Parimala and the art of humility

The best way to live is to live humbly, being who you are and enjoying who you are!

Parimala Srinivasan

I read a story in today’s Hindu, on someone we knew closely, Parimala Srinivasan, who had passed away, at 81, earlier this week. Chennai historian and columnist V.Sriram has penned the beautiful tribute to Parimala, who he calls “an ardent aficionado” of Carnatic Music. While my wife and I have known Parimala for 20 years now, Sriram’s piece surprised us – we discovered so many unique aspects about her Life that we ended up wondering if we at all knew the “real” Parimala. To us Parimala was the simple, doting mother and grandmother with the ever-benign smile. She was the epitome of warmth, compassion and enthusiasm. The only line in Sriram’s piece I could relate to instantaneously, for instance, is this: “To her, Life was an extraordinary celebration.” Until I read Sriram’s piece this morning, I didn’t know that Parimala was taught music by the legendary Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar; I didn’t know that the other maestro of Carnatic music G.N.Balasubramaniam was her mentor and guide; I didn’t know that ace violinist T.N.Krishnan was more than just a musician-friend – he called himself her family member; I did not know that she held a record for attending concerts as a rasika for over 58 years at the Music Academy during the annual Madras Marghazi season; and I didn’t know that she ran an all-women sabha called Raga Tharangini for over 40 years. How would I know all this about Parimala unless she told us any of this? The truth is, she never spoke about herself. She was always in awe and admiration of people, Life and events around her. And so this is my key takeaway from this wonderful lady’s Life – stay humble and simply enjoy who you are!

I come from a family where bragging over hollow achievements is a favorite pastime. In fact my awakening to remain modest was spurred my utter distaste for some of family members’ tendency to insensitively blow their own trumpets. So, when I discover now that the lady we were so close to, was not just a doyen among Carnatic music rasikas, but was a celebrity in her own right, I feel so blessed. I remember the day, two Decembers ago, when I delivered my “Fall Like A Rose Petal” Talk (based, like my Book of the same name, on the lessons that my wife and I learned from a Life-changing experience – a bankruptcy!) Parimala was in the audience that evening. When I finished my Talk, she called out to me and my wife. She held our hands and said, “The greatest joy in Life is to be able to live and face it together. You both are blessed to have each other. You will overcome your problems and come out of this crisis soon.”  She had tears of love in her eyes as she touched our heads in a blessing.    

To stay humble is an art. Because even if you want to stay humble, your mind will push you to believe that you are causing all your achievements. Only a truly evolved person can, craftily, dismiss the mind’s seemingly well-reasoned claims and simply be. Simply being means to continuously look at Life with amazement and wonder. It means to know that whatever good is happening to you, whoever is praising you, whoever is flocking to you – everything and everyone is transient. (To be sure, the opposite is also true – and is transient again.) Simply being means choosing to be unmoved by Life’s colors and flavors. Parimala, to me, personified humility – a trait that all of us can aspire for, and someday soon, with inspiration and blessings from her, possess.

When Life becomes prayer…!

Immerse yourself in what you do, lose yourself to Life, then your entire living experience is a prayer!

Later this evening, the eminent dancer Chitra Visveswaran is set to be honored, by The Music Academy, with the title ‘Natya Kala Acharya’. This morning’s Hindu runs a beautiful profile of Chitra akka (as she is fondly called) written by her close friend and art lover Hema Iyer Ramani. The profile is titled, “Journey of Challenges”. I have had the opportunity to observe Chitra akka, from a distance, in the past decade or so. I am aware of some of the challenges she has faced as a person. But I have always admired her resilience. And have often found myself inspired by her ability to be grounded (despite all the adulation she receives), to be calm (despite all the chaos around her) and to always be giving – of her time, her understanding to others at one level, and of herself, to her art form, dance, at another level!

Chitra Visveswaran

I remember an experience – and learning – I had, some years ago, when Visveswaran, Chitra akka’s husband, passed away. Just as in her name, I could never think of Chitra akka in singular. To me, she and Visvesh (who was an accomplished singer apart from being a ‘Santoor’ expert) were a couple, always together – in their music, in their dance, in social dos and in their inspirations. It was unfathomable to think of them as separate. As Hema points out in her profile this morning, “When ‘Santoor’ maestro Pandit Shivkumar Sharma asked him (Vishvesh) to give up all else to the exclusion of ‘Santoor’, he said he could give up all else except singing for his wife and composing music for her productions!” So, when Visvesh died, at least I expected Chitra akka to be in mourning for a very long time. But within 10 days of Visvesh’s passing, Chitra akka convened an event at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in Chennai to “celebrate” Visvesh’s Life. It was a memorial service with a difference. There was no mourning. There were no grief-stricken speeches. Visvesh’s own guru, Pandit Shivkumar Sharma too spoke, oozing joy, as if he was holding a toast to honor his student! And then Chitra akka herself spoke. She said (I recall vividly), “I only see Visvesh as not being here physically. But his presence will always be with us, with me. He taught me to live this Life as if it were a prayer. As if it were an offering to the Universe. Which is why we both enjoyed each other’s companionship and the work we did together. To me my Life, my work, is not something which has to be ‘gone through’. It is a prayer.” She then performed a dance piece, accompanied by Visvesh’s song recording, that left all of us in the audience in a trance!

I have, ever since, held that learning from Chitra akka close to my heart. I have discovered that when we immerse ourselves in what we enjoy doing then it ceases to be work. It becomes our Life. Then no loss nor any challenge can pin us down for too long. Then our individual energy, the one within us, resonates with the Universe’s energy. In that beautiful communion, an inner peace, a rare joy, takes over. And our entire Life becomes a celebration, a prayer, an offering to this Universe!

The only part of Life worth living is … LIVING!

Throw yourself into the game and don’t worry about the outcome. If it is ordained for you, it will happen the way you visualize it. If it is not, you will not get what you want. Either way, immerse yourself in the game of Life and banish all thoughts on what may be, what will be, what would be and what could be.

Almost all the time, all of us miss the joy of living. We have been conditioned to think that an integral part of Life is winning. The truth is the only part of Life worth living is LIVING! Because what happens to or with us__to you, to me__is not in our hands. But what we do when whatever happens to us is surely in our hands.

Why then do we struggle with living?

Simple: because our entire upbringing and our whole education system is focused on winning. Now, when you focus on winning, it is a foregone conclusion that ONLY one person will win. That leaves the rest of the competition whining. There’s no teacher, no school, no system that ensures that the one who tries to compete, the one who plays the game, the one who makes an effort to win, is celebrated. If you take a country like India, our traffic sense will tell you what we are as a nation. Everyone is in the business of getting ahead of the others. There is no decorum on the road, nobody has any sensitivity and at the end of this mindless charade, people, the ones who manage to get ahead, actually feel they have ‘arrived’, while those who have been edged past feel they have been at a game they did not play or did not want to play. So it is with the way we live. Which is why we struggle.

Vijay Natesan

I met a young mridangam (a percussion instrument we play in south India) artist Vijay Natesan recently. I had seen him play on stage a few times. Last November, I had seen him play with the 80-year-old maestro T V Gopalakrishnan (TVG) at the Music Academy in Chennai. That performance has stayed in my mind because I found that TVG and a posse of mridangam artists were not behaving as if they were performing to a packed auditorium. They were playing their instruments as if they were in a living room and jamming with each other. So, when I met Natesan last week, I asked him how is it that they managed to have so much fun while playing in the professional circuit? He replied: “Sir, we play because we are having fun! We never play to impress. This has been our training.” This, said Natesan, was the first and the biggest learning, his guru, TVG, had imparted in him. “TVG Sir would say, when on stage, simply freak out. Don’t worry. Don’t think. Just play. Enjoy yourself. If you enjoy yourself, you can be assured that the audience is enjoying your performance. If you worry or wonder if the audience is enjoying, you will make a hash of it. So, just play your guts out every time you play.”

Please note the nuance in Natesan’s recollection of his guru’s advice. Play your guts out every time you play. TVG did not use the word ‘perform’. Both times he said ‘play’. This is our key learning.

Are you living or are you making a show of living? If you are making a show of living, you are sure to be disappointed, because you are not living for yourself. You are living for audience approval. And as long as you live for someone else’s approval (big difference from living for others’ – subject of another thought altogether) you will find that it is unlikely you will be able to satisfy everyone in the audience. Someone, somewhere will always be upset with you. And you will spend a lifetime trying to please that someone. Instead, just live your Life. Enjoy the game. Of living. Live fully. Because, unlike in Natesan’s case, you will NOT get a second chance at playing (living) the game!