Welcome! After a lot of dawdling in my mind for months regarding putting pen to paper, I am finally taking the first step. I would like to straight off credit my friend Arjun and his excellent post on the legendary Mridangist Sri Umayalapuram Sivaraman in his blog Sankirnam for having finally inspired me to make this blog a reality.
As of this moment in time and space, I intend this blog to be an expression of my thoughts regarding Music (and more specifically Carnatic Music), Writing and any other facet of the Fine Arts that might catch my fancy. Of course, the mind being a fickle servant, all of this can change in an instant due to the vagaries of life.
So what is Chaturashram and why Chaturashram? For anyone having even a smidgeon of knowledge regarding rhythm cycles in music, Chaturashram refers to the universal 4 beat rhythm cycle on which almost 90% of the songs and compositions of any musical genre are based. The etymology of Chaturashra can also be traced to the Sanskrit word for the number 4 - Chatur or Chatvari.
Coming to the question of "why", I have had an endless fascination with the number 4 throughout my life for a multitude of reasons. If Sunday is considered as the "first" day of the week in many cultures (Adityavara, Adi=Beginning), Wednesday has always been the "best" day of the week for me, not to mention the insignificant fact of yours truly also being born on a Wednesday! The number 4 has always represented stability, continuity and consistency for me, the "evenness" of the number cancelling out any rough edges or "oddities" so to speak.
I have been blessed to learn and study the Mridangam, the primary percussion instrument in Carnatic or South Indian Classical Music, and the first lesson that a student learns from his Guru or teacher are the 4 fundamental strokes Tha, Dhi, Thom, Nam. Taking this one step further, in the rhythm cycles or "Talas" in Carnatic music, every beat is considered an "Akshara", and each Akshara typically has 4 sub-units called "Matras". And finally, a thorough mastery of the "Chaturashra gati" is considered a strong pre-requisite before exploring other rhythm patterns such as Trishram(3), Mishram(7), Khandam(5) and Sankirnam(9).
I could go on on rambling about the significance of 4 in my life with absurd inanities such as owning 4 watches, always trying to find the 4th parking spot in any parking lot and lamenting the hours spent with the comb in trying to make my forehead resemble a rectangle. But at the end of the day, 4 is the number closest to my heart, and something that pushes me to strive for that even-keel pace of life that I constantly covet. So join me on this journey of exploring Chaturashram and the even-keel pace of life together!
