The roots · ಬೇರು
Namaste.
Before I speak about my musical journey, I must speak about my family. After all, a plant cannot exist without its roots, can it? They are my roots.
My father, P. Narasimha Upadhya, was the headmaster of Gundibail Higher Primary School, and retired after long service. He was a teacher by profession and by nature, and he lived his life as one.
His wife, V. Kamalakshi, was a teacher at Kadiyali school. In the Mela, she looked after every child as if they were her own.
My father had a dream: that children should accompany children’s singing on the instruments, and give concerts together. Children who sing can be found in every town. Children of the same age who can play the accompaniment are very rare. So he trained his own two sons for it. That was a bold step, and the problem never came up again!
Ours is not a family of musicians. He had an irrepressible wish to learn music and to teach it. He learnt only after he became a teacher, and then began teaching at home. He taught me too. I was in pre-primary school then.
Through the 70s and 80s he also travelled every Saturday and Sunday to teach music in different places. Along the way he came to know two scholars, both from Durga in Karkala: D. Vishwanath Pathak, a violinist, and Shrihari Marathe, a mridanga player. He began inviting them home to teach the instruments. And this chance to learn was open not only to the children of the house, but to the children of the village too.
