Ammus Treasures - Flipbook - Page 11
around me. No, not children’s music – there was no such
genre at that time. It was all kinds of music of varying
complexity – Indian classical ragas, western pop, French
chansons, film music, sonorous chants … in so many
languages. Every cell in my body was absorbing these
sounds every hour. I sang inside. I sang outside.
I started singing to my first grandson, Kavi, when he
was just days old. My ritual started with a little chant to
cuddle him, but this little weeks old baby would promptly
fall asleep whatever time of day it was, even if he had just
woken up! Curiously, he wanted the same song many, many
times in a row. (A record was Ash Grove nine times, and his
personal best was Milisse Mou/Children of the Stars 12 times
one night.) And he wanted “so many” songs. I had to delve
into my childhood trove to find my memories … in French,
in Portuguese, in Sanskrit, in English, in Hindi.
The story with my second grandson, Jahnu, was different.
His first critique was, “Ammu, the prayers are tooooo long.”
But recently he heard these chants for the second time, with
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