I was listening to a CD of S D Burman's
Bangla songs. On a Sunday morning. An agenda less Sunday morning which comes
with that indescribable restlessness that modern urban living brings to us when
we find we have nothing to accomplish that day. Music is a legitimate way to
distract on such occasions, without extracting any commitment. Rostropovich
would not like it. In the introduction to "The NPR Guide to Building a
Classical CD Collection", he writes: "Real, great music should never
serve as a background for activities or chores not connected with it. Our world
has been cursed with "Elevator Music". Waiting in an airport or
visiting the doctor or dentist, we are so often beset with canned
"Classical Music". I will even visit cafes, especially in Japan that
serve classical music as they serve your food. Many's the time that I would
leave, paying my bill for food and drink I had neither eaten nor drunk. Because
my attention has been captured by the music playing in the background."
Good man Mstislav would not like us to use
music as a background. But unable to run away from our banausic lives, while
longing nothing less but a total escape, we continue to use it that way. However
Music is a clever master. Relegated to
background, it stills works its ways to the resonating ear, to the restless
mind and to the heart ready to give in. And before you know, something else is
happening to you than just getting distracted.
Actually I started writing this not because
S D Burman’s music worked on me to write this.
I was not even planning to write about that music or any music at all. I
was not even planning to write. But in fact I started writing to distract me; to
distract me from completely breaking down in tears. Tears, which had no reason, absolutely no
reason whatsoever to burst forth. The tears were caused, in a way by the music,
but not by it again.
So, as I was saying, on a bright Sunday morning,
I put some old Bangla classic by the maestro S D Burman and lolled on the couch
with news paper. As the music filled the
room, I was kind of swaying to the melody in a prone position. Medha came into
the room, and settling down at the table to drink her milk, started complaining
mildly about “old and boring music”. I
got up from the sofa, and to sort of taunt her, started making exaggerated and
slow dancing gestures to the music. But
soon I was lost in my own mind and my own thoughts, or no thoughts at all,
while my body kept moving in a slow pace, much, I am sure, to the amusement of
my family and the maids. Soon there was
some song on the speakers which I cannot recall at all, and the melody, the interim
music that goes in Indian songs between two stanzas of lyrics, started to work
on my mind. It started to conjure something, which I could not touch although
it was almost tangible. I could not see it but it had a picture and hues. I could
not identify the flavor but it had some and more. It created that sense of déjà vu that visits
me occasionally, and always completely without any announcement. While I say déjà
vu, I have this premonition that it may not be from my past, or from my life at
all, at least not this life. These fragments,
intense and almost tactile, show themselves up, and saunter albeit rather transiently,
just outside that invisible line beyond which I cannot reach out and capture
them. I stand there, lost in that
moment, feeling inadequate every moment. Inadequate, for not having the
perseverance, the dedication, the commitment to go chasing it. And perhaps not having the tools or dexterity
to capture it so that I can show and or tell about it to others.
I grope around desperately for a few
moments, looking for something but not knowing what it is. I stand or sit or
lie there, enjoying the color, hue, melody, texture, taste, smell and
everything apparently sensory but actually unreal, associated with that ephemeral
object. And I suffer my intense inability to catch hold on to it and paste on a
piece of paper. And my throat chokes, my eyes start welling up and I slowly
start descending to the prosaic surrounding that I am never to escape.
It’s not about music. But I have observed
that music has been the trigger for most times when I have had these
visitations, these satoris, that make life worthwhile. Perhaps someday, I will be able to catch the note,
the notes and the melody and put them on a ruled papyrus for others to listen
to.
Till then….
