AMAZEMENT FOR THE DAY

This came to me via my OTHER prolific e-mailer friend, Amar Talwar. It features the talents of eight people who use their voices alone to simulate all the musical instruments necessary to produce an astonishingly diverse medley of music.

This makes me wonder if the day may come when my particular vocal talent will find an audience ... *grin* ... I have for some years specialized in imitating The Song of the Humpback Whale.

My very first performance left an indelible impression on some guests who were visiting my mother, at her home in Madras. I had recently heard the NatGeo vinyl record insert that had come along with our subscription copy of the magazine, of the Humpback Whales' astounding vocalizations. This was waaaaay back ... in those dim days when every house actually had a working turntable and "music system" for playing LPs and EPs and other quaint flat discoid media. A couple of days later, I turned the TV on -- and there was the same NatGeo programme, this time with a video of the whales' performance! It was only natural that I should feel inspired to sing along, right?

Alas, I failed to notice that my mother was sitting in the adjoining drawing room, with a pair of Exceptionally Respectable (translation: uptight to the max) visiting relations -- not close family and no-one related directly to me -- drinking a morning cup of tea and making soft-voiced remarks about how best to straiten laces and stiffen upper lips. But their efforts were gradually drowned out entirely by my unearthly howls.

As the relatives sat with their faces turning many shades of pale green, perhaps fearing an imminent invasion of humpback whales, my mother stammered, "... that's my youngest daughter. Visiting from Bombay, you know. An artist ..."