The Harmonium -- A Ray of Light

[Contiued from The Harmonium -- A Non-cooperative Bellow]
I find it a little difficult to write this story, because it is not a clearly identifiable section of my life. Besides, it's not a story that an audience is willing to hear. I have to sew together little wayward patches to produce some sort of a continuum. But the entities that constitute the story are really quite unrelated to each other unless you take account of the harmonium that kept the theme running.

I need to take a quantum jump therefore from where I left the story in the last episode, across time and space and land you in Kolkata towards the beginning of the 21st century. A great deal had happened in the meanwhile. Amongst other things, I had given away the harmonium I found in Delhi. It appeared to be more useful to people other than me. I have no idea anymore where it finally landed. And once in a while I missed it too. It was the same harmonium I had used to play Raga Bibhas after hearing a famous song by Paluskar. I had to literally extract the music from the non-cooperative box. Strangely enough, it did work once in a while.

But I really didn't need the harmonium because that's not what I had fallen in love with at the age of thirteen. My love continued, but I was a rejected lover. The harmonium I had loved didn't even show up and finally, after waiting for more than forty years or more, I gave up more or less. Yet, in the midst of hoplessness, hope persists.

There is a difference though between a harmonium and a community of humans. The instrument can be elusive, but it is not cruel. It is incapable of human rejection. It is inanimate and that's why one can always keep hoping even after one gives up. Unlike a human being, it will almost surely respond if you manage to discover it.

This reminds me of an interview that Zubin Mehta gave over TV. They asked him the silliest question of all. "How does one learn Western Music?" He replied almost immediately. "Keep listening to it. Keep on listening. See if it starts talking to you. If it does talk, then you will know for yourself how to progress further. There is nothing more I can suggest."

I know that the harmonium had truly spoken to me once and then it had vanished. So, I wasn't entirely sure. Was Mehta correct in his observation? How could I ever listen to something that doesn't even exist? It could be singing elsewhere to someone who had located it at the right moment. Besides, will it really respond to me? I was now close to sixty. Would it speak to me if I found it? I had not learnt to interact with it at the right age. And now wasn't I a bit too old to learn? I had realized too that even if I found what I sought, I wouldn't find a guru. No one would be willing to teach a person approaching sixty. They are, by definition, dispensable. But a miracle did finally happen.

If you are a believer miracles can happen. I suppose you need God to be on the right side of yourself to make impossible events occur. The only time in my life that I experienced a miracle was when I found someone who said she was willing to teach me. I think she was somewhat sceptic when she began, but over time she realized that she had indeed come across someone who had not only started out on a long, long quest, but had stuck to it with dogged determination. He hadn't given up despite the impossibility that life posed before him. Only, my journey had been far too long. I was far too old when she arrived in my life.

She would teach my wife too, but I made it clear that it was I who was dying to reach the goal. My wife would be a sympathetic partner, someone who appreciated the quest, but hadn't felt the emptiness that I had carried inside me most of my life.

And then, the very next thing she said was that we would need a harmonium. Ah! A harmonium again. Grim silence followed. But I knew that there was still a chance. Now was the chance. I was in a position to pay more than Rs. 500 this time. Indeed, far more than that. "Please buy it for me will you?" I requested my teacher. "I don't know how to buy the right kind ..."

She readily agreed and arrived on the very day the lessons started with a reasonably perfect harmonium. It had a soft bellow, it produced wonderful music, it was quite attractive. Only it was not IT. First, it was not a scale changing harmonium and in any case it was not the harmonium I had encountered as a thirteen year old.

I knew now that I would need to compromise. I could still keep hoping of course, but for the time being I would need to stick to the kind teacher. She introduced me to the art. It was not easy at all. My fingers were no longer nimble, my voice refused to climb the scales. G Sharp was about the only scale that I was able to stick to and that surely was funny for a man. Men, in general, wouldn't sing G Sharp. But I found it literally impossible to make my voice play on a B Flat scale. Things had been hopelessly delayed, impossibly postponed.

Our lessons continued and this was a person who understood my craving for perfection. She did not reject my desire on the excuse that age stood between me and my quest. Instead, she watched me, she taught me and then one day after six or seven years of endless struggle, I was amazed by what happened.

She asked me to sing a song and played the harmonium herself. As we proceeded, I knew something strange was in progress. I looked at her with a questioning eye as I sang and she simply smiled back. When we reached the end, she asked me, "Do you know the scale I made you sing in?"

"No," said I somewhat bemused.

"It was B Flat," she said smiling. "I didn't wish to make you conscious at the very beginning, or else you wouldn't make it. I just wanted to show you that it is not impossible. You have done it!"

I remembered Pandora's story. The only thing that didn't leave her box was Hope. For once, Hope had won the race for me. Not here at IL to be sure. But somewhere else in a land of imagination, somewhere that few in this community would want to travel with me.

I was almost in tears. This was not the harmonium I had sought, but it had succeeded in bringing me very close to the truth. I was old, I was withered, I was pretty near my end. But my voice had found the notes and spoken to them at the right pitch.

And it was precisely at this moment that deep inside me I heard a voice. "Go search for the harmonium now. You will find it. It will not hide from you anymore. You are finally ready for the harmonium. It's waiting for you, just go and grab it."

[To be concluded in the next episode.]

 

Quite right. She is the very same person. But I am also in touch with the man who fulfilled my dream. The one who gave me the harmonium I waited for all my life. People wait for money, for recognition, for prizes. And look at me. Can I claim to be a sane person after all?

oj-da

 

Dear Kamalji:

Why should we know music? Isn't it enough that we enjoy it? You and I enjoy it equally. The only difference is that I also want to understand the grammar. I don't think that makes me appreciate music anymore than you.

oj

 

Dear Sundarusha:

I am not always as determined as I appear in this post. Sometimes I lose hope and give up. Just take into account how many times I have disappeared from IL!

oj-da

 

Dear Raba:

I have responded at the very end.

oj-da