Music
Veenu Banga
The music system was kept in a cabinet, which hung high up on the wall. The cabinet’s top was flush with the ceiling of the room. If she stood on her toes she could reach the tuner and tape deck, but only just. Working her fingers, she could turn the round knob of the tuner ‘On’ or ‘Off’ and control its volume.
This day had started as usual. Out front she watered the Tulsi, waving off the kids. Then suddenly she had perked up, seeing the yellow topped Bombay Taxi pull into view. It changed the complexion of her day, the bittersweet angst reflected in her flushed face. Hurriedly, she went indoors.
She quickly climbed upon the chair, then stepped up on to the large table by the window to hurriedly reach the tape deck, at the same time bending a little to look out on to the street. Through the thin muslin curtains on the window she could see the black and yellow cab was still there. She saw him again! Her heart thumped so loudly, she could clearly hear it.
Moving the curtain ever so slightly, she peeked out yet again, then kept looking. With eyes like thirsty wells, she drank in the vision, as if her sustenance depended upon it. His head was distantly framed in the open window of the cab, because he was on the other side of the car. She was straining her eyes now but was oblivious that she was actually seeing more than her eyes saw. Her excitement was manifest in her whole demeanor. Trembling with both hands she hugged her heart. The emotion stuck in her throat, she was scarcely able to contain herself.
Unconscious, she seemed to smile, the unexpected joy lighting up her face. She felt an extraordinarily and uncommon warmth at the familiarity of this total stranger. This sudden kinship she felt with him sent a shudder of abandoned joy through her whole being.
Then she quickly realized that she was standing on the table. Realizing why, she turned her attention to the music system. Almost fumbling in her haste she ejected the tape and quickly turned it over and hit the ‘play’ button. Now she was overcome with panic. There was no time to be fussy about the choice of music because he could drive off any minute.
The music started softly. Groaning loudly she muttered,
“Hurry up, hurry up, cassettes tape!”
The sound of the slow, starting strains of harmonium music stirred the stillness of the small cluttered ground floor room in this run down Bombay chawl, tenements, which are the primary source, of entry level middle class housing in Bombay.
“Oh please, please, please, start singing now,” she implored no one in particular, looking hopefully at the tape deck.
As if on cue the vocals accompanied the music and she increased the volume and looked out again, to see if the reason for her playing the music was still there. He was!
He did not seem to have heard the music though, so up went the volume again till it was nearly full blast, and she saw his head shake a little. He seemed to be opening the door to get out of his cab. She so desperately wanted him to hear the music. She knew instinctively just by looking at him that he would like it.
Excitedly she jumped down from the table and went out to the wide balcony, which was also the common passageway, pretending to look at the potted plants she kept there.
She noticed he had come out of the cab now and stood leaning against the door on the driver’s side with his back towards her. It was early morning, and the sun, which was still low, had not hit the sidewalk as yet. It would soon rise from behind the tall buildings on the other side of the road.
Becoming conscious of the increased coming and going on the street, she retreated a step or two from the bulwark. People headed to work, children off to their schools, the old women going to the temple with offerings of flowers and fruits, cupped in half folded hands and some retired men already returning from their early morning walk and gossip sessions.
Uneasily she realized someone might stop to say hello and strike up a conversation. She did not want to be noticed; rather she was content in her position, as if noticing casually, she continued to observe him. Shyly. Slyly.
Abandoning the plants on a restless whim, she hurried in and took up position again, standing on top of the table by the window. Here she might get a better view, and yet remain hidden by the thin curtains and the wide mesh of the wrought iron grill; the wide balcony and the sidewalk maintaining a convenient distance between them.
The song had picked up pace now and even as the loud volume created static and a double echo seemed jarringly uncomfortable in the room, she began to sing along, enjoying the music and moving in rhythm with the tune; softly clapping the fingers of her folded hands.
It had been a happy start to her morning in a mundane life, where no day is the same yet each day comes and goes swallowing a part of her life and of herself, ebbing away at her dignity, chipping at her personality, robbing her self confidence, slowly but surely reducing her self worth, so that life in this chawl with its squalid shared flush-less toilets and dark bathrooms was changing who she had been before coming to live here.
This was a new place for her, a new way of life. “We are not ill-treating you, rather I’m rendering you tough” was the endless refrain of her mother-in-law, who had chosen this place, to 'teach' her about the realities of life.
Then pausing to ensure her shot had hit its mark, the caustic tone spat out her next verbal assault, "Sardarni!", as if it was the newest epidemic threatening the survival of humankind.
Come monsoon rains and the earthworms could be seen in the hundreds as they made their way into the wet back corridors of the chawl, gathering outside the toilets and bathrooms which by virtue of being shared by all the residents on the whole ground floor were everyone’s to use and no one’s to maintain. The sweeper usually came every day to sweep the common areas, but during the heavy monsoon rains even the city that never sleeps took an uncommon hiatus.
Her daughter was only three when they had moved to Bombay and the first monsoon had been the hardest for her. The child had never seen so many earthworms before. Here they congregated in clumps, as if this was their playground. The little girl’s shrill cries and screams with shouts of “Snakes, snakes, Mama mama, mummeeeee, snakesssss” as she cried out shrilly, her little chest thrusting out with fear; running towards their one room tenement, sometimes slipping and falling down on the wet floor as she fled. The loneliness was burdensome and the anger, though infrequent, scorched her insides. The child’s heartrending cries had sent shivers of grief down her whole body. Rivers of pain and hurt seemed to go down her arms into her hands as she rushed to gather her beautiful cherub in her embrace, hugging her hard to her breast, showering her with soft, quiet kisses.
The music brought her back to the present. The tape had been a good choice after all. It was one of her favorites.
She strained her eyes and looked out on to the road again. Her neck was strained from standing on the table and bending to look out the edge of the window. He had walked over and was now a little closer to the kerb. She saw him looking up at the tall building across the street where his fare must have disappeared. He must feel the nonchalant anxiety of any waiting cabbie that must keep a tab on wannabe truant passengers.
She turned up the music some more, now desperate for a reaction from him. The music had been playing loud and clear for some time.
He had broad shoulders and a strong back and she could just see the slight rise of his shoulder blades beneath the full-sleeved nondescript cotton shirt as he stood with his arms probably folded in front of him. The broad shoulders were thrown back. He has good posture she thought with a certain pride, as if he was her own. He probably was over six feet tall and with the robustness that was the hallmark of most Sikh men, traditional warriors and hailing from the Punjab.
She had happy memories of long summers in a Sikh household. Her grandmother was a swarthy woman whose generosity was legendary, but the Sikh heritage with its bountiful big-heartedness was anathema to her in-laws. Since her arranged marriage 8 years ago into a non-Sikh household, she had not been to a Sikh temple even once. There were not many Sikh people in the area where she now lived either, so this was a rare opportunity, and she was relishing the nearness, albeit from a distance.
She had felt an uncommon attraction as soon as she had seen him pull up in the black and yellow Bombay cab. Now she seemed to find an unusual comfort in his overall appearance, which she could not define- because of the perfunctory glance, but noticed she had giggled briefly wondering if he too slurped when drinking his tea, or if his mustache got wet when he drank anything. Since that time she had been distracted and was behaving very oddly she admitted to herself, but she couldn’t help it. She seemed to like looking at him, or his back to be precise because that was all she had seen since that brief first glimpse.
So, she now remained on her perch, hunching slightly and looking out the window at a Bombay taxi driver she had never seen before and probably would never see again. She had just received this unexpected happiness delivered to her doorstep, and she would relish it as long as it would last. And, best of all, no one would ever know.
The loud music brought her to the present moment again. She wondered what he was thinking, wondered if he was worried his Fare had done a runner and he was therefore blocking out all else from his mind. Is that why he was deaf to the music, or was it all the other morning sounds on the busy road?
She knew with certainty that the music was being heard on the street. In fact she was sure they could hear it even inside the building across the street. She was getting impatient now, at his indifference. Her joy in seeing him was tinged with a sadness. She was becoming aware of that.
Preening through the curtains, she felt slighted. Why could she not elicit any reaction from him? His demeanor gave away nothing. Perhaps because she could not see his face, just his shoulders and upper body and the side of his ear, and the back of his turbaned head which was tilted back in her direction and looked up every now and then, at the tall building which had swallowed his passenger.
She had not eaten anything since morning and her unfinished cup of tea, now cold, sat on the kitchen table. She felt a pang of hunger. It did occur to her that she should go in and warm the remaining tea and have it with some biscuits, but she decided she did not want to move from her perch. She worried that his passenger may come down and they would then drive off. Then she would never know if he had liked the music she had played so loudly, especially for him to hear.
Suddenly he moved forward and walked a few steps. She heard someone talk to him from one of the top floors in the building. He came back momentarily towards his cab and he was smiling now, perhaps in the knowledge that he knew where his passenger was, and he had been acknowledged. He opened the door of his cab and settled back into the drivers seat.
She got another good look at him. She liked his face and felt a long forgotten comfort. After a long time she was feeling really good, in this special kind of way. A certain peace pervaded her senses, like sanity washing all over her.
The cabbie picked up a newspaper from somewhere inside his taxi and started to read it. Then almost at once he stopped, folded it and put it slowly down as if trying to focus on something, to hear something. Her heart missed a beat, and she realized he had heard the music. She could see the smile spread across the side of his face, as if mirroring her own happiness. She saw the expression on his face change as he sat back, relaxed deep into his seat and started nodding and swaying his head to the beat of the music.
“You are my everything,” the voice sang, “in you my purest joys I find….” And she sang along with it, to the swaying of his head. For the next thirty seconds she found her purest joy.
Then the door opened in the back of the cab and a man got in. The taxi driver leaned forward to start the engine. She saw his flowing white beard touch the steering wheel as the cab lurched forward. She closed her eyes and re-lived the precious thirty seconds, in which, riding on the strains of Sikh devotional music she had connected with her grandfather.
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Veenu Banga © 2006.
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