'Master, Your Boy Sings Very Well. Have You Heard Him?'

here was a mosque near our house. During the Ramzan month, one could hear prayers being said in the sunset hours. Once or twice Bhimasena asked his mother what it was. "They are saying mantras and praying," she told him. He was intrigued and curious. One day, when she was busy with household chores, he slipped out of the house. After a while, when my wife realised the child was not around, she panicked. She looked in every corner of the house and did not find him anywhere. Our landlord’s wife, Tungabai, then sent a servant to look for him. He finally peeped into the mosque and found the child there—he had joined the prayer line, standing alongside others who were praying peacefully.

veryday, Bhimasena would come home late from school. No matter how much I asked him for a reason, he evaded a reply. I was concerned.... One day, in the bazaar, when I was passing by the gramophone record shop, its owner, Sri Bhoosadara, called me. He said: "Master, your boy sings very well. Haven’t you heard him? The moment his school gets over he comes and sits in my shop and I play him the Aadisidaleshoda record. He has now heard it so many times that he sings exactly the way it is sung in the record."

nce I went to Kundagol (where Bhimasena had become a disciple of Sawai Gandharva) to see Bhimasena and enquire about the progress he was making. I saw my boy carrying a huge pot of water. His eyes were red; the nerves on his temples were throbbing; he was breathing from his mouth. Yet, he was continuously engaged in fetching water. When I asked him what was wrong, he whispered: "I am running a fever." I could not contain my anger. I went straight to Rambhavu (Sawai Gandharva) and said: "He is running a fever and you have sent him to fetch water." The guru was quiet for a while and then said: "If you have a problem with my method, you are welcome to take your son back home." Bhimasena called me aside: "I am happy here; you don’t worry and don’t raise questions," he said. And he ensured that I quickly left the place.

(Translated from the anthology Nadedu Banda Dari, published by Manohara Grantamala in Dharwad.

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