…There is a road, no simple highway

Between the dawn and the dark of night

And if you go no one may follow

That path is for your steps alone…

Silly Midnight Musing about a Song

A few days ago, I was on a bus when this song floated out of the speakers. Automatic smile across my face. There is something about these songs which tenderly bless the even more tender woman in the song. What makes it even more special is Rafi's voice caressing your ears. Naazuk words made even more naazuk. Nothing can smoothen your ruffled feathers at the end of a rough day like this song. I know I am exaggerating, but it really is a lovely song.

Like many of the songs of the 1960s, this is one of the songs I heard a countless number of times before actually seeing its picturization in the movie. As usual, once you see the picturization, the quaintness of the song unfolds. It's only when I saw it that I noticed that the song starts with soft regular guitar strumming. Why so? Because there is not a single guitar in that scene! Now, that's not unusual in a Bollywood movie, but a guitar replaced by a sitar which the actor is not even playing? Well. And then you notice that the ambiance that the intro creates is nothing like the scene in the move. It's supposed to be a song about a singer serenading a princess in an ancient royal court. Thankfully, as the song goes on, you realize that it does not jar that much because there is actually a lot of sitar playing in the song and you go, "Hmm. Guitar and sitar. Interesting combination."

The songs of that period had a certain lilting quality, which my mother describes as "songs which make your heart fly." She says new songs don't have that power. This is a song which reminds one of flowers under the open sky, and for some reason, also reminds me of moonlight. At the same time, it does not quite gel with that imagery which I'm calling romantic because I can't think of a better word. The sitar makes it sound too royal for that. Really, what a strange mixture of images in my head. When he sings "Naazuk ho naaz se bhi..." I imagine Saira Banu or maybe Sharmila Tagore walking in a garden in a saree or a salwar kameez, playing with her plait. And let me also add a Shammi Kapoor following her around. But then the really complicated sitar and the powerful tabla playing in teentaal takes my mind straight to a Mughal-e-Azam type of scene.

Anyway, maybe I should actually stop dissecting this song. No need to spoil the memory of that bus trip when I gazed dreamily at the gulmohar against the blue sky and thought, "Ah! Bless the driver. He's got good taste."

Haiku: Red

water on petals
pearl upon a bleeding heart
throbbing song of spring

Haiku series: Blue

flows out like lifeblood

a languid soul spilling out

a pool of desires

like a lotus bud

eagerly waiting to bloom

tenderly restless

dreams forgotten

lost in a chaos of voices

drowning my own

caught in a deluge
I'm losing sight of the shore
half wishing to drown

rainfall upon leaves

soft footfalls on wet pavements

silence in my soul

... a friend says, blue is the colour of December.
  
  ... "It's blue. Blue is the colour of love." -Disco Pigs

For Pt. Ravi Shankar

dragonflies dancing

sitar notes sparkling like water

soundtrack of our lives

Winter in Delhi

A cold rainy day.
No thunderous drama in the sky
Just pale grey clouds weeping,
Moaning as winter creeps into
My rain soaked soul.

On dreary evenings

Ever since I woke up this morning, an incident from Brecht's play the "Good Person of Szechwan" is coming to my mind. The one where Shen Teh tries to stop Sun from committing suicide. Sun is trying to hang himself from the branch of a tree, and Shen Teh comes and tries to distract him. He asks her why she is so eager to stop him from killing himself and she says,

"It frightens me. I'm sure you only felt like that because the evening's so dreary.
In our country
There should be no dreary evenings
Or tall bridges over rivers
Even the hour between night and morning
And the whole winter season too, that is dangerous.
For in the face of misery
Only a little is needed
Before men start throwing
Their unbearable life away."

Delhi is such a dreary city, it takes courage to wake up in the morning and face the world. Perhaps all cities are like that. Perhaps life is like that. It's not often that a Shen Teh comes in to distract a Sun from the dreariness of life. Most of the time it's just someone crying out into the dark night, unseen, unheard.