It seems there are a lot of holidays in India but not all of them are ones that mean the children get out of all school activities. Whilst there was no assembly and no formal class time there we activities throughout the day for them. I was just about to settle down to update the blog when one of the older boys came to find me and ask me to bring my recorder. I dutifully followed only to discover that I was going to orchestra practice, they were setting up a seat for me next to the first violins to rehearse Gustav Holst’s St Pauls Suite. It is not exactly written for the recorder so there were parts that I simply couldn’t play and other parts that needed to change the octave. I dont think I did a bad job of it really - the hardest thing in this heat is staying in tune. I have also found myself showing lots of children pictures of bassoons on the internet, as a music school they lean very heavily toward stringed instruments perhaps leaving a few recorders and books behind might inspire some of them to learn the clarinet/oboe/flute as well - I can only hope.

After orchestra practice we all gathered together to sing happy birthday down the phone to Anup’s father-in-law, sadly he couldn’t be with us at the time as he was unwell.

Next activity of the day was a mass cooking lesson for all the English guests. Jon taught us to make chilli chicken (which he confessed to me afterwards he had learned from you-tube). Unfortunately for a number of us Jon prefers very much more spicy food than we are able to eat because it smelt awesome. I have copied down the recipe and will post it as a separate entry along with the photos of our students preparing the food. There was one slight hiccup during the preparation, Dan and George were preparing the chillies and they had a conversation about why it was so important for men in particular to wash their hands after they had been handling chilli. George wandered off after he had finish and without thinking managed to rub his eyes. Cue Diana stepping into mothering role, with saline solution eye wash, cold compresses and sitting in the dark whilst he recovered. I am relieved to announce that he recovered fairly quickly and I think this is lesson he will remember for the future.

In the evening the Tabla Guru came for the students to have a lesson. He is the most lovely man. He initially worked with the school pupils on their Tabla practice but then he devoted about half of the lesson to teaching all the visitors how to play. In two groups he taught us the very basic rhythms which first you speak and then you play with your hands. Te-re Ke-te Ta-ko Ta-ko are the words and each sound corresponds to the part of one of the two drums that you hit. He told us that practice should be fun and you should always enjoy playing - clearly he did and also enjoyed teaching us. Some of the group picked it up quicker than others and big credit has to go to George who is not the most co-ordinated person, the guru worked so hard to help him grasp the rhythm. He then plays with the group and gets faster and faster with each student dropping out as they lose the rhythm eventually he is the only one playing and with much joy and enthusiam he will play it as fast as even can play. Eventually it sounds like a drum roll that someone would play with sticks, he finishes with a flourish and rapturous applause from his students. He is one of only 26 Tabla Gurus in the world so it was an incredible privilege for us to have a lesson rather than just observing one. I think there may be a number of sets of Tabla finding their way back to Somerset since we will all have empty cases to bring home. The guru has been playing for 60 years so I think it might be a while before any performances take place but we are hoping to set up a Tabla group in the college.