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Kala Ramesh

The Artist

          thirty years
          just painting
          lilies . . .
          a story behind each stroke
          of Monet's white paint

Maya remembers her first concert, which she performed ten years back and which is still as fresh as the breath she inhales: She begins with a slow composition in raga Shyam Kalyan. As she unfolds each note and works around the permutations and combination of the raga, she sees heads nodding; she’s eager to give her best. Her glides with sweeping gamaks turn out well. Her fast passages quicken the pulse of the audience. That perfect note, which when she was a student seemed like a razor’s edge, suddenly flattens out like a table-top. Sprawling and vast is the space. Her play with the lyrics and the synchronisation of the raga with the rhythmic cycle all blend into one whole, coming together effortlessly. It is an open air auditorium and it is as if the night has turned into an inverted stage, with stars keeping the beat. She feels each note run through her fingers, like touching good old mother earth. The warmth it lends to one’s being. The expansive freedom, yielding more space within and without.

Maya takes a fresh, deep breath and holds a high note in perfect pitch and in perfect balance and rhythm. The tabla player, her percussionist, nods his head. A deep surge of emotion blinds her vision. Her eyes close, disconnecting her from the world around her while she remains alive to the void that fills her being.

                    with feet
                    pushing the ground,
                    she takes wing . . . 
                    the sky of a thousand ragas
                    draws her in like magic

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About the Author

Kala Ramesh is a renowned pioneer in the field of haikai literature in India. Her 2017 book Beyond the Horizon Beyond was awarded a Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize Certificate.