February 7, 2023
Drumming my worries away
The past five weeks have filled me with a wide range of emotions. When I first landed here, I was filled to the brim with excitement and anticipation for the opportunity to not just learn as much as I could during my time here in Bangalore, but to also leave here with some sense of accomplishment and the feeling that I contributed something meaningful. I was full of energy and felt ready to tackle any problems that would be thrown at me.
Fast forward to the end of week five, and I’m left feeling lost, homesick, and depressed with where I currently am and what the future may hold. I am starting to doubt myself and what I can accomplish on this trip, and that is not a great feeling to have. Perhaps this is just the midway slump that everyone warned me about from the beginning, and in a week from now I’ll have bounced back with energy and optimism once again.
Regardless of whether this is just a part of the process and a normal way to feel, I had to find a way to address my current feelings and work out a solution to help keep my mind at ease. In that regard, I decided to do what any privileged foreigner that wants to feel better would do: waste a bunch of money on something I probably didn’t need.
Today I visited Karunya Musicals, a music store run by Dr. K. Varadarangan, with the intention of checking out and potentially purchasing a new mridangam. The mridangam is a two-sided drum that plays an integral role in the world of Carnatic Music, which is the classical music genre of South India. One problem, however, was that I already owned 6 of these mridangams at home. As badly as I wanted to throw my money away, I doubt my parents would be enthusiastic about a 7th mridangam joining my collection without reason. Fortunately, there was something special about Karunya Musicals and what Dr. Varadarangan was doing: the drums he was selling were completely vegan, devoid of any animal cruelty in the process of making the instruments. Dr. Varadarangan is extremely passionate about ending animal cruelty in India and decided to dedicate his time to removing cruelty from the world of music. The mridangams were completely synthetic and even had some quality-of-life improvements to the traditional mridangam, such as easier tuning and a lighter weight. Armed with the excuse I needed to check out the store, as well as a respect for what Dr. Varadarangan was doing, I enthusiastically ran in and purchased myself a new mridangam.
I ran back to the hostel, content with my new drum and pleasantly surprised at its quality and build; it was hard to notice any drop in tonal quality when compared to traditional mridangams. I still feel lost with what I need to do and what the future holds, but for the time being, I am content with banging away my problems and leaving the worries for another day.
