The voice within

In India, the Guru Shishya parampare is the traditional way of learning or acquiring knowledge. Even if it is the vedas, music or medicine, the knowledge was passed on by the Guru to his/her disciple in small amount for a long period of time. The Guru always has the capability to understand the capacity of a student and decides how much a student can learn. If a Guru is unhappy with his/her student, he/she might not teach anything but give an opportunity to assist them. A disciple completely surrenders to the Guru and offers "seva" in return for the knowledge. source: google images "Vidya" or "knowledge" is expressed as a sacred blessing in India, for which, a Guru used to choose his disciples carefully. A fear that the disciple may misuse his/her teachings, would make them teach only to family members. The outsiders accepted as disciples would be taught very less and only an exceptional talent could master a top level of knowledge by sheer perse...

Music therapy exists all over the world from a very long time. It is one of the ancient healing therapy. The pitch from a pitch pipe itself gives a kind of peaceful feeling. Music therapy today, is used by professionals to treat their patients who generally suffer from stress. Traditional Indian music is known to be therapeutic. The ragas and talas of Indian classical music are known to give peace of mind and help release the stress from the body. This is called as raga chikitsa (treatment from ragas). Many of my friends say that old Hindi songs make them feel better. For me it isLata Mangeshkar 's mellifluous voice that makes me happy. The vocals, notes, pitch, tune , rhythm patterns, all these are analysed for a particular person for music therapy. Many doctors and musicologists have done extensive studies on music therapy. Not only humans benefit from music therapy but one can reap a good harvest if a farmer plays music in the fields which is simply amazing! Jahnavi ...

Gotu Vaadya is one of the ancient instruments of India. There are very few people who play this instrument. This instrument is also known as Chitra Veena. source:http://kksongs.org/instruments/citra_vina.html Gotu vaadya has minimal information of its history. Samudragupta of Gupta dynasty was an expert in playing this instrument. It is said that this instrument was known during 370 A.D. Gotu vaadya is generally made out of Jack wood. The wooden spherical bowl closed on the top with a wooden plate is the resonator ( reference: Musical Instruments by B.C.Deva). The instrument is kept horizontally and played. The naagapaasha which is a piece of wood at the tail end of the resonator is used to tie the strings from the pegs fixed in the head. The edges of Gotu Vaadya is usually made with ivory. Very well known artists of Gotu Vaadya are Usha Ramamurthy, N.Ravi Kiran. Jahnavi I'm participating in a to z challenge

Sometimes, no matter how much we try to blend with the materialistic world, we do capitulate to feelings and emotions. After-all, we are humans and not machines. Reading and music is therapeutic at times. well, at-least for me, it is. It is peaceful.  I like to read short stories, vaudeville, fiction, fantasy and so on. I grew up counting the fan mails my mom would receive for each and every article/story/poem she wrote. I always read articles/blogs that my mom has written and somehow I like them so much that I keep reading them again and again.  Recently I came across a haiku and it was very meaningful. So much of thought has been put into it. It is called a slaking song . I also noticed that some writers keep writing about death a lot. Every story ends in death. Writing that she shot him, he shot her, she committed suicide, he fell off a tower, he/she had cancer and making others around you die, little do these people think about their own death, they never think about...

The beginning of the year 2014 was filled with worries and sadness for me. Every day was just passing by and I completed my part time job. I had nothing else to do other than taking care of myself. It hurts when you get injured because of something else and it was not your fault. Worries occupied me completely. One of my hobby is to paint. I started to paint but worries and sadness would not go away. Slowly arrived , the month of March. My parents called my uncle and aunt, we went out for lunch on my birthday, I was a little happy at that moment but started to feel low again. My uncle called my dad the next day and asked us to join them for a concert at vanaranga. It was a Sarod-Veena jugalbandi from Pandit Rajeev Taranath and Veene Vidwan D.BalaKrishna. D.Balakrishna is the son and disciple of  Veene Doreswamy Iyengar and is an authentic practitioner of the Mysoorubaani in veene. The percussionists were Vidwan Anooru Ananthakrishna Sharma on the Mridanga and Pandit Udayaraj Ka...