Dancing to Mamma’s beats

By Himanshi

On a beautiful rainy afternoon, I am reciting teentaal and dance notes in gavati lahara (melody) while tapping my feet hard with aanthgun (x8) tatkar speeds.  This systematic practice of major elements of singing and reciting and keeping track of a taal, tapping on beats with a specific speed (x8 or x12 or x16), comes together to give me an ‘elevated’ feeling, one quite spiritual.

An hour into this immense practice, a chorus of soft voices reciting Dha Dhin Dhin Dha repeatedly shook my focus. I stopped and turned to find my two little munchkins, Tej (3 years) and Yash (2 years), reciting teentaal while playing with their trucks.

Each day as I practiced, they repeated my reciting. I even started hearing them saying beats randomly while playing, on car rides, and so on.  The order of beats was not perfect but I was amazed at how much these little sponges could pick up and remember!

The fact they picked it up so well motivated me to correct them on their order. So every morning I recited teentaal while driving them to school and was amazed at how easily they learned to correct themselves. In two weeks Tej got the order of beats right, and in a month, Yash.  Gradually they started enjoying the taal reciting so much that Tej asked, “What about 17 beats?10 beats? Can we do those?”

I dance Kathak, a classical Indian dance form primarily based on tabla beats.  Tabla is a set of Indian drums—teentaal and all other taals are played on the tabla with bare fingers, not drum sticks or anything.  Amazing how fingers can do the work of sticks and create mind blowing sounds where each beat transfers such a specific feeling to a dancer that she just dances away tirelessly on and off the beat, creating another wave of sounds with ghungroos (ankle bells), and adds body movements with abhinaya (expressions).

“What is this going to do for you, now that you have kids? What will they learn from it?”— some of the questions my family asked when I initially started pursuing Kathak, my passion. My honest response was, “Well I will be able to teach them many important things: discipline, practice, perfection, consistence, mathematics, science, and the ability to transition deep into your own soul for a specific time each day, and feel ‘elevated’.”

Six months after Tej and Yash started learning taals and observing my practice more, a thought triggered that it would be great to take them to an Indian musical instrument exploration session that allows kids to touch and feel the instruments and watch a demo.  I couldn’t find any at the time and thought to at least take them to observe some classes instead.  So I started taking Tej, who was 4 by then, to observe tabla classes from various teachers locally.  He started to like them as I explained that the beats/taals he had been saying in fact came from this particular instrument.

As time progressed and his itch to actually learn tabla grew, we decided to have him try tabla classes for a short time. Typically any music teacher or school will take students 6 years of age and above. Luckily we found a teacher and school who took the time to understand my son’s drive to learn, my desire, and our approach of having the kids explore, find and pursue their passion early on.

So Tej learned for three months at New England School of Music (NESOM).  He was doing so well that in the middle of summer session, as per his teacher’s recommendation, he performed at the yearly school festival—the youngest student to do so.  Performance aside, the important thing is he’s learning, counting and adding beats—thus learning mathematics while having fun creating sounds! Daily he is excited to practice, get better at it, and asks for new lessons.

Along with this Yash started picking up some tabla lessons from Tej.  It had been over a year and we saw them randomly play on their books, dining table, wherever they were sitting.  It’s awesome to see them freely express their inner beats! With Yash though, I started noticing something different in his interest in music.

While I dance, I recite my Kathak notes and compositions in specific lahara—which comes out nicely as if I am singing.  These waves from my reciting trigger Yash to sing along the lahara with open throat.  When I put them to sleep I sing soothing bhajans (devotional songs), which he picks up word for word in that tune. He randomly sings either the laharas or the bhajans he has heard.

Yash turned 3, and by that time we were able to find an open house at another Indian music school. When I took Yash to the vocal class, he was so drawn to the teacher who was playing harmonium (freestanding keyboard instrument) with tabla metronome, while several kids were following along.  He stopped eating his apple and sat unmoved throughout the 20-minute demonstration, constantly observing instrument, teacher and students’ lip movements singing Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa (Hindustani vocal notes). Just from this open house he picked up the notes and started singing them immediately after the class while we were meeting musicians and other parents.

With Yash we  took the same approach as Tej, and luckily found a well-trained teacher who was very enthusiastic about teaching Hindustani vocal to young tots. He started three months ago and also had his first performance.  It is great to see him enjoy it so much that he sings his lessons anytime he feels like.

Along with Tej and Yash, I also took the opportunity whenever I saw my 6-month-old nephew Himanshu, to recite taals into his ears. He enjoyed the repeated pattern of beats so much that three months later he randomly started saying the beats… Dha Dha Dhin. He is now a year old, and when he saw the tabla he started playing his little fingers on them!

Over this period, I also had the chance to perform at our school Chhandika Chhandam Institute of Kathak’s annual show this year. It was such a great feeling to see my family and friends at the show–Tej and Yash sat in the front row saying “Mamma” loudly when I entered the stage.  This day stayed in their minds such that whenever they see any dance performance anywhere they ask me, “Mamma, why didn’t you dance?”  It also helped them be confident to get on stage fearlessly during their own performances.

With this, I am continuing to progress into dancing faster speeds and more taals, along with more complex compositions.  And I am happy to see my progress is constantly motivating my kids to practice regularly and learn more!