So far yet so near, so near yet so far

THE NET RESULT.

Just as I listened to the soulful rendering of Shri Venkateswara Suprabhatam by M S Subbulakshmi, it occurred to me I must go through its lyrics.

Within seconds I logged on to the internet and in a flash the divine strotams were there for me to read. I was more than satisfied with the roman script that was on offer.

I put on the repeat button on Win Amp and was all ears, once again, trying to catch the Suprabhatam word by word. With the script in my hand I fancied it would be a child's play keeping pace with MS.

It turned out to be a miserable experience.

For the first time I released, how easy maestros make out their works to be. Far from keeping with the rhythm and beat, I was barely able to pronounce the first few words of the strotam, while MS went past me galloping like a horse.

By the time I could put my eyes and hands on the third line, MS was already on to the fourth paragraph.

I gave up.

Enter my wife.

Making a mockery of my attempt she declared, should someone get her a Telugu script, she would show me the way to the nuances of a Dravaidian langauges' phonetics.

Ever the eager student, I jumped up to the new found teacher’s offer and logged on to the internet again. Within seconds my printer was churning out the Telugu script of Suprabhatam from a pdf file.

I wished my latest guru would start of immediately and started looking for a coconut to herald the launch of a new `adhayan.’

But it was school time and the first lesson would have to wait until my two children were safely deposited into the school bus. Okay, I said. Soon the wife took a seat on an elevated platform, befitting a guru, as I squatted on the floor waiting for her to begin. I could give anything to be able to recite the Suprabhatam.

It took less than a few seconds for my wife’s claims to fall flat. She excused herself saying she had promised to send some Dosas to our good neighbours.

There is no question of her accepting defeat, no matter how divine or earthy the issue is.

Anyway, chanting Jai Google, I dipped into another search looking for a Devnagari script in the hope things would come a bit closer to possible with it.

But Google was only as helpful as my wife. I tried for three days and I could not find one script in Devnagari of the divine slokas. There was a Tamil, Mallayam. But not Devnagari. I cursed the Hindi brigade for their antipathy to the internet and silently admired how net savvy the southeners had become.

I then set out on mission to get a copy of the Devnagari version from the market, in Aurangabad (Maharashtra) where I live, convinced the task would be as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack.

I stopped by the first temple that came my way, asked the book vendor under the nearby tree for `Sri Venkateshwara Suprabhatam,’ pronouncing every syllabi ever so gently. Suprabhatam, now what’s that, I half expected him to shout back at me .

I thought he would soon return a look that would make me feel like a fool. Even before I could make a second attempt to help him understand what on earth I was asking for, he thrust a small booklet into my hands. Rs 10/- he announced. As simple as that.

The internet can do wonders.

It gives us access to distant things while it throws the ones near us into oblivion.
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