A long, long, long…very long hiatus. It’s been almost a month since I wrote a blog. I’m a moody writer I guess and routine bores me. Ok, I know discipline is the mother of perfection and I have nothing to justify this long literary absence although I’ve been occupied on other fronts. Foremost, I’ve started learning vocal classical music. This is a muse I’ve tried to tame since childhood. I love to sing. And I haven’t been singing properly. My voice is good, I easily understand the nuances of rhythm, but there was a refinement that was always lacking and this lack was almost turning into disrespect. I needed to fill this lacuna of musical illiteracy.
I had hired a teacher a few years ago. Just when I had begun to find my groove, I began to mistrust her. She had different explanations for the same notes. I didn’t have a trained background but on and off music has always been a part of my life so I was not totally blind to her gaffes. I could remember what she had said a month ago that was totally different, and this shook my faith in her.
I admire the teacher I have hired this time. He is a retired music director from the government television broadcasting system: Doordarshan. The good thing is that we are both impressed by each other. He believes I have the pakad (grip) on music and can achieve a lot and I believe he knows his stuff. I like his approach too. Along with making me practice the finer notes, he is helping me strengthen my vocal chords and insists that my lungs should be strong too, and my voice should come out like a lion’s voice. A classical recital by a lion would be a roaring success 
.
Other than practicing regularly (I try, I try!), I help Alka when she takes her tuition classes. Initially I had thought I’d allocate only two hours just to teach math to two ninth-standard students and an eighth-standard student, but I end up spending almost four hours because the students are really dull in terms of knowledge as well as motivation. Can you imagine an eighth-standard or a ninth-standard student not being able to calculate 4/5 + 3/7 ? This is the standard of education they get in their schools. Teaching them is an emotionally tiring business.
I’m also concentrating on my web designing work full throttle. Just finished a portal project in one month (http://www.itindex.net). A team of four programmers had taken almost three months and still hadn’t completed the job when the client was referred to me. I told him I’d build everything from the scratch.
Apart from this project I have some continuing work and more work in the offing.
So where does it leave my reading and writing? I think, knowing me, I’ll streamline everything in a few weeks. I need to clap together the fragmented timeframes that go unutilized. I’m sure I can squeeze out two more hours.
