Srishti Outside Srishti
A Date with Krishnamurthys
“Sir, when can I pick you up both to spend some time together at our place?” asked a reverberating voice on the phone. Yes, it was Krishnamurthy of B-103, now at a fifteen-minute drive from my place in California. The drive was filled with Lalgudi Jayaraman’s impeccable violin rendering. One could pick the words he was playing. An accredited hostess, Hemaji welcomed us at the doorstep, and guided us to their spacious drawing room.
“That is a galaxy of musical instruments,” I said as though we had stepped into a music director’s studio. “Yes, I owe it to my mother from whom I learnt harmonium, and later piano. The keyboard at the corner is just an offshoot of piano. The Harmonica (mouth organ as I have known it to be) is a professional one and from Germany. And the host of flutes on the top shelf has been presented to me by my ‘Guru’, Mr Radhakrishnan of A-503, when I expressed my interest to learn the instrument,” Apparently it took Krish much less time than us, ordinary mortals, to learn the nuances of flute. His gradual meandering into film music however didn’t go well with his mentor, Krish felt. But film music - be it Hindi, Tamil, or a little of Malayalam – ran in his family blood.
That took us to a live performance, or Chamber music, if you wish to call it. During the morning walks in Srishti, I had hinted to him of a modest knowledge of old Hindi film songs. To test it, one day he played a lullaby from a less known Hindi movie, and challenged me to identify the song. I succeeded. It was from the film Albela: Aaja er, Aaja re Akhiyan mein, nindiya aaja re, aaja. He began with that very commemorative number that had bonded us together.
A series of film tunes of different languages and select clippings of Carnatic songs was followed by a 360-degree tour of their magnificent house. The backyard has trees bearing plums, apricot, an American fruit, and lots of lemons/limes. On an average they get about 10 000 plums a year. Unfortunately the plum season was over. Hemaji collected a bagful of limes instead for us to make pickle at home.
The impact of the initial refreshments served – juice and cashewnuts – having diminished in the interim, Hemaji surfaced from kitchen with kachhoris, pudina chutney, and large bowls behl puri, prepared with professional touch. A real change from the rice-sambar or roti-subzi for lunch, I said to myself. We both complimented Hemaji for the excellent preparations and for serving some exclusive-Bangalore snacks.
Clarifying on the presence of Bangalore snacks, she confided that Dr Sundar, Shobha, and their entourage had visited them a few days earlier. Dr Sundar, it seems, was preoccupied with his professional commitments in San Francisco and Vancouver. Too bad what little time Dr Sundar had to spare, they decided to allot it totally to the Krishs; otherwise Krishs, Gautams and us could all have met the Sundars, be it for a while, my mind wandered.
That turned the discussions around Srishti. Krish is lavish in his praise for the good in others. His nice words for Mr Radhakrishnan apart, once when Krish wished to book train tickets on internet and could not for want of a credit card of a bank that IRCTC would accept, Mr Srinivasan, of A-Block, booked the tickets on his laptop and paid it through his SBI credit card. If ever Krish happened to go with Mr Rajaratnam the latter would insist on carrying Krish’s bag. Krish is bowled by the suave manners of Mr Harihara Sarma who would adopt a line of least resistance in discussions during the morning walks. And he considers Mr Rao a walking encyclopaedia, be it the byelaws, property tax, computer technology, or a political debate. And, from the younger generation, if I had Mr Gautam to help me set up a blog of my own or in other aspects of computer operations, the Krishs had their next door neighbour Jaya, Sanjay’s wife, to rush to them for help. The chat went on and on, until suddenly we realized it was time for us to go back, and equally so for Krish to pick up his grandson from school, after dropping us.
On reaching home, we recapitulated the happy moments only to realize that the bagful of limes still lay in their backyard. Engrossed in the discussions of Srishti, both the couples had forgotten all about it.
08 November 2010
