NYC Melodies

I hear her voice reverberating through the walls as we enter the subway. Her range is amazing, honestly, and the tunes she voices go up and down, loud and soft. She is an opera singer and we can feel her talent sweeping through the area.
We go down by stairs to catch our train, but we have to acknowledge this wonderful lady, and so I go back up to make a 'donation'.
She meets my eyes, this soft, black-haired woman and murmurs a thank you before going back into her song.
I tell her that she's amazing and she thanks me again.
I think of what Ustaad Bismillah Khan had said - many have to sell something to earn money, they physically part with something to earn their bread and butter, but artists never do. They make money and still get to keep the thing that's earning them that money: their talent.
I might be making a donation, but this woman is giving me her voice and it's a very fair exchange.

***

One is silver and one is gold. One is long and one is shorter. But they're both trumpets. I think. My musical instrument knowledge is pathetic.
There's already some music and the trumpets merge right in.
In between the shuffling of the feet and the rattling of the tracks whenever the trains approach, are these trumpets and they provide the background music to our lives that make us feel like we're in a movie. It's 10 pm, the crowd is low and they play on.
There's no 'donation' box either.
And so I rock to the sound of 'A Kiss To Build A Dream On' which is also 'Kaisi Paheli' for me as our train blows to a stop.
I can hear the trumpets, even as we're moving.

***
I come out of the theater wanting to cry, but what else can you expect from an emotionally muddled teenager who's seen something awesome?
Because the world I was in for the last two and half hours was one of a kind.
There, enemies were friends and you could fall in love with anybody because different could be beautiful and beautiful could be different and some animals spoke and some of them sang but all of them could dance and important people had mixed up vocabulary and old men who liked balloons and everyone had funny names.
It was so absolutely different and mixed up and delicious.
Everyone sang in voices that would haunt you forever.
It was a feast for all the senses.
The only downside seemed to be the fact that you couldn't get a ballgown on demand. Also, a lot of people are obsessed with green, but that's OK.
And so I let the tears fall, and I figure they're the sad kind, but I laugh still, at what I've laughed at 334 times before in the past hour.
Because it's a place where the good and bad mix together to become absolutely wicked.

New York, New York

The place I'm at, it's no joke,
The streets, they smell of cold and smoke.
Shoes, like rainbows, shine on feet,
As herds of people cross the street.
The buildings, up and up they rise,
To touch the heavens, each one tries.
Jammed together, shop on shop,
Endless rows - they never stop.
Flashing screens, they catch the eye,
Each one screaming that I must buy,
That their product is what I need,
To live life and to succeed.
There are eating places of each cuisine,
Thai, Irish and French as neighbors are seen.
The people are from so many parts,
One city owned by a million hearts.
They guide the tourists who come in loads,
They own the bridges and the roads.
They own this city that's hard to grapple,
It's NYC, the Big, Bold, Apple.

20 April at Washington DC

Da-da-da-dum-dum-dum.
I hear the beat before I see its creator.
Dum-da-dum-da-dum.
It sounds like bongos, I think. Then I shake my head. What do I know about drums?
Dum-dum-da-dum-dum-da.
The drummer is on the sidewalk parallel to ours. I can't see him for the continuous stream of vehicles and the cars parked next to his sidewalk.
Da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
The sound is loud. There are people clapping I think. And others watching. It is a catchy beat.
Dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum.
Again I wonder, what kind of drums are those?
Da-da-da-da-da-dum-da-da-dum-da-da.
I catch a glimpse of a man in white, he's smiling and dancing.
Dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-da-dum-dum-da-dum-dum.
Right next to him is another man. He's sitting. He is the drummer, the player. He is grinning just as widely. I finally see his instrument.
Dum-da-da-da-dum-da-da-da.
Wow, I think. I hide a smile. My mom asks me why. I point to his instrument.
Da-da-dum-dum-da-da-dum-dum.
They are buckets.
Da-da-da-dum-dum-dum.

***

'....$20' The man is saying. I try not to look back a third time. $20? Isn't that a lot? Then again, I don't know the distance, but still ...
The vehicle is a fancy version of a cycle rickshaw. There are two wheels at the the back, supporting the seat, and one wheel in the front. There are pedals and a handle. I wonder if this is a common sight. I've definitely never seen anything like it before, not here, at least.

There are rickety versions of the same thing back in India. There the cyclists are skinny and strong, with wrinkly brown skin and shabby white clothes and maybe handkerchiefs tied around their heads to soak the sweat. They haggle with you for the price, trying to get five rupees more. They pound on the pedals throughout the day, sweating in the sun, and despite all their efforts get a meager income.
My mom and I are awed at their strength to do this all day, every day. My mom complies with an extra 10 rupees.
'Dhanyavaad bhaiyya' (Thank you brother)

And here, the cyclists are dressed in good clothes and are talking about their associates.
$20.
Wow.

***

The sunlight streams in through a large window.
We are sitting at a table right beside the door and right in front of the window. We are laughing. My mom's friend is funny.
He tells us about the different monuments in the city and the historical significance of every building, statue, and bridge.
There have been great improvements. A rundown place has flourished in the last fifteen years to become a beautiful area. There have also been sad stories. A woman who was wrongfully persecuted, and then executed.
There's a story behind everything, I realize. Some meaning, some reason, some purpose. It's nice to know.
Uncle leans forward to tell us something else. The reason he chose this pizza place.
'The president has come here before,' he says.
We start joking that we could be sitting at the same place as the president sat or are having the same meal that he did. Maybe it's the same menu, or the drink.
If nothing, it still is the same restaurant.

La vie : A Game Of Chance

My life depended on a picture. Literally. In the end, that's all it came down to.
A picture was what got my parents wedded, and what brought me into this world, followed by my brother.

I think in this crazy world, what is pretty darn scary is that life is a game of chance. Small changes, small choices, and your life could've turned out completely different.

I, for example, may not have even been writing this if not for a picture. For all you know, someone else could've seen it, and then my mom might have never married my dad.
Creepy.

As Stephenie Meyer, writer of the famous Twilight series, said about her character Alice Cullen's ability to see into the future: I think my fascination with that very concept kind of comes through in Alice's visions of the future, where there are fourteen million of them. As characters make choices, they're narrowing down which visions can actually happen. Alice sees flashes of the future possibilities coming from the choices they've made. But if they make different choices, it becomes a whole new future.

That just goes to show that the smallest of choices, the smallest of happenings can change a life. A good example may be the Final Destination series - where a character has a vision of people dying, and despite trying to avoid it, it ends up happening because of the smallest things. 

*Spoilers for FD 3* 
In Final Destination 3, in the end, the characters end up dying because of a train accident that occurs partly because of a rat and a chocolate. See what I'm saying? But Final Destination also reinforces another idea - that what is meant to happen will happen. Basically, the idea of fate.

So does fate play out through those little decisions? If that's so, then it's pretty bewildering. Imagine, your decision to walk instead of taking a car or walking into one shop instead of another could change your life. 

Something like that's happened to all of us. I remember in Delhi, we were supposed to move into one house, but suddenly because of something, we ended up living somewhere else. In the same neighbourhood, but in another house. Now, it was because of that house I went to the school that I did, and made the friends I made. The owner of the first house probably had no idea that he changed our lives.

I don't know whether to believe in fate or not, but I do know that small things make a difference. I love hearing stories of how people discover new things by accident (serendipity, is what it's called, my dad said), and especially of how people meet by chance and fall in love . Anjali Tendulkar met her to-be husband at an airport. How cool is that?!

There's something both sweet and scary in knowing that our next step could change our lives completely, whether it's for better or for worse.

 

To sleep like a baby ...

Tis when the angel sleeps,
Innocent mind lost in slumber deep,
From dream to dream the conscience leaps,
The billowy cushions safely keep,
The angel who is fast asleep.

Tis when the angel dreams,
Peaceful, blissful, the whole world seems,
Not a shout, a tear, a scream,
Happiness spreads, and Mother Earth beams,
All of which happens when the angel dreams.

Tis when the angel opens her eyes,
To see faces. O! What a surprise!
A whole new world to realize,
When asked to wake, when asked to rise,
Tis then the angel cries.

Rooted in the sky

I wonder what it feels like to move. Not just move, but to control your movements. Jasmine keeps reminding me that I can, we all can. But then, it’s only out of necessity, is what I say. Jasmine replies, that everything we do is because we have to. Jasmine doesn't understand.  I don’t expect her to.

Yes, we move. And yes, maybe we can control our motions: we bend for more sunlight, our feet –roots, Jasmine reminds me- stretch out just a little more to areas where we can take in more water, more minerals. But we’re otherwise so limited. Unless a breeze is around and allows us sway, to rustle just a little more than normal. There have been times when the winds were so vicious that plants have actually died. That’s what happened to my uncle Arbre, at any rate. He simply snapped into two. My parents were mournful, saying he was a young soul, and in a way he was – a young mind in an old aching body. There were parasites on him, sucking out his life, and I knew he didn't want to live like that anyway. I was at peace when he died. But he was the only one who understood me, my wishes to move about, to discover, to explore, and to dance. And when he was gone, I had to face the realities of the plant community. It wasn't easy. I wanted to be a squirrel, jumping about, a cat, prowling through the dark alleys of the street with its lamp-like eyes, but mostly a bird, flying freely to touch the ends of heaven. Instead, I got to be a mother to them all. I got to feed and nurture them, help these animals grow, without ever being one. The other plants, they were proud of the part they played in nature. They were proud that humans held them in such high esteem, proud that they were the foundation bricks of our ecosystem. They wanted me to feel the same way. I just couldn't.

A bird lands on my branches. It is small and black and red and the most beautiful thing I've seen. Its eyes are a sharp black. I wish I was you, I think. I gently guide it to my ripest fruit. It looks young, tired. Probably its fourth or fifth flight. It nibbles the fruit lightly, and continues to do so, until it has finished the whole thing. It sighs in gratitude.

You’re welcome, little birdie. You’re welcome. I think, before dozing off under the hot sun.

**                                                                              

I wonder what it would be like to be still. To be at peace. What it would be like to not be in a rush your whole life, to not have to keep moving around, to not be part of a crazy family. My sister just laughs when I tell her all this; It’s your life. Accept it. She says. If only it was that easy. My family, my friends, they’re too busy to think like this. They don’t even have time to think about slowing down.

There are new chicks born every day. Each new chick means one more celebration. There are celebrations for everything. When we first fly, when we catch our first worm, when we choose a mate, when we lay eggs, when they hatch… on and on it goes. Heck, my brother got an extra party because he finally opened his eyes! I’m telling you, we birds just love to celebrate.

The only alone time we get is when we fly to get food. Since this is my fifth flight, I’m still accompanied by my brother (who right now is constantly going from glaring at me to get me to hurry up to spying on another she-bird he finds cute). From my next flight on, I will be completely alone. Hopefully. The others know I’m a bit of a day-dreamer, they may just assign me a permanent companion.

I want to be a plant. Not only because they live quietly and peacefully but also because they are important. If I was a plant, I’d be loved and cherished. I’d make my own food. I’d never have to depend on slow, stupid worms. I’d never have to fly away from an eagle. I could be friend with other plant species, which is pretty hard as birds. I mean, we can’t be friends with eagles and kites. But I guess the trees can be friends with other trees as well as animals.

‘Parinda! Will you hurry up?’ My brother shouts. I hate that he calls me by my full name.

‘All right!’I stop sucking on my luscious fruit, and open my wings. I’ll be back. I think. And then I’m gone in a blur of black and red.