From NPR, this is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedantan.

You don't need me to tell you that 2020 has been a year of change and disruption.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the recession have upended many people's lives

and will continue to do so in the months to come.

So this year, for our annual U2.0 series about reinvention,

we're focusing on the ways in which change comes into and out of our lives.

We might not be able to control some of the things that happen to us,

but we can shift the way we perceive and respond to them.

I was really devastated to lose something that I was completely in love with

and so passionate about and that had really constituted such a large part of my life

and my identity, you know, I was first and foremost a violinist.

Last and renewal, this week on Hidden Brain.

My grandmother was an Indian classical violinist and so my mom had her old violin and aratic for many years.

This is Maya Shankar.

Each of my three older siblings had rejected the violin saying that it wasn't cool enough

and my mom finally gave me the instrument and I was immediately taken

by the tactile sensation of the instrument.

I mean, the wood and the bow.

I just loved the feeling of playing the violin.

Even as a child, Maya immediately loved everything about the violin.

The way it looked, the way it felt, the way it sounded.

Maya's mother didn't know much about western classical music

...