Unequaled Music

One deceptively sunny morning, where defiant sunlight penetrated through dark matted clouds, mama decided that it was time for her little girl to start learning piano. The sun of course did not have any part to play in the larger scheme of things, other than in perhaps granting a deliberately vivacious mood to mama. She argued to papa that as they already had a piano, all they needed was a teacher to teach it. Mama knew piano was too grandiose a term. What they had in their house was just an old electronic keyboard, a present (or a hand-me-down if you will) from a generous friend, who was rich or ambitious enough to buy the authentic piano – the grandiose one – which had seven octaves, three pedals, and a shining black body. Mama painstakingly counted the five octaves on her dusty keyboard, noted the lack of pedals, and imperceptibly shook her head. But her keyboard was shaped like a piano all right. It had a wooden frame with three wooden legs and even had a top flap which opened on brass hinges. And mama knew that one didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

So mama called the piano teacher. She said she wanted her little girl to have personal piano lessons. The teacher was ready to come. They fixed the time and date.

The teacher was a soft-spoken lady. Mama liked her and the way she patiently taught the little girl. So after the first class was over, when the little girl rubbed her flexed thumbs and sore pinkies, and made faces, mama asked the teacher whether she can teach her too. The teacher was a bit surprised and asked why. Mama, perhaps a trifle too enthusiastically, explained that she always wanted to play Beethoven’s Fur Elise and Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. The teacher laughed kindly. Let us start with the C, she said.

For the next two weeks, mama and little girl practised bravely and monotonously the notes of C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. They tried it in all octaves to break the humdrum, but that was about the only variety they knew. The little girl started carrying a pillow to her practice sessions. Mama tried to sort out the intricacies of semibreves, minims, dotted minims, and crotchets, nursing an almost forgotten, two-decade-old memory of guitar classes, while the little girl took patient naps by her side.

Time to learn a song, the teacher decided after the first two weeks. Mama perked up. Teacher played “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” quite brilliantly on the old keyboard. And her voice was mellifluous too. If mama was a bit disappointed at the unpretentiousness of the song, she did not show it. The next week saw mama and little girl playing the rhyme ad nauseam much to papa’s consternation. He grumbled that he did not bargain for two cacophonic renderings of a stupid nursery rhyme, or else they could have had another child. Mama asked him to stop sulking and sing along. Papa feigned deafness.

Two weeks went by and a Baa Baa Black Sheep was added to mama’s meager repertoire. She boasted to the teacher that she had played guitar when she was in college. The teacher condescendingly agreed that that training would stand in good stead while playing piano. Mama beamed. Teacher taught her another song – Mary had a Little Lamb. Mama dreamed of being a Chopin.

That evening, papa came in all exhausted from drudging work and there was mama and little girl by the keyboard. Mama was gingerly playing the strains of the newly learnt song and little girl was boisterously singing along – “And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.” Papa kept his laptop on the table and joined in, giving in finally. “He followed her to school one day” – papa sang in an affected tenor. Mama closed her ears and laughed. The little girl danced along. Music is indeed the food of love – even if papa, mama, and little girl did not have a taste for it.