A Walk and Two Songs

Does everything I write have to have a purpose?

A goal?  

All with an attached file of aspirations to change the world?

Does it have to always follow the tight weave of form: an introduction, a main body, a conclusion?

Does it have to each time, rise on its gradient of emotion or suspense or whatever and dutifully crescendo to a climax?

Why can it not simply wander, with no purpose, no direction, no destination......... wander like I do on these hill roads, vagrant as the tattered clouds that float above me?

“I decorate with futile fancies
My idle moments
And see them float away in the air;
Like derelict clouds
With their cargo of colours
Drifting from here to no destination!”

...so wrote Tagore and today I’ll let my writing float like his derelict clouds, writing simply for the pleasure of writing, for the delight that beautiful words afford me, my words drifting from here to no destination.......................

The sun has set long back, for here on these Western hills, night falls fast. It’s not yet seven but it is already thickly dark. It is cold too and I plunge my left hand into my jacket pocket while my right hand holding the cell phone is left to fend for itself. It does poorly, soon getting chilled like sausages in the freezer. But I will not put it in the pocket for YouTube is playing on the cell and YouTube has this exasperating glitch that once the cellphone goes to sleep inside the pocket, the App too joins in. Srikanto is singing Tagore now and under no condition can I allow the phone to take a snooze at this moment. So I sacrifice my right hand to the freeze and continue down the slope. No one is about at this hour on the smooth hill road that winds down towards the highway. Yet the streetlights shine bright and confident, unfazed that there is none to appreciate their worth in this dark night. Some street lights are white fluorescents, extroverts, burning like snow set ablaze; while others are gentle orange lights that mellow everything in their range, blunting sharp edges and blurring imperfections. As I near the little hospital, the sound of spring water flowing down the storm drains lining both sides of the road emerges from beneath Srikanto’s soulful voice. I can’t quite effectively describe the sound of this flowing stream. The closest I can liken it to, is a fusion of tinkles, bubbles and chuckles with base notes of soft gurgles. The moon peeks out from behind branches of the tall trees on my right. It is a slim crescent moon today, with not much light of its own to boast about but still quite chic in shape and attitude. I near the bend on the road where it dips sinuously down past the roundabout, its fountain now fast asleep. Here I pass by the great white post with the Flag furled at its very top. In the placid night breeze, it ripples gracefully, catching the glow from the street lights. I stand below and watch for a moment the play of colours: satiny green, warm orange, bright white; and think: it does me good to look at the Flag once in a while for it reminds me to ponder beyond the usual ‘me!!’, ‘me!!’, ‘me!!’ to other things that are also worth my while such as thoughts about giving back something to this Land I call my home. I walk on and now the road is in darkness for here the streetlights have fallen asleep.

But slivers of truant light escape from windows and skylights and lie down along my path. I now half run, half walk for the slope is sharp and gravity pulls me forward with eager fingers. As I rush, I look up: with no street lights to blur the night sky, the stars are diamond nose-pins and the moon a slender tiara. The trees rise up like sharp streaks of darkness against the night sky, a night bird calls and the pale silver of the moon falls softly over the roofs, the road and me. I feel suddenly rested, at peace as the clamourings of ‘who said what’ and the ‘what I could not be’ recede far away........

Srikanto is now singing,
“Tomar chander aloye
Milaye aamar dukkho-shukher
Sokol oboshaan”

(...The luminescence of your moon dissolves my sorrows and joys....)

I smile to myself. That old man with the white beard and unshorn hair had not only been a wizard with his words, capturing the splendour of the world with his beautiful verses but he had also been a keen reader of human emotions, as good as any modern day psychiatrist or psychologist.

The screen of my cell phone blips 2100 hours. It’s time to turn back. But the same easygoing road that had rolled me down earlier now looks forbiddingly difficult, stretching far away, towards the hilltop, up, up, up......To tackle this slope, gentle Srikanto will not do. I would need something stronger. I scroll YouTube: Dhinchak Puja-Never,  Laura Brannigan_- umm, The Scorpions- missing the romance,  Elvis: Too mushy........

Then I chance upon it: Michael Buble with Sway....

Bingo!!!

I fix the earphones snugly inside my ear canals, tuck carefully my right hand into the jacket pocket,  handset in palm such that it doesn’t fall asleep suddenly,  pull the fleece cap around my ears and begin my march up the hill slope. At first it’s comfortable but as the incline increases, my speed drops, my muscles protest- in the beginning, quietly but as I gain height, their remonstrations grow in frequency and in amplitude. So, throwing away all cautions of responsible headphone use to the cold mountain winds, I turn up the volume of my cellphone such that it reaches an ear-splitting amplitude.  The music now beats against my ear drums, within my blood, alongside my bones and inside the chambers of my thudding heart fuelling me both with will and with strength to challenge that killing gradient.
I pant up that cliff of a road and reach a point where for a short respite of a few meters, it is flat.  Here, a cherry tree stands by the edge, smothered in blossoms. A fluorescent white streetlight standing next to it bathes the tree in a magical pink-white light. I walk to the spot right below the branches of the tree and look up. The cherry flowers are tiny, clustered on the individual branches like confetti or candyfloss. There is a faint woody perfume floating around, ostensibly from the blossoms but I am not really sure. Beyond this circle of the tree lit by the streetlight, the world is blindingly dark. It is like I am on stage, with the spotlights turned only on me. In my ear Michel Buble croons, his deep baritone seductive, intoxicating, entreating............

“...when the marimba rhythms start to play
Dance with me
Make me sway.....”

I close my eyes in spite of myself. There’s no one around, so I can risk it. The music throbs around me, within me:

“I can hear the sound of violins
Long before it begins....
Make me thrill as only you know how,
Sway me smooth, sway me now.......”

What if I raised my hands and twirled in this beautiful bower under the cherry flowers, on this pink white stage, whirled on my own to that wine-song that was streaming in my ears? The temptation for a split moment is great, very compelling but then my sane self intervenes. “Bohut ho gaya, ghar chal, ladki!” it says. The risk of being bundled up and packed off to the hospital as a psychiatric patient is too great and so I have to desist. I descend my flower stage and continue onward. But Michael Buble still croons in my ear, his voice covering me like the haze of red wine, 

“Like a flower bending in the breeze
Bend with me, sway with ease...
When we dance you have a way with me
Sway with me...”

The sharp bark of a dog rushes in through the chinks of this haze. Mimie! She knows I am near. I whistle, two short sharp twoots, one long one and then two sharp ones again, my signature call. She is standing on the top of the stairs, tail furiously wagging, barking in welcome. She is wearing her favourite yellow wool scarf. It makes her look like a cute grandmother, all covered up against winter. When I reach the foot of the stairs, she jumps down, prancing against me, her white otter tail waving madly. I laugh, pluck out the headphones, tickle her ears and together we run up the stairs, into home.

I discovered ‘Sway’, originally a Mexican song (a bolero-mambo which is a Latin genre of dance and music) only a few months back and since then have been hooked to this piece. The song’s music is superb and something I can only describe as intoxicating. You can take a look if you want. Just follow this YouTube link.

https://youtu.be/lZM-5SYr2Yk