When she jerked her grey locks yelling “Begin!” to forty of us in her deep though wavering voice, and we commenced on singing “We three kings…” she seemed a formidable high-priestess of good taste. I can spell it out only now, from the vantage point of adult recollection, for what she inspired was a jumble of reactions ranging from admiration to fear during that weekly ritual called “Singing” class. When she played “Whisper a prayer in the morning…” on the upright piano, she seemed elegance personified, and the elegance and yelling seemed irreconcilable traits even to a four-year-old. And as she hurried through the corridors with her bunch of notations—some new, some tattered—I wondered if the beautiful signs on them would ever mean anything to me. They seemed attractive for they seemed to conceal all the pleasures that the sound of a piano could give. Her huge emerald ring...and then how one fine day all her hair turned jet black... those are my earliest memories of Miss Kanade, as we used to call her.
Those of us who had sisters or cousins for predecessors in school quickly learnt and told everyone else that she had been given the sobriquet “Princess Margaret” once upon a time. She had the same hairstyle as the princess in her youth, and had once performed before her. And then there was the other story of how being told “Miss, you are looking good today,” would invariably flatter her. M— told me the story, and once even greeted Miss Kanade like that as I stood by, to elicit a wave of the hand accompanied by, “ O, that’s an old compliment!” before she vanished into her room in the school building, outside which was a little board with “The Den” inscribed on it… so they say… for when I finally had the chance to check for the inscription, it was no longer there. Then there was the Sound of Music legend. Her stage-production of The Sound of Music was part of CGHS* lore, and as she taught us the songs from the film, one could tell they had a special place in her heart. As I watched her play with her heart and soul, the loose flesh of her arms jiggling at every movement, I could almost imagine her doing the same with the gracefulness of youth.
Other ‘public’ memories of Miss Kanade abound—memories of Investiture services and Founders’ Day services in the Thoburn Methodist Church on hot summer days. Who knew how one might miss the spirited intricacies of Miss Kanade’s rendition of the School Song, or the rousing notes of “Now thank we all our God” years afterwards?... And in other climes... Or even in the later years of school, when she had left. In her farewell speech she had said that people must retire and make way for others just the way furniture must be replaced from time to time. And so she went, and the pianos never sounded the same again.
Who knows with what courage, but I went to her to ask if she would teach me to play the piano. I was six years old then, and hadn’t even asked my parents. She said she would, if we bought a piano. I knew that that wasn’t possible. So I contented myself with watching Miss Kanade closely as she played while we sang, for she was grace itself on the piano. She taught me without my knowing then that piano-playing was truly as much to be watched as to be listened to.
As we kept taking singing lessons from her over the years, I sometimes wondered if she remembered the little girl, one of many little girls perhaps, who had asked her for piano lessons. It was her last year in school. We were lining up near the piano as usual in groups of four for the test in singing. The other three in my group had louder voices, and I was just recovering from a bout of pharyngitis and feared being drowned out. And I was. We had to sing her favourite from The Sound of Music, “The hills are alive…” When we finished, she said, without turning, “Sing again, Durba, you weren't yourself... maybe drink a little water first?” So she associated my name with a voice!
I had fallen in love with the piano when I was about two-and-a-half-years old, when I began attending the kindergarten school everyone in our extended family went to. At both schools I attended, I would tinkle at the pianos whenever I got half the chance. And then, literally dreamt of pianos for years. I dreamt the same dream till I was about 24, till I found a way to take piano lessons without buying a piano right away. Above all, it was bliss to be able to finally play La Paloma, that my fingers had itched to learn for years.
It was about the same time that I decided to go on a trekking trip to Darjeeling, and having heard that Miss Kanade was then teaching at Mount Hermon School, Darjeeling, made up my mind to meet her, and perhaps tell her I was finally learning, even if twenty years late. MHS was founded by Emma Knowles, after whom my ‘house’ in school was also named, so all the more reason for a pilgrimage. All I ended up seeing were the impressive school precincts, for with the school closed for some reason, there was no one at the gate whom I could ask about Miss Kanade’s whereabouts. The Queen of the Hills was still pretty, and it seemed as though postcards that survived in memory from my first visit when I was four (two years before I asked Miss Kanade for piano lessons:) were leaping into life all about me, and the trek in Rimbik, and the trip as a whole, were very enjoyable. Returning to the din of Calcutta, I inquired among old friends for news of Miss Kanade for naught, and after about a year, just after coming to New York, learnt that she had passed away. So the little girl shall never tell her that she is finally playing. Or that whatever vignettes of her survive in her memory are so vividly compelling that even if Miss Kanade never knew about it, she did teach her to play.
Gloss:
* CGHS: Calcutta Girls' High School
© Text: DURBA BASU 2009
