Ammu Book1108-digital - Flipbook - Page 11
around me. No, not children’s music – there was no such
genre at that time. It was all kinds of music of varying
complexity – Indian classical ragas, western pop, French
chansons, film music, sonorous chants … in so many
languages. Every cell in my body was absorbing these sounds
every hour. I sang inside. I sang outside.
I started singing to my first grandson, Kavi, when he was
just days old. My ritual started with a little chant to cuddle
him, but this little weeks old baby would promptly fall asleep
whatever time of day it was, even if he had just woken up!
Curiously, he wanted the same song many, many times in a
row. (A record was Ash Grove nine times, and his personal
best was Milisse Mou/Children of the Stars 12 times one
night.) And he wanted “so many” songs. I had to delve into
my childhood trove to find my memories … in French, in
Portuguese, in Sanskrit, in English, in Hindi.
The story with my second grandson, Jahnu, was different.
His first critique was, “Ammu, the prayers are tooooo long.”
But recently he heard these chants for the second time, with
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