Music

Last week, I visited a musician uncle of mine after a long time. The moment I entered his music room I was baffled to see a plethora of musical instruments; from the Sitar to the Saxophone to the Flute and what not!

“Uncle, can you really play each one of them?” I found my awe-struck self ask.

“Yes. Actually, I was very young when I started.” He began. “The first musical instrument I ever saw was the Sitar. I was afraid to even touch it. I was so small compared to it! But then, I did touch it, sat down with it and slowly but steadily started playing it well.

Then I was introduced to the Tabla. Again, the same thing happened. I was afraid because I didn’t know if I would be able to learn it, understand it or synchronise myself with its sounds. You see, Music is when an instrument’s sound and your soul are having a tête-à-tête. But within a few years I became a good Tabla player. After which I taught myself to play the Flute, the Sarod, the Saxophone and all the other instruments that are present here, one by one. And every time, my relationship with each of these instruments started with a noise and ended with music. Now, we are a part of each other.”

I realized there is no inherent Music in Life, nor is it within us. Music (of life) happens when our problems – the instruments – and we sit together and copulate spiritually.

*

The 420-characters Quota

Early in the morning I was trying to update my status message in Facebook. But I wasn’t allowed to publish it since the full message exceeded the limit of 420 characters. Thus I refrained myself from publishing it all together since half of it wouldn’t have made any sense.

And I wondered how important a single character – a small deed – can often become. When something in life reaches its 420 characters quota (if at all!) it’s these characters – one seminal part each that was supposed to make up the whole but somehow didn’t – that become all the more pronounced for people to judge and for us, as an individual, to criticize, treasure or infer, accordingly. And when it does happen all we are left with is a sigh which, if given words, shall read, “Wish they knew the whole. Wish I realized the whole.”

How does it matter how many pages of Life’s calendar we flip back in our heart everyday when in reality nothing can ever be flipped back, erased or corrected entirely if and when something abruptly hits the 420-characters quota.

Quiz Show

Last night I was watching a popular Bengali quiz show on television. And each time the celebrity host shot a question to a certain participant he made a face as if the answer was there, waiting to pop out, and yet it was so not there. While his competitors around jumped with excitement already sure of the answer.

But this particular participant, too, became restless with zeal, dead sure of the answer, once a different question was asked to one of his competitors.

And I wondered…his competitor knew his answer and he knew his. I know your answers and probably you know mine. We almost always know each other’s answers but seldom our own. Guess that’s one of life's oldest tricks!

BILLING QUEUE

A day before I was in a small departmental store. I dutifully picked up whatever I had to buy and added myself onto an already long billing queue. Getting bored since the line was moving slowly I started looking here and there. My eyes hooked onto a huge mirror kept right beside the billing counter. It reflected almost the entire billing queue.

And this is what I saw in the mirror:

Each one of us in the queue, it seemed, had hand picked our own dreams and then were waiting with a hint of impatience to reach the counter of destiny hoping the self chosen dreams that we were holding onto so tightly would soon be handed over to us within the packet of reality since making oneself a part of the billing queue simply meant we all were ready to pay the marked price.

SPEED BREAKERS

Last week I was travelling in a car with a friend. We were constantly bantering. But our faces transformed into a temporary sad emoticon when the car hit a steep speed-breaker. By the time we relaxed there was another steep speed-breaker. And from then on my friend didn’t talk to me. He drove slowly and carefully all the way expecting a third speed-breaker…which never came. From a joyous drive it became a quiet one.

And I thought how the steep speed breakers suddenly started controlling us and our behaviour. The brewing anticipation of a third speed-breaker didn’t allow us to relax and also, to an extent, altered us for the rest of the journey. And thus made us forgo all the happy talks which we would have done had the control-shift not happened.

Novo's Eleven!

Now that the FIFA World Cup '10 has ended I thought of compiling my own eleven in a 4-4-2 formation! Here they are:

1.) CHARACTER – Goal Keeper.

2.) ZEAL – Centre Back One.

3.) FOCUS – Centre Back Two

4.) EGO – Full Back Right.

5.) ATTITUDE - Full Back Left.

6.) BRAVADO - Centre Mid-field One.

7.) INTEGRITY - Center Mid-field Two.

8.) DISCIPLINE - Side Mid-field One.

9.) HUNGER - Side Mid-field Two.

10.) LOVE - Center Forward One.

11.) COMPASSION - Center Forward Two.

ATBF - A CLARIFICATION

From the time my debut novel 'A Thing Beyond Forever' came out I have been receiving mails in which people have put forward their feedback...but one question that continues to remain common in those feedback is why did I kill Radhika? Well, I never gave a genuine reason to anybody for that but deep inside hoped they cultivated it themselves...but now I guess its high time I present the clarification...

Here it goes:

The issue arises when we take Radhika's suicide in a literal sense. I only want to ask one thing: Can't it be a metaphorical suicide...? Can't it simply signify the death of Radhika's resolve (bordering on idealism) to love Raen forever and not substitute him with anybody?

What if I tell you from the point she thought of jumping from the terrace the story takes a 'delusional' turn where Radhika is only imagining what will happen if she 'really' jumps ... and the last scene where she hallucinates making love with Raen for one last time is her farewell to Raen and all his emotional gifts to her. She imagines it all while standing on the terrace perhaps realizing for the first time that her life deserved a second chance with Sunil and thus, may be ... just may be she didn't ACTUALLY jump off the terrace ... Now, what did she do afterwards if she really didn't jump?

I deliberately kept the ending a little vague and open because I wanted my readers to interpret the ending on the basis of their own cognition and not thrust something concrete on them from my side...hence I didn't dig into 'what Radhika did afterwards' in the novel.

And with the Epilogue I am not saying Radhika is born again - sorry, no 'Bollywood' here - it just-simply-only signifies that a 'story' is born somewhere in the form of Elizabeth Heather Ferguson and that she too would have to, at some point of time, swim in this mysterious ocean of Love and Attraction the way Radhika did ... the way we all do in our own lives...

Whether one agrees or not with this explanation is not the point here. I have presented my real thoughts behind the ending that happened to me while I was writing it. Everybody has the right to agree or disagree. And my regards for both. The point here is sometimes in stories, like in life, there's MORE than our eyes tell us and MUCH MORE than the words frame. Of course you might ask where have I written all that in the book but I would humbly confess I, as an author, don't like to spoon-feed my readers for I respect them.

Thank you for your time.

NOTE: This is only for people who have read the novel. Comments for this post WON'T be published. My apologies. Also, I love questions :) ... so in case of any residual query please feel free to email me: novosphere@gmail.com