My sister pushed me into this one. I resisted, the way siblings tend to do.
Then I began attending weekend classes, and something shifted. For one hour at a time, I was not anywhere else. Not in the grief, not in the logistics of the week, just sa-re-ga-ma-pa-dha-ni-sa, up and down, over and over, until it finally sat right.
Madhura ma’am and Mona ma’am were on the other end of that hour, every single week, patient, warm, endlessly encouraging.
I was one of hundreds of students they have taught over the years. I doubt they know how much those weekends meant to someone quietly finding her way through some of the darkest months of her life, one scale at a time.
Performing, even just for an hour, in a small room, brought me back into the present. That alone was a gift I had not anticipated.
Dear Madhura and Mona ma’am,
Thank you for your patience, your warmth, and for treating every rehearsal as though it was the most important thing in the world, because it was, for me. Thank you for the musical weekends that gave me somewhere else to be, even briefly. All those moments added up and took me much ahead in my healing journey.
With deep gratitude,
Shaweta
PS: To read more on Music Therapy and Healing, see below
Albergato-Muterspaw, Francesca. “The Role of Music in Healing and Grief Processes of Bereaved Adult Learners.” Doctoral dissertation, The Pennsylvania State University, 2 Mar. 2009. https://etda.libraries.psu.edu/catalog/9699
Merrill, Kelly, Jr., Erica Catron, and Sally O. Hastings, et al. “Uses and Gratifications of Music in Bereavement: A Qualitative Inquiry.” Omega — Journal of Death and Dying, vol. 90, no. 3, 2 Sept. 2022. https://doi.org/10.1177/00302228221121490