Anish Nadh’s Blog

We moved to #911, Holy Cross! Music was religion here. I was still in school, and I noticed that the older youth hung out at church on Saturdays playing the guitar and singing together. I was still a noob on the guitar but amongst the kids I was the only one who could play ur guitar!  There was Haniel, Nikhil and Andrew Stringer who played the guitar. They could also tune the guitar by ear! Jayanth uncle was teaching them guitar! 

It was time for us to leave UTC after my parents graduated. My dad joined KCD and was posted in HCC.  UTC had a lot of space to play, kids, trees to climb, I was not very comfortable with the move to Jalahalli. I did adieu to my music teacher Rev. Santosh who I learnt a lot from. He was a treasure trove of Indian classical music. My dad bought a gold ring, to be offered to him. He did not collect fees. His lessons were done free of cost. So I took his blessings and packed my bags to Jalahalli.  I knew Jalahalli was far from school. It would be a struggle travelling. The bags were packed, and we moved. 

I attended Sunday School at UTC. I was introduced to classic songs, a collection of gospel popular songs. I listened and sang these songs that were composed well. My sister and I sang these songs in harmony. The Sunday School was later taken over by Heseti’s dad (I don’t remember his name). He was from Samoa! He strummed the guitar and introduced us to Jacob’s ladder! The UTC kids loved it and sang with much involvement. This was the first place where I saw all of us kids enjoying singing and really getting into it.  The Sunday School happened in the evening on Sundays and my dad decided to take us all to the Malayalam church in Jalahalli. I found it really boring here, the kids were not very musical. My dad asked (commanded) me to teach them some songs. I had some experience teaching songs to church kids from a very young age when my parents did VBS, in some churches in Kerala. I had no choice but to do this, half heartedly.  I missed the UTC Sunday School and hated my dad fo...

At school, there were a few kids so started learning the guitar with private tutors. They learnt a few choruses. There was Johnson, Stephen, Reuben from my class. They all played guitar but Johnson started showing off with his newly learnt Barre chords. He ended up playing for the school because he could barre the F# minor.  He finally ended up being the front man of Slain after Judah, because he could sing as well.  Barre chords were not easy for me. I worked hard, after Johnson showed me how it’s done. It took me about 2 years to get the barre. 

My violin/singing teacher Rev. Santosh started project, in order to Indianise Christian worship! Enter Bhajans. UTC Bhajans were a hit and they wanted another one. Volume 2. I had the opportunity to sing on the track.  I went to the studio, sat through the recording procedure. Judah and Jared’s dad Simon Augustine Sandhy ran a studio. I saw sitar, tablas, voices, violin, flute being recorded. I visually absorbed everything I saw, without asking too many questions. I also saw them composing music.Rev. Santosh would play the notes on the harmonium and Mr sandy would immediately change it into staff notation! He could just do that by ear! The song I sang had the violin intro played by Mr Sandhy! He was a kind and patient man, very busy with his work. Later I learnt he recorded Thermal and a Quarter’s first album!  When it was my turn to sing in the end, i was nervous hearing my own voice on the headphones. That was my first headphone experience, after a lot of corrections and pul...

I could sing quite decently, I decided to be in the school choir. I loved it, learning harmony and all. It was fun, because my school crush Natasha was also in the choir! I went regularly but, the practice time became a problem. I had to choose between playing during recess or going to sing right after lunch.  I chose to play, Leg cricket it was. Also singing got a little monotonous, I didn’t give it my all and got myself kicked out.  No more early morning assembly and singing, no more practices during recess. I was free!  In the assembly there was a senior Tony Das, who played the guitar. He later became my music teacher years later. That will be another blog post. 

Mr. Linus joined my school as a music teacher. He was this virtuosic performer, who could sight read anything and even play difficult pieces. He played “The Entertainer” and all the pop songs for the school choir! He was just amazing!  I also got into acting for a bit in school, and Linus played the background score for us. And he played the  “Puck” song from my music book. Watching and listening him play made me realise what I was missing being stuck with a bad teacher. I’m still looking for Linus, he just disappeared with no social media presence anywhere. Wherever he is now, he must be playing some kickass piano! 

Anand was two or three years older than me and he went to Clarence High school. Along with his school bag, he often had a guitar and a big fiction book that he would be reading.  The girls loved him, I never saw him play with the UTC boys, but he did play tennis from time to time! He had an acoustic guitar! I heard him play very few times, but just him lugging the guitar around raised his status in the bus! He spoke about the Beatles, how he would grow out his hair and marry a foreigner, which he did!  Years later he formed Zebediah Plush, at Christ College, this was around the time Thermal and a Quarter was just picking up! Anand was an amazing guitarist and a singer/ front man of his band. I finally watched him play live with the band, (years later) at Bishop Cotton Women’s Christian College. His band Z Plush, also had a female bass guitar player. We all gathered to see that cute unicorn finger that bass! 

As I said earlier I loved playing this new cool instrument. It was different, the rebel in me detested the Indian classical music and the order of western classical music. Guitar was fun! No rules, you judge the sound you mature on your own!  The vibrations I felt in my body, the pretty girls who loved to sing English songs! I was in Heaven! There were two other senior musicians in UTC. One, a student there he had a funny name, Anand Peacock! I think everyone looked over his name because he could pluck the strings on his guitar! The other one was Rev Oommen’s Son, Anand Varghese! I’ve only heard Peacock play gospel songs, but Anand played Beatles and Clapton. He sure left an impression on me! Maybe that’s for another post.  I was nowhere near their playing ability. That played barre chords and plucked on the guitar. I could barely play the F chord! But I knew the girls loved them! So the 8th standard hormone rich me, embraced the giant guitar wholly! 

Since I was learning, piano, violin, tabla and singing, my dad got my sister a guitar. It was a jumbo Gibtone. The guitar was so huge that the little me was barely visible  behind it. Her guitar teacher was Asongla, a student at UTC from the North East. The students from North East sang their language songs and English songs in harmony, often accompanied with a guitar. Also all the cool kids, especially Ananth Varghese, used to flaunt his red guitar picks.  Asongla taught my sister the guitar at home, but she agreed to teach me as well. She taught me some open chords and I was quick to noticed the D chord was similar to Bryan Adams’ “Summer Of Sixty Nine” I found playing F and C quite difficult.  I loved playing the guitar! I sat by the verandah, pressing my ears against the guitar to feel its vibrations! I got goosebumps playing it. I did not feel the piano or any other instrument vibrate my body as the guitar did! I gravitated more to it.  I ended up practising the...

The UTC main campus had a lawn with a fountain in the middle. One day as we were playing in the lawn, I found a cassette. The cassette cover had a photograph of a tyre with “Bryan Adams, So Far So Good” written on it. I picked it up and took it home. I listened to that tape! I was hooked! I must’ve played that tape a million times! I didn’t understand the lyrics, but the music was out of this world! Nothing like I’ve heard before. My favorite song at that time on this cassette was ‘Run To You’! This was the only form of entertainment for me, listening to Bryan Adams.  One more thing, after I found the casette, the next day, I saw a few kids looking for a casette. They were asking about it to everyone. I knew they were looking for Bryan Adams, yet, I looked away and did not tell them I have it. I actually stole the tape. I felt guilty stealing it and thought about it and decided to return it. But, it was too late. The kids looking for it left the campus and relocated to another coun...

Dev sir, was in his late 40s when he started tabla lessons for me. He would be on time! What good a tabla player are you if you didn’t keep time!  My dad wanted me to learn mridangam, but we bought a tabla! I found the one and half hour lesson boring and didn’t enjoy it. But years later, it came to use when I was trying to figure out rhythmic playing for challenging riffs with Slain and Allegro fudge. I learnt a bit about subdivisions of a beat and phrasing. I learnt tabla for a year. Then, there was no teacher. But the lessons that I got from Mr Dev was priceless. 

 I continued learning Carnatic music with Rev. Santosh who taught me to play the Indian violin. Rev Santosh also recommended to my dad that I learn tabla. So now I was learning piano, tabla and violin.  I vividly recall how we went to shiva musicals where we went to pick up the instruments. My tabla teacher Dev, signed the tablas that I was supposed to pick. Rev. Santosh also helped select a violin and a guitar! The guitar was meant for my sister.  I learnt the instruments and practiced diligently (except the piano) I got really good at it. I won competitions there at UTC and also got a chance to sing on the UTC Bhajans Volume 2. It was kind of like an experiment that Rev. Santosh did, making a Christian Bhajan volume. I sang a Telugu song, it was a very nice experience recording. This was where I met Juda’s dad Simon Augustine Sandhy. Maybe I’ll write about this recording experience in another blog.  Soon Rev Santosh moved abroad and no one over saw the classes and ...

 UTC had many pianos, so they decided to hire a piano teacher, Kaundinya. She was quite old, drove an old Maruti 800. The piano room was located in a dungeon type of a room. You had to go through a flight of stairs to the underground. The only ventilation was a window towards the roof.  Kaundinya was not a great teacher, she gave me the books, that was photocopied and stapled together and said play! I didn’t know what to do. I just read the notes and the numbers from the book, it got way too easier and I practiced it on my trusty Casio SK -1.  I caught Kaundinya catching a wink through my class and didn’t quite learn anything much other than my finger exercises, which was done wrong. I’m still correcting bad piano hands thanks to my new teacher Elizabeth.  But I think I made the best use of my time there and trained on piano for 3 years with hardly any progress. 

We moved to Bangalore in 1996, at the UTC Nandidurga quarters, we were put in St. John’s high school! At the Nandidurga campus, every morning we heard piano, coming from Inko’s house! Inko’s dad was Mallu, mom a Korean. He worked as a librarian there at UTC. I heard Inko’s mom play the piano and teaching Inko to play as well. She also bought a dozen mosambis every single day from the push cart fruit vendor who frequented the campus.  Other than that, there was Benny, tall, long haired cool dude who kept snakes and lizards as pets.who kept practising his bass guitar on the terrace. We never heard a sound from the instrument! Years later I realized that you needed to plug it in to an amp to actually hear it!  We also had Thomas and Amy from Canada. Amy had a music book with her, with a picture of popcorn kernels on the cover page. I remember seeing what the music notes looked like and she was more than happy to explain them to me.  Benny’s sister Sharon, invited us to her p...

 While in KUTS, I changed school to Marion Villa, a convent school. I suddenly had terrorizing sisters! They were ruthlessly strict! We had to write neatly, books to be arranged in the desks neatly, bags on the floor, discipline, discipline, discipline!  But I melted the sisters hearts with my singing! We had a period every week on Friday for extra curricular activities. I gathered courage and sang the song Aji chechi taught me. sister Lourdes loved it so much, she made me sing it to the other sisters. They even put me in the school choir with a microphone right in front of me, I was the smallest in the choir (forever).  I noticed how even the most cruel sisters can be tamed, with just music! I enjoyed bunking classes to participate in the singing practices. I missed a lot of history classes. (I still  blame them for my lack of historic knowledge) Then came a sister from another place, I don’t remember her name. Indian, but her accent and name was like of the foreign...

My parents soon moved to KUTS! They were studying and we had a quarter to us. In the campus were various activities for kids and my parents nudged me to participate in everything.  We also were given a black and white TV and a cycle by someone who was moving out. The Tv had both DD1 and DD2 but the DD2 had MTv airing on it sometimes! It showed Michael Jackson and a lot more artists, but I don’t have much memory of it, as it was not in a language I thought in at that time.  I also vaguely remember Thomas, who was there from America and he could juggle! He played guitar and sang English songs and taught us kids there a few songs. We all learnt those choruses without understanding the meaning!

 I’m not sure who got it down from abroad, but I’m glad somebody did, maybe it was my dad’s friend from Dubai! It was a Casio SK-1!  I was 6 years old, this was my toy! It had a lot of buttons and a demo song that I still remember. It also had a sampler. You could record any sound and use that as a sample to create a song. I spent a lot of time with this instrument. For some reason, my parents did not ban me from using this! I was allowed to play on this as much as I wanted.  This was where I learnt about the pitch. I tried playing the Carnatic songs that I learnt at my mom’s place. It was so easy to figure out the different scale movements. I noticed that the pitch went up to the right and went low towards the left.  I ended up spending a lot of time sampling my own voice saying words as listened to the recording modulate and drop in pitch and tempo while I played the keys. I had this keyboard for a very long time! Even after we moved to Bangalore. 

 My granny would initiate prayer in the morning and at night before they all slept at home. The prayer started with a song, a Bible verse read or recited by everyone, especially the kids followed by a long  prayer! We would be very sleepy between the prayer and my cousin Johnney mostly dozes off in between on all fours.  But the highlight for me would be my granny! Who was never in  the right key! She stuck to her lane! Granny would sound in tune by herself, but it sounded like two different keys! I didn’t know back then what a key was! But I knew both melody was right, but could not be together. I got a kick out of tuning into granny’s key while I ignored the other voices! This was my first harmony lesson.

I think I was in my second standard, I had this opportunity to deliver a Katha prasangam, literally translates to story speech. The story speech is an art form in Kerala where, a story sprinkled with music, with the same tune! It was not easy but I learnt it and recited it! It was quite long and for me to remember it and recite to the students, parents and teachers on annual day was quite a task.  Everyone thought it was cool. There was lot of practice done for this. My cousin Johnney Dev, taught me how to recite it, and we practiced everyday for hours together! Then I recited it first to family, many times! They cheered me on, without any distractions, thank God they had no phones that time. So from then on, I realised that we need to practice, regularly to get good at anything! 

 My Grandfather, after his morning chores and breakfast used to turn on his radio to listen to talk shows, sermons and sometimes music on the radio! I often saw grandpa hitting the radio on the side after fine tuning the device and miraculously it worked! I think most people in my family tap their devices to make them work even now, but it does not work! But the Radio worked like magic.  Grandpa would sit on his easy chair, feet up, listening to radio and he would take a nap while the radio played on some film songs or Carnatic music that blared out of it. I often wondered how he could sleep through all the noise. Sometimes it is the drumming of Chenda we hear from that box! Later they bought a black and white TV and grandpa still preferred the radio as Tv stations worked only at particular time in the evenings when listeners were back from work!  Sometimes, I assisted him to operate the Radio, the volume knobs the tuning of stations! Clockwise the volume increased and an...

Pushpam, she’s my aunt! My mom’s brother’s wife. Today is her birthday and she is 75 today!  When I was a toddler, she used to take care of me and do all the work at home. She was hard working! She always had a song. She would just sing and work, I heard mostly tamil songs from her, she was from colachel, Tamil Nadu.  She always sounded so good! She gravitated more towards Christian devotional songs! I can recall “sondu pokathe maname” sung by her. There was pain in her singing, but that kept her going through her work! The tunes from her were not easy to memorize. So I must’ve heard it a million times to have memorized it. This being her birthday, I just wanted to think about her and dedicate this post! She has definitely played a part in my musical journey!

My cousin brother Johnney Dev, named after Kapil Dev, and short for Devdas, my uncle (granny was a huge cricket fan she named me Sachin and later it became Sachu) started music lessons at home. This was Carnatic music, taught by Issac Paul Singh, now a pastor at a church in Kerala. He taught my brother the harmonium and singing. That was the first music instrument I remember seeing and hearing and put to use. No one was allowed to touch it. The harmonium  could be folded into a small box and popped back up, designed for travelling musicians. It even had Paris reeds in them, sounded too fancy, though I did not know what that meant at that time. The wooden box had some mechanical buttons to release the locks to pop it up, and to get the bellows to fan out. I was quite fascinated and would listen intently as they sang their sa re ga ma pa! After a year of lessons, they celebrated it at home with an arangettam.  I was also introduced to the class. My grand mother being traditional...

I don’t remember the lullabies sung to me, but I remember how the rough dining floor at my mother’s family home felt under my feet, where I was nudged to sing to guests. I was shy, didn’t like to sing, but when someone else sang and got recognized, I felt left out! I was an attention whore. I noticed early, that people who are funny got all the attention, but they ended up offending someone in the process. I was at the butt of jokes sometimes too, but always found a rhetoric comeback, My dad encouraged comical arguments but I was also stared down when it got out of hand. He was strict, at the same time very funny.  Not everyone enjoyed our humour. (I would say dad’s but I enjoyed it with him so I’m in it too). So, singing it was! I sang to be cute. Everyone loved my cute little voice.  I still remember, my older cousin, Aji Chechi (Sebin’s mom) teaching me a Malayalam song. Aadukal noorullorattidayan, a song about a shepherd who had 100 sheep and went out to look for that one ...

I attended one of my best live performances last night. Bryden and Parth. Ujwal, Solomon and I went there early to catch the front row. We had some pizza at Byg Brewsky.  Bryden and Parth blew my mind, while the pretty girl behind me blew my ears. I couldn’t hear the guitars at the front row as all musicians were on in ears and the only thing I could feel was the thump from the kick. After a few songs I moved back and the sound was amazing there.  I have had the opportunity to play with Bryden and this was the first time I see him play his own music. He was at his element, no stressed but relaxed flawless zen like playing with a smile. I am glad to have witnessed it.  Next up is Jacob Collier and Sunday Soul Sante! 

 Yesterday morning I dug a one and a half feet deep pit near our christmas tree, to relocate the passion fruit vine growing on my terrace in a sack. I needed a deeper pit but tree’s roots were quite huge and was not giving way. I settled for the smaller pit size.  At noon, Ujwal and mom helped plant the 15 feet vine. The passion fruit plant gave flowers, but it wasn’t giving fruits while it was in the sack. It had all the nutrition, water and sun.  Maybe it needed more root space to anchor itself, to be grounded. It may wither away, or maybe cows will pull on its leaves killing the plant, rendering this an absolute failure. Similarly, I’m relocating my mindspace, to anchor myself, absorb my nutrients and grow. It’s just slow work in progress. I’ve obsessively taken a big risk with this passion. Pun intended. Maybe I’ll fail, but what if I fly? 

“The extraordinary in an ordinary environment will not shine and is overlooked and undervalued. Go where you are celebrated, not where you are tolerated.” I saw this on a reel yesterday. This was about a violinist, Joshua Bell, a celebrated violinist, played at a subway and did not get enough appreciation for his performance. He made 30 dollars that day. Two days earlier he had played a sold out show!  Often I’m stuck in an ordinary environment where I’m undervalued for my talents, I stopped associating with that space. I’m creating an atmosphere where I’m celebrated and not undervalued and tolerated.  The space I’m creating is not an external space, it’s a mindset. It’s got to do with my routine, my sweat, blood and tears.

Relieved, as it was quite promising, Even though, she wasn’t very good looking Believed that he would recieve more than he gave!  Enjoyed grooming her,  Cared for her with the best,  Cunning, was her second name  At the end of it all, she was just a Bloated Cow

Today was a day to research about being productive. I saw a lot of videos about the topic and I think I have a solid plan now. Finding a routine that works for you and to include all the important things that go on it is but very easy. I’m struggling to sleep on time, waking up is not hard. But I’m afraid I’m not getting enough sleep. 

 For the last one week I had noted down my routine in 30 minute increments! Im going to work on putting the routine in a calendar, just so I don’t miss any important things to do. I have noticed that, I really don’t waste time, but I need to find time to do some important things. This week will be to set my calendar. 

 I went to church today, I’m preparing the Sunday school kids for a singing competition. We will be singing God will make a way, by Don Moen. Looking forward to this.