July 12, 2006
StitchesMusings
Did you make sure to hear some music last night? I did.
Of course, Im one of the lucky ones. I wasnt on any of those trains that set off from Churchgate. I knew no one on them, not directly; though my dear friends wifes cousin was on board, and he escaped unharmed, and his friend merely needed some stitches.
Doubly lucky, because I could, after a long day of small frustrations, step from the sticky street into a room where there was taking place, in a relaxed off-night way, jazz.
Quiet. Sound.
Could it have been more apposite? When Rez shifted to his hybrid guitar, the one with sympathetic strings, and Kiran stood at the mic in her kurta top, and they launched into their song called Pearl as in, homage to Daniel?
As she worked through the scales against the organ and hi-hat, intently pulling the notes from thin air, by hand, in that geometric way Indian singers have, there seemed a moment of formal lamentation. Sorrowful, and wise.
Later, with two desi sistas cousins, in fact we spoke of mosaics of hundreds of tiny shiny tiles that make up, if not life, at least a livelihood. Of missing chunks, ripped out by invaders or worn away by time.
Testing the metaphor, we imagined a workshop where we I stay up late, polishing new pieces, some to partly fill the gaps, others to extend the composition.
I remembered that Ive struggled, albeit in small ways.
The sound filling me still, I remembered: the possibility of tiles, the necessity of stitches.
siddhartha on July 12, 2006 02:01 AM in Music, Musings · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
I'm sad and I mean it:(
Oh Kiran!
I wish we'd communicated yesternight. I adore her voice.
Yeah, me too. My family in Bombay is safe, as I expected. But there is still a dull ache, and an almost dizziness that comes from my mind swirling around and around the too few facts, trying to stitch them together [to mix metaphors] into a whole.
I hear ya Siddhartha. Hang in there. I read so many Maharashtrian names and it just brought me to tears. It's actually unfortunate moments like these that remind me of my roots. As American as I am tragedies like these in India remind me of my roots more then anything else. It hurts a little more then if it were elsewhere. Mumbai is resilient and will simply rise and move on.
fabulous image, thank you for it. there are many choices for how we fill some of those spaces and extend the composition, and of course, how we choose to do so matters deeply for what our reconstructed mosaic ends up looking like. i hope we all make those choices with care -- for once made, they may not always be so easy to undo.
I am trying so hard not to cry at work right now. It just hurts.
Beautiful... Your subtle handling of loss is so poignant.
Very nicely written, Siddhartha, my restless mind thanks you for this slice of 'quiet'.