I must say I am obsessed with the place I live. The interesting mix of people and the sights and sounds make every moment worth portraying. A scene that I witnessed remains frozen in my memory and this scene is the inspiration of this blog – “The Music of Joy”
In the angle created by my street leading to the arterial Anna Salai of Chennai and the trail of the famed Cooum is a hamlet – a rather poor one with people. They are a group of people with no particular kind of profession – some hawkers, some fishermen, some cart pullers, some rickshaw drivers, some “something– ers” and so on. Blame it on their birth, the society around them or their addiction to alcohol, they managed to stay poor and become poorer by the day. I seldom saw the end of the tunnel for this people who were dead-drunk. It seemed their state of drunkenness reflected the reality of their lives – with no purpose or sense of existence.
On a rainy night, I was walking past the angle, remembering a similar drenched bike ride, feeling happiness and sorrow both at the same time. I heard a loud cantankerous cacophony with a million vessels all beating at the same time. I heard a man’s crackling voice supplemented by a shriller stronger voice. As I walked further, I saw in a damp shade made by some of the “somethingers”, a scene that remains etched in my memory. A cold light from the fire created from a lucky few dry logs and the naked roof were keeping two families warm. A few vessels and their voices were creating the din. As the voice – one of the father’s – straining to create a tune caught up a tune, the other voices of the children followed and soon it had become quite a racket - a racket supplemented by the family’s enthusiastic response on their kitchen-wares(I doubt if they had a “kitchen”).. The bare minimum they had. It reminded me of my childhood when I listened in rapt attention to the tunes composed by my dad.
I was paying the same rapt attention again. The scene froze. It was me and the picture.. a moving picture.. a live picture.. It was me in the midst of a vast plain and with me was the picture peppered by drops of rain that was promising to become bigger. I cursed the rain. It would put out the flame. But it appeared the flame was leaping.. the tongues leaping as if to catch a fly out of thin air.. It was as if they were bracing themselves for astruggle against an uncertain future and stamping their authority that they would remain, survive and continue to fight. Quite similar to a puny rat who knows that he will be decimated but continues to fight the cat. The fire seemed to be dancing to the clanker of the vessels. The vessels no longer produced a cacophony.. or so it seemed.. The vibrations that the vessels propagated no longer hurt my ears. It conveyed a beautiful sense of hope - Of the courage to continue.. It seemed all of them.. The fire, the people and the vessels reverberated the same tune.. the same vibrations that had awesomely turned mellifluous.. They seemed to resonate and conjure joy out of thin air. A Joy - so pure and so kind.. Not indecent happiness, a positive feeling without a hard work and with a strong sense of continuation. It was Joy – an optimism that conveyed hope for the present and into aeons in future which could mean a struggle against unknown devils.
I was lost. I was drawn into the music - the cacophony that had turned mellifluous. The joy and the hope created by the people, their vessels and the flame were so awesome and magical. It could give hope to the most desolate person on the world. I never had an ear for music but could not help getting lost in this warp of reverberations – so much filled with hope despite the damp and dark that the future held for them. It was the best music I had ever heard. More meaningful and strong to me than the planned & methodical music that people seemed to sing and listen to with dedication. To me, it was music of the purest and kindest nature - “The Music of Joy” that filled their lives with hope like a flame fills a dark room with its unadulterated light.
