Cover Photo: A black and white photo of a woman singing passionately in front of a microphone.
Photograph by Jack Sharp/Unsplash

Finding My Language of Healing in Indian Classical Music

To cope with pain, and prepare for parenthood, I had to learn how to breathe. To breathe, I needed more than air.

“You need to learn to breathe through your stomach.”

enduredvidhi

Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Da, Ni, Sa.

Sa, Ni, Da, Pa, Ma, Ga, Re, Sa.

How did I have no more air left in my lungs?

your

Vaishnava Janato

Malandhum Malaratha—

Sa Sa Re Re Ga Ga Ma Ma Pa Pa Da Da Ni Ni Sa Sa

became

Will the pain go away?

Komal ga, Shuddha dha, Tivra ma, Shuddha ni.

Repeat.

Meera Vijayann is a journalist and writer based in Washington DC. She has contributed to national and international discussions on the issue of gender rights and violence in India. In 2014, her TEDx talk on speaking up against sexual violence garnered global attention and she won the CNN-IBN Citizen Journalist Award. Her reportage and essays on gender, health, and immigrant life have appeared in Entropy, Folks, the Guardian, Yes Magazine and other outlets. She now writes about the immigrant experience on Medium.