Classes at Vijnana Kala Vedi

How can I describe a month spent at VKV (Vijnana Kala Vedi Cultural Center)? Certainly a large contributor to my happy experience there was the excellent staff. Everybody - from the manager/organizer Bala, to Hari and Rajesh who served food, and Geeresh and Mureli who cleaned, to Ravi, our very own security guard – was eager to help. And if help was not needed, a bright smile was still provided.

My days were very similar, for the most part, especially after the first week. I would rise around 7:30 so I could be at breakfast by 8:00 or 8:15. On M, W, F there was a group yoga class from 7:30-8:30 but I didn’t attend many classes because that extra ½ hour of sleep from 7 -7:30 was so tempting. My first class, Bharata Natyam, was from 9-11. I had an excellent teacher, Sujatha, and we really enjoyed each other’s company. She had high expectations but was understanding. My biggest problem was in sitting properly. Oh, and I never smiled while dancing because I was busy concentrating on steps and mudras (the hand signs) and rhythm and sitting deeply and raising my eyebrows and turning out my knees and bending the upper half of my body to the side without moving my hips or leaning forward. Sujatha got tired of telling me to “smile please”. She would simply stop calling out rhythms and wait until I was smiling again, saying she refused to teach me anything more until I smiled. I finally ripped a page out of my notebook and wrote “smile please” on it, then decorated it with smiling faces and a giant, happy sun and lots of flowers. We hung it in the front of the classroom and every time I looked at it I remembered to smile because it was so silly looking.

There are three dance forms taught at VKV: Bharata Natyam, Mohiniyattam, and Kathakali. All three have the same root and are based on the Natya Shastram by Bharata Muni, a legendary tome of dance knowledge. Bharata Natyam was developed in Tamil Nadu; the other two were developed in Kerela. Bharata Natyam is much more martial and solid than Mohiniyattam, a slower, more fluid dance form. Kathakali is very distinctive; it involves costumes and extensive makeup and tells very detailed stories.

I had two hours of dance every morning for a month. Unfortunately, my violin classes were less consistent. The violin teacher was not there the first day. I was told he would be there by Wednesday. But on Tuesday, Bala told me that he actually wouldn’t be there all week and would I like to take a replacement class. I decided on woodcarving. I was actually quite happy with the new arrangement; woodcarving is something I’d never tried before and it would produce some finished product that I could bring home and show people. I began work on an Ohm tile the following day. The violin teacher finally showed up on the second Wednesday of my stay. I continued to take woodcarving until Friday, so I could finish my piece, but added violin to my schedule as well. (The typical VKV schedule is one 2-hr. class and one 1-hr. class, but you can take an extra 1-hr class for a little more money if the scheduling works. It really is a great place; you can learn various Carnatic instruments, cooking, Ayurvedic medicine, different dance forms, Hindi, Malayallam, or Sanskrit, or woodcarving or mural painting. It is an excellent introduction for a westerner into the world of Indian Art.)

My violin teacher was a bit surprised with my high level of playing, I don’t mind telling you. He’d been told that I’d studied western music, but I think most people who played in their high school orchestra ten years ago say they have studied violin. He was rather taken aback when I played through the first 10 exercises without any real difficulty; especially since I couldn’t read the music and was simply memorizing everything he played at me.

Reading the music proved to be the most difficult thing for me throughout the course of my lessons, which is unfortunate really. Carnatic music is different from anything I’ve studied before and I think there are many subtleties that I did not have the opportunity to grasp. Once again, I think the teacher was used to teaching beginners the basics and did not quite know how to teach someone who had such technical control, but no knowledge of Carnatic music. By the time someone reaches my level, if they had been studying only Carnatic music, they will not need a lecture on what Ragas and Thalam are.

The other sad thing, aside from getting only compositions and no interesting lectures, is that my teacher said I could have had my Arengetum (first concert) if I had been there a week longer. And He missed the first week!!! Oh well, it is encouragement to go back. I could have had a mini concert, maybe half an hour, but the pieces would have been poorly prepared and an Arengetum is a big deal. It is a student’s introduction to the Artist’s world, so it is very “inauspicious” to have a bad, or shortened, Arengetum. (Inauspicious is a word that is used a lot around here.)

I feel the need to give a brief explanation about Ragas and Thalam. A Thala is a measure of beats. Adhi Thala is the first one I learned; it is a simple eight-count. You slap your knee with your left palm for one, then count 2, 3, 4 with your pinky, ring and middle fingers respectively. 5 is with the palm again, six with the back of your hand, seven with your palm, and eight with the back. Then you begin again. Easy, right? Within each beat are four quarter beats, but that is simple division and does not need to be physically counted. I am usually pretty good at feeling the beat, but had some trouble with demonstrating this fact using the standard procedure. I had a tendency to count with my index, middle and ring fingers rather than my pinky, ring and middle fingers. Unacceptable!

Ragas are scales, but not like A major or F# minor are scales. Ragas are based on the Satvaswari, or seven notes. These seven notes can be anywhere as long as each relationship between the notes remains the same. Think of Do, Re, Me, Fa, So, La Ti, Do. Except that the notes are called Sa, Ri, Ga, Ma, Pa, Da, Ni, Sa and there are approximately 70 different ways of organizing them where the ascending and descending scales are the same. And they are written in the Malayallam script. (I actually requested him to teach me in the Malayallam script so that if I bought a music book I would be able to read it. I did buy a music book…but it’s in English. Oh well.) Like Do, Sa can be any note and the rest of the scale changes as needed. Sa and Pa are always a perfect fifth apart, but the other notes can be flatted or sharped, or taken out all together, to create the different ragas. It is the taking out of notes that makes improvisation particularly difficult in Carnatic Music. Singers have a particularly rough time with the improvisation because they have to sing the syllable of the note they are playing; I was glad not to have to worry about that. Ragas are fascinating. Certain ragas are supposedly particularly charming at certain times of the day – morning ragas or evening ragas, etc. Some ragas are said to be beneficial to certain organs. For example, an Ayurvedic doctor might tell a patient with a liver disease to listen to compositions in Mohanam Raga. (This was just a random example, I have no idea about whether Mohanam Raga is beneficial to the liver, but it is something I would like to study more. I already have tentative plans to return.)

So, to sum up after that digression: for the week 1 ½ I had 2 hrs of dance and 1 hr of woodcarving; for the second half of the second week, I added an extra hour of violin; for the third week, I dropped woodcarving but convinced Bala to allow me 2 hrs of both violin and dance. But because both my teachers were only available in the morning, I had my dance class from 9-11 and then hurried over to my violin class (in another house) from 11-1 and then ran to lunch. The final three days at VKV were a bit crazy for me. To make up for the hours of missed violin classes, an extra 1 ½ hrs were added in the afternoon, which meant I had a 2 hr dance class, a 3 ½ hr violin class (happily interrupted by lunch) and both teachers expected me to practice. But I survived. It wasn’t actually that bad, I just enjoy making mountains out of mole-holes. I had a great time.