Melody and Melancholy
Listening to Rabindrasangeet in an indifferent land.
What a good melody does to you, can perhaps be rightfully justified only through another equally brilliant melody, or a painting, but here I am going to try explaining my experience through words. Words are effective in communicating our thoughts, but do we have adequate vocabulary to pinpoint our precise feelings evoked by heart-wrenching music?
At this point, I can’t help but borrow P. B. Shelley’s description of soul-moving music.
“Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.”
I often find myself swimming in bouts of melancholy. In such times, I seem to experience osmotic interactions with the greater universe, And when such times befall me, it is in eloquent music that I am able to offer my melancholic self its true companion. No words, no movements, no gestures can interfere with their harmonious conversation. And I, the human, the soul that yearns for deep dialogues with the spirits of the universe, am able to experience inklings of authentic connection.
Overlooking the J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital, I sat still in my car that stood motionless in the quiet parking lot of the WVU Law School.
After a satisfying yoga session, followed by a few impromptu badminton games with dilettantes, I was sweaty but, happy. And hungry, too. For company. For someone to have a banter with. Someone to ask me about my mundane day, and I would ask the same them the same. I checked for messages from friends and acquaintances on my phone but only felt disheartened that nobody had remembered to check on me in the last couple of hours. I walked to the parking lot of the Student Recreation Center, panting but high on endorphins, thinking of what to do or where to drive to. Home wasn’t the destination on my restless mind. I couldn’t decide so I drove around aimlessly until I comprehended that only music was going to soothe me the way I wanted to be soothed. That’s when the Law School parking lot popped in my head. My head had so many conflicting voices bickering, that I instantly knew Melancholy was only an arm’s length away waiting to be caressed and kissed, patted on the head, and comforted. In no time, I knew that perfect song that would hold hands with my melancholic loneliness on a cool, breezy Morgantown evening, while I sat in my car and beheld the gorgeous view of the dazzling hospital building atop the hill.
E Path Gechhe Kon Khane- a Rabindrasangeet, that I learned at age 10, is one of those Tagore’s compositions that speaks to me in my heart’s wordless language. Not only that, the essence of that song has evolved with me over the summers and autumns in India to cold winter dusks and sleepless nights in America. The tune and the words have morphed into a shapeless being, that I now recognize as my companion whenever my heart knows not what to do with the abundance of angst and longing. This song, however, was sung only by me all these years. My brother, who has been learning to play the piano for the last decade, sent his rendition of the song in his deep voice accompanied by piano in the background the day before yesterday. I decided to play that very song sitting in my car.
For the next six minutes, I was soaked in the pearly music that ensued. Every molecule of my being felt touched by the profundity of not only the song’s essence but also the way he was translating the words through his manner of singing. Thousands of miles apart, and yet, so palpable, I could see through- my brother delicately touching the piano keys and giving a form to the words that resonated the questions in his curious, uncertain, inquisitive soul. His effortlessness in playing the piano makes me wonder how deeply he is truly feeling the poetic verses! His depth touch my soul in a way that Melancholy felt no longer lonely but consoled. And a tear brimmed at the edge of my eye. The drenched feeling still held me captivated, and my wet eyes gave in to the sombreness in his calm voice, and the dazzling hospital stood before me unperturbed, and the dark night sky felt closer as if it wanted to hug me tight and reassure me. The earth, the clouds, the cold, the atmosphere, and every molecule surrounding my presence seemed to respond to emotions the song was evoking in me. I had come there in an effort to bury my loneliness. I found my sanctuary in his still yet eloquent music.
In America, singing or listening to Rabindrasangeet amidst nature has seemed quite out of place. The mood, the lyrics, and the tune do not seem to overlap with the immediate cosmetic reality of the outside. I can say this confidently because Tagore’s songs never felt displaced no matter where I was in India. That has often caused discomfort as the disconnect can make the singing experience quite dry and unrewarding. Today evening, it felt like I could be anywhere in this universe and I could be the way I am. I felt connected to the infinite and the profound; I was an insignificant but bodily entity in this whole wide world that was meant to experience this moment in her life. Rabindrasangeet had seemed to make sense all over again in this foreign land. It seemed to befriend the place’s indifference and make it humane.
And the teardrop had found a way out to make me feel like me.
