While learning music, I realise the extraordinary capacity of our mind to remember and reproduce. It begins to flow with the music. With time, the notes, with their many permutations and combinations, become a part of you. However, one has to beat perfection. As my music teacher says, “When you have learned it all, you must ensure that you don’t become an automaton. That’s when you have to be most cautious.” This idea holds true for everything we imbibe in life, particularly the habits deemed ‘desirable’. Do we ever stop to ask “ am I overdoing it?” In a hurry to become perfect we often forget how enjoyable the journey is. There is romance in being a novice, the innocence of not knowing.

“If you are lucky, in some moments, music might become meditative. It does not happen all the time. In some moments, yes.” My teacher conveys with the effortlessness of an adept as we move to the next alankar.

The Dawning

The bird in me is learning to sing

Its own song.

With all its sweet and discordant notes.

True or not they are mine.

The bird in me has begun to dream

To fly and claim its share of the sky.

It pecks at the prison of self-doubt

Day in and day out.

Chipping off the iron bars

Bit by bit.

The bird in me is learning to not fear the

Fall as it learns to fly.

Each fall fills its wings with courage.

Each fall normalizes falling.

The bird in me is learning to be a bird again.

Birds sing — for the wind, rains and themselves.

Yes, they may sing for the crowds sometimes.

Birds fly — to assert the speck of their existence

On the wide expanse of the sky.

Yes, sometimes they may swoop and flit

To show off their wings.

The bird in me is waking up to find

The bars were the shackles of the mind.

It is ever free to, twitter, chirp or cackle.

It is ever free to glide, flutter or flump down.

Every false note, every wrong move.

Takes it closer to the eternal flight and music.

Real birds fall many times before they trust their wings.

Before they take the first flight.