The Sun Also Rises

The sun rises early here. People wake up early, post World-Cup; or at least the early morning swimmers tell us that. Untiring and energentic, most of them. The water is lovely. Your body tingles with freshness. Goodbye Shillong. See you in a couple of months.

Face the Music

I heard a mellifluous sound. Honeyed and toned, like smooth syrup down your throat. It oozed out of nothing, trickled into a series of sweet melodies, and then completely swallowed up the air in a single, intoxicating note. I was awestruck.

The next moment a whole choir of voices resonated through the hall, carrying the same melody, but in a rich ensemble of voices that struck the air forcefully yet flawlessly; powerful and enrapturing. A more captivating harmony of song I had never heard before. My mind reeled. I forgot myself.

I stepped into the light. It was bright. The glare and the vast interiors of the hall blinded me and before I knew it, I tripped down a step and fell flat on my face with a loud thud that was so out of place in this ambience I could have hit myself on the head till it hurt; if the pain of the fall hadn’t already done that.

The song abruptly ended. Fifty heads immediately turned in my direction, almost, I realized, with the air of trained soldiers ever alert, ever vigilant. I was the intruder. I awkwardly picked myself up, straightening my clothes. Colour rose in my cheeks. I could feel fifty questioning eyes, fifty annoyed people, annoyed voices demanding explanation for a ruthless assault on the evolution of an ethereal music. I immediately wished I had stayed back a minute longer. Fifty plus one, I noticed, amid my flushed deportment, a large man, arms still midair in an incomplete act of conduction. He had a frown over his bushy eyebrows, and the next second his arms dropped. “Yes?” he asked, in a terse tone, and I read Growing Irritation all over his face. He very well could have said What the Hell do You Want in the Most Menacing Tone in History; it wouldn’t have reduced me to a half-wreck the way his mono-syllabic query did.

My feet took me a few steps forward. Grrr. I hate it when body parts don’t listen to you. But in this case it may be that they could not discern any cerebral output; I was paralyzed with embarrassment anyway; that they decided to act on their own.

“Annhh”, was my pitiful reply, minutes too late. I desperately racked my brain for...words.

“Hmm?” he persisted.

“Uh…” I answered.

My tongue seemed knotted. It couldn’t have been just me. The conductor must have that effect on people, or so I hoped.

A shuffling of feet, peeved murmurs and a general whispering arose from the fifty. They were standing in rows of ten, closely packed, one row above the other. I got a hold over myself and cleared my throat. It was more like a raspy, apologetic cry for permission to explain myself.

Finally: “I was in the back, didn’t mean to…fall. Of course, I didn’t mean to fall. Ha-ha. I mean I didn’t mean to…come in till it was finished. The song, I mean. Come in till the song was finished. Yes?” I had no idea why I ended my pathetic speech with a reiteration of his welcome to me, if such it can be called.

One bushy eyebrow raised itself so high up it would have disappeared into the conductor’s hair, save for the fact that he didn’t have much of it. His receding hairline only served to accent the gigantic frown across his broad, shiny forehead. I sensed the fifty getting more and more irritable. I tensed up again. The conductor then barked, “Well it’s not!”

“Huh?”

“It’s not!”

“What’s not?”

“The song. It’s NOT finished. You may leave”. This, in a tone of restrained exasperation.

I scurried away. Darted out of sight. Left the interiors of the well-lighted hall. Well, I thought, legs still shaking, I still got to hear, live, music that was quite something else, human voices in unison past compare. Though wielded by a veritable army headed by a Ring-master who can scare the living daylights out of anyone, I appreciated the music. And no, it’s not me just trying to get out of embarrassment. It was surreal. The music, I mean. Slowly the melody came back to my head. I hummed as I walked down the road, a spring in my step. I forgot myself.

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This was written around two years back. The original intent with which I started is not so clear, which is why I ended it as I did. Anyway, if it does deserve this space, is is under the vaguest of categories: sort of an undefined short story. Problematic, but no problems.