Less than two bumpy hours later, they arrive in Konam. Goli springs to his feet so that Janaki flies out of his way. Left behind in the queue to disembark, she gets down off the bus and looks frantically for her father. He is making a purchase, a few feet from the door of the bus-ugly, overpriced dolls. “Navaratri dolls!” the vendor is shouting while wrapping and making change. “Beautiful for your golu! Buy them all!”
“Look but don’t buy,” Janaki has been trained by Sivakami; her father clearly has not. His policy seems to be “Buy but don’t look,” she smirks to herself, then rebukes herself smartly.
They ramble toward their host’s house, Goli buying sweets, flowers, magazines, generous with tips, generous with beggars. He keeps asking Janaki if she wants anything. She refuses mutely; he shrugs and buys more. He got paid the day before-Janaki had heard her parents arguing about whom he owes. The argument was short; Thangam fell silent as soon as he yelled.
Before they left the house, Thangam gave Janaki bus fare, which she tucked into the waist of her paavaadai.
They arrive at Goli’s friends’ house, a small bungalow set in a garden, a twenty-minute walk from the bus depot and market square, practically in the centre of town. Goli has not said how he knows these people.
They step over the threshold into the salon, a claustrophobic room crammed with several rattan-strung recliners, side tables with doilies, a mahogany display case full of dolls and the radio. While Gayatri and Minister’s radio stands about two feet, on a table in Minister’s upstairs salon, this one stands on the floor, almost four feet.
Janaki considers the radio the best invention ever. The gramophone she thinks a novelty item at best, though it brings music to those who are non-electrified and non-musical-because of course no machine can take the place of a veena and someone who knows how to play it. Tonight the radio will bring Vani herself, in all her mature genius. Oh, how Janaki has missed this music. Her fingertips throb, her forehead tingles, her heart is doing something akin to salivation as she waits to hear what she has heard so little in the two and a half years since Vani and Vairum moved to Madras. Before radio, only Vairum had the power to bring Vani and take her away.
Goli presents their hosts with dolls, sweets, flowers. The husband emits clucks of delight and dismissal. “Oh, you shouldn’t have!” His wife raises her eyebrows as if smiling. She isn’t. Janaki feels chilled. It has begun again to rain outside.
Goli and the husband sit in the chairs, Janaki in the little floor space remaining, close by the radio. The wife stands behind her husband. Goli does not let slip a single opportunity to remind his hosts of how closely he is related to tonight’s featured performer. The husband is impressed and excited. Janaki thinks maybe that little sneer mark to the right of her hostess’s nose is just the way the poor woman’s face is made. But when their daughter, who is about Janaki’s age, comes in to say good night, the mark dissolves in a face suffused with pride and love.
The daughter sees the guests and asks, “What are they here for?”
In Tamil it is polite to refer to people in the third person, but the girl’s tone is rude in any language. Her mother replies, “Their female relative is playing veena. On the radio.”
The girl raises her eyebrows and scrunches her lips. She returns to the other room.
Goli says, “I’m sure your daughter would love to stay and listen! She can sit with my daughter. Vani, my own sister-in-law, would be honoured.”
The sneer returns as their hostess explains, “We don’t approve of Brahmin women playing in public. We would never permit our daughter to listen to such a display.”
Her husband giggles as though in apology and leaps to switch on the radio, saying, “Not five minutes now! Best give it a chance to warm up!”
The radio’s initial whine and crackle always make Janaki shiver with excitement. Even her hostess, whom she now hates, cannot dampen the electric thrill. The whine thins, the crackle settles like a good fire, and a sombre voice announces: V. Vani.
At the sound of tuning, Janaki closes her eyes to all those around her. The musician is unmistakably her aunt. The program mixes adventurous and conservative choices, though even the best-known songs are made unfamiliar by her aunt’s rhythmic and stylistic innovations. Janaki keeps her eyes shut tight, listening for old favourites and for new songs she herself might learn.
Not bothering with an introductory varnam, Vani launches into an improvisational aalapanai in “Begada Raga,” and then segues into the recital proper with “Vallabha Nayakasya,” a meditative and richly emotional prayer to Lord Ganesha, god of new beginnings. Janaki recalls the little wooden Ganesha that Vairum used to keep in a lamp niche near the entrance of his and Vani’s quarters. Janaki never entered their room but would see the statuette when she climbed the stairs to the roof. The roughly carved little figure was shiny with age, its back blackened with lamp smoke. Once, Janaki, curious, picked it up and was surprised at how light it was. The tiny statue went with her uncle and aunt to Madras when they moved, and Janaki felt that this signified more than anything the permanence of their leave-taking.
The second song in Vani’s program is “Sakala Kala Vani,” a melodious, feminine piece with tightly shaped verses, a tribute to the goddess Saraswati, one of the triumvirate of female deities whose festival they were celebrating. She wraps up the first part of the concert with a song Janaki has never heard. The announcer gives the title, “Chinnan Cheeru Killiyai Kannama,” by Subramania Bharatiyar, whose name, at least, Janaki recognizes. He’s not one of the ancients, but rather a Tamil nationalist poet who died not long before Janaki was born-it was an accident, she thinks, involving an elephant, maybe? Janaki has heard of musicians, recently, setting Bharatiyar’s poetry to music. Listening to Vani now, she is intrigued and frustrated: each time she thinks she starts to get the raga, it seems to change. If Vani only lived with them still, Janaki would have heard her practicing. She might even have been able to play this piece by now.
She opens her eyes slowly. Her host is sitting rapt and respectful. His wife’s sneer has deepened. Possibly, to be kind to her, she is unable to appreciate what she has just heard. Goli is sticking to the line that he is related to a genius.
“Marvellous, wasn’t it? What virtuosity! What excellence of technique! To think, how many times have I heard her in the privacy of my mother-in-law’s village home. And here she is playing for the whole of the presidency more or less. Isn’t that something!” Then he stands, holding his palms together. “Well, we’d better make a move.”
Janaki starts.
Their hostess looks at her and speaks to Goli, “Oh, must you?”
Janaki stammers, “We can’t… the second half…” The announcer had told listeners to stay tuned through the interval-Vani would be playing “Jaggadodharana” on her return, one of her signature songs.
Goli turns on her. “Have some regard for your poor mother. She is home alone. If we stay, we will surely miss the last bus. Thangam will be worried to death.” He turns to their hosts. “My wife is expecting, you know. And, of course, with the demands of my position, it really is not advisable.”
The husband makes weak clucking noises to insist upon their staying, while his wife goes to fetch the vermilion to offer Janaki in farewell. Janaki tries something else.
“But… my grandmother will be very angry if we don’t listen to the whole thing.”