“Please, don’t worry, I’ll take care of all the marriage expenses.” He said over the phone. Choosing to drive rather than take a train or flight, he got his sports car ready. He had bought this car ten years ago and it worked fine from day one. It was far from Chennai to Kochi, but he knew the route very well.
A long life that had unfolded from timid child in khaki half-pants taking the bus out of Mattancherry to slow, old wimp in this unwound year, Mani had stamped open thoughts of the place where he had belonged, a Sangeetha Illam, the music house at the east corner of the Bhagavathar Street. He’d left in 1970, joined a stock broker in Trivandrum, the Kerala State capital, married once, divorced once, married again, shifted to Chennai, worked with a management school, traveled widely, visited US, made money, retired and settled down with his second wife and daughter from first marriage, but never returned to see his old father or brother, Vara, short for Varadukutty, a struggling artist and debt-ridden, because he was sure they were so, still.
It was the music house, and had been so until one fine day, the father declared his decision to change his music career to a medical representative profession. Concerts were dwindling, students could not be maintained, when they didn’t come on time, or missed a class or two, never informed about absence beforehand; and took classes the whole month and disappeared when it came to paying the fees. The father obtained the job selling medicines, but looked dejected at having to ingratiate people, a low down he had never had to stoop all his life.
Mani and Vara didn’t like their father running away from the music house; and making them teach students instead, and practice hours together for the sparse concert chances in the temples in and around Ernakulam city. Hardly seven students came now, and the monthly fee wasn’t more than five rupees, but they kept furiously practicing, teaching students, urging them to attend their concerts, however little, attending concerts of other musicians at the city sabha, ingratiating with the secretary, recommending chances for their friends and in return getting to sing in temples in remote locations—all— in the hope the father leaves the house on some official work and they put the house back together to its glorious days. That never happened, and Mani ended up forty-five years later as a sexagenarian widower taking his morning walks at the Boat Club Road near his penthouse at R.A. Puram, Chennai.
It was one of those unseasonal rains one Tuesday morning when the grating voice of a woman introducing herself as Mangala called up and invited him for the wedding. He didn’t know who she was until she said she was Vara’s wife. Yes, she said, Vara still lived at the music house or at least a portion of it after father died and planned to pledge it. They were married twenty-two years back and their only child, a daughter was getting married in August.
Pledge the music house? Was that what she said?
Yes, she said. Had he heard of the Royal Music House? Of course, not, she said.
He had not. That’s what Sangeetha Illam is called now, she said. Vara’d sold the music house to a timber merchant whose wife died on the house-warming ceremony day, and he sold out to a Marwadi pawnshop owner who hoarded his illegal gold and jewelry in it for a few years until thieves stole them one day and then downloaded it onto a rich Dubai-based NRI who started the Royal Music House. His manager retired and he’d hired Vara to look after the museum and put him up in one wing of the house itself. That was in 2000. The house did a good job. But, they are on leave till the rainy season is over as there are no tourists then.
So, how can Vara pledge the house? He’d asked.
Vara had bought the eastern wing of the house when the NRI needed money. We moved to a small, rented place near the music house and also profited from the tourist collections. Now, for the daughter’s marriage, he plans to pledge the portion.
She’d called up from some landline. Her daughter had playfully googled his name and got his phone number. Vara had wanted to keep in touch but didn’t summon enough courage to let Mani see him as he was, saying she reminisced. Good times did come but by the time he made up his mind, things would turn sour. Actually now, he doesn’t know I’ve called you up, she said.
What will be your daughter’s marriage expenses? He’d asked.
Seven-to-eight lakh rupees, she said.
I’ll give you ten. Tell Vara not to pledge the house. He said. She broke into tears over the phone and thanked him again and again and needless to say, pleaded with him to come for the wedding.
Maybe, he thought, bad times would never get over. Irritated suddenly at the thought, he replied to her in the affirmative. No need to wait for me at the station or airport, I’ll drive down. He was lucky to escape unhurt in a train accident earlier once. His acrophobia made him avoid flights. He always drove everywhere in his sports car. And he knew the route to Kochi, down south to Salem and then over Coimbatore and Palakkad and then to the coastal Kochi town. He felt proud to hear the wonder in her voice, knew she was half-expecting him to speak in a shaky voice and dodder around with walking sticks and lean on a helper to arrange his trips. But she knew that he was five years elder to Vara who was fifty-eight. For a professor and with a family, nobody expected him to indulge in a sports car. But, his stock broking experience had taught him the value of speed. After his daughter was married off, he indulged in it. He didn’t sell it when his wife died although he was sad for some time.
He threw his mind back to the days when his musician father’s prime disciple—he forgot her name now—taught him and his brother songs, Vara staring at her soft lips open and close with the sung syllables, shapely nails on shapelier fingers beating the rhythm on her thighs, straight back and thin neck, filling the room with her music, her eyes shut in sincere devotion to the music and to her guru. The father was turning bald, Mani was twenty, and Vara fifteen; and they liked and adored her. If you liked a deer, you’d admire her with her small waist and big, expressive eyes that made you want to pity her all the time. The morning air breezed around the house, spreading the fragrance of jasmine flowers on her hair through the practice room, and all the three of them were immensely charged with elaborating ragas in improvisation. She’d balance the Tambura on her right lap, open her eyes to look anxiously and alternately at Mani and Vara to check if both had got the difficult phrases right, strum the Tambura strings and tilt her right ear to the wooden frame immersing herself into the tones.
The father was away early morning to play tennis at the local club with the idle rich. Like a serious sportsman, he’d wear a white t-shirt, shorts revealing his thigh hair in a place where even young men covered their legs wearing white mundus and athletic shoes. You could spot him at the end of the street. There was a certain spring in his steps. He wore the sportsman attire every morning, wearing an elastic tri-colored band on his head, holding the racket in one hand, his middle-aged face beaming, and thinning grey hair adding wisdom to the face; wide nose, small eyes, thick lips and a stout neck stuck onto a disproportionate mammoth body. Now, he was dead twenty years or more—a heart-attack at a rare concert.
The disciple started teaching. Yes, she was teaching the song she’d sung at the radio audition the day before. The father taught her and she’d pass it on to Mani and Vara. The father was reluctant at first to take her as his student; in fact, he was reluctant even to teach. He felt his voice would go croaking if he taught students, and so he would try to protect his precious voice for concert singing. But, one day when his own father urged him to teach this girl with the golden voice, he took her under his wings. She grasped the lessons fast and the father didn’t have to exert his voice much. So, he’d ask her to teach his sons, who needed to have every line repeated at least thrice to get some idea of the twists and turns of the notes. Yes, she’d sung the audition well. The accompanying artists had praised her renditions very well saying she could even get a straight ‘A’ grade for her improvisation. They were worth their value in gold, said a violinist—staff artist.
Mani had completed his B Com, and dreamt of becoming a stock broker, for money or glory, he didn’t know. His father’s friend had offered to take him in as an accountant. But, he would have nothing to do with his father’s circle of friends, however wealthy they were. He knew the lot. It could go on and on—the same house, same neighbors, same street, and same company; and retire there and burn in the same crematorium. At the Boat Club Road, walking the posh street, only he knew that had he not left, sooner or later he’d have had to become a puppet in their hands—else his father’s.
What he’d have wanted to know now, wheels smoothly turning and twisting on the potholed roads, was if the disciple was singing any concerts at Chennai, and if not, whether she was singing at all.
The traffic on the GST highway was at an unprecedented high. His sleek car was sandwiched between two airbuses on both the sides. There was an auto rickshaw standing in front of him and two motorbikes rearing to slime into the gaps. The traffic red light was on. And, when it turned green, the vehicles raced past the junction. A car trying to turn right on the opposite lane hit a biker who slid and scratched Mani’s car. The mustached policeman sensing a great opportunity came running, whistling loud and swinging both his hands to stop all the three vehicles. The car sped away. The biker adjusted his bike and took it to the side of the road. Mani had to drive to the side too. He insisted on Mani’s license and insurance book. Marriage, he said, going to my niece’s marriage.
Not to yours anyway, grandpa, the policeman said. If you don’t drive carefully, you’d end up in your own funeral, he said. There was a pause. What are you doing in a flashy sports car like this anyway? He asked, his moustache vibrating under his booming voice. When he said that he was not at fault and the biker fell on him, the policeman simply ignored him. Mani tried to argue saying his car got a scratch and who’d pay for it. But all his talk fell on deaf ears. You can reason it out in the police station, was all the policeman would say. On second thoughts, Mani took out his wallet and handed him a hundred rupees. The policeman didn’t even take one look at the currency note. Mani doubled it. Still no. Only when he paid him a five hundred, did the policeman’s lips widen into an ingratiating grin. You rich people should know better, he said. Even if it’s a fast car, please drive slowly, advised the policeman. Mani got into his car and started the engine. The policeman handed back his license and insurance documents.
There was always something going wrong between the father and the disciple. After his concert ended, people would not stop with praising his singing; they would also rope in his disciple’s name and say that she was singing very well too. Initially it didn’t bother him. But, when constant praises of his disciple started pouring in, his face wore a sullen look. Opportunities to sing concerts began pouring for her. All the local temples reserved concerts for her in their annual celebrations. She’d come every morning to learn her lessons from him. When she greeted him, he would turn his face and not respond. He’d scold her for singing ragas wrong when she actually would be singing them right. And then, he’d scold her for no reason. Only when her eyes filled with tears would he be contended.
Mani’s interest in stock broking had begun when his father told him to go to Chennai, called Madras then, to his musician-friend’s house to learn advanced lessons during his college vacation. Mani was eighteen or nineteen but no older. It was the first time Mani was going out of Kochi, and the first time he was visiting Chennai. They took the Madras Mail that started from the Island station. Mani had not seen such crowd at any station as the Madras Central station till then. Everything about Chennai was a wonder to him. The broad roads, frequent buses, rare power cuts, smart people, bustle of a city, fast pace and dynamic energy, thick and tasty curd (milk gets curdled badly in the south-western monsoon), quality raw rice and a sense of anonymity filled him with an inexplicable love for the place.
On top of it, came the trip to the Madras Stock Exchange. Music particularly Carnatic music and stock market were poles apart. But, it so happened that the son of his father’s friend with whom Mani was staying was a stock broker. Family money helped the father’s friend set up his son as a stock broker.
That stock broker took him through the dingy alleys of Parry’s corner to the gigantic Madras Stock Exchange building. Once inside, Mani had to sit in the visitor’s gallery while the stock broker joined the crowd on the floor. He had a pile of certificates—share certificates of India Cements Company, he had told him. A substantial subscription was raised for the company in the 1950s itself. Before leaving, the stock broker had let Mani hold the share certificates. Thick papers, blue-colored large letters of the company name and ornamented writing highlighting the stock broker’s name made Mani feel privileged to just hold them. Caressing the paper, he wished his name would also show in the certificate.
On the floor, the stock broker distanced himself slightly from the crowd and shouted out an offer. The previously confused crowd now gathered around him and bid prices. This went on and on till the stock broker’s outcry was matched. There was a great relief and smile on his face. Mani watched him from the gallery receiving fat packets of currency notes. It was the first time Mani got to see a bunch of 100-rupee notes—the sight of which got deeply embedded in his mind. He stood transfixed staring at the stock broker and knew exactly at that moment what he wanted to be when he grew up.
How come you received so much money, he’d asked the stock broker. Well, this is the season of expansions, he’d replied. India Cements was expanding its plants. Although it had been expanding from the year it was incorporated, and I spread a rumor now, he said. Mani looked surprised. Don’t worry, he’d said, it was not wrong information, just a rumor, based on facts. I told my friends that it was expanding and will consequently reach higher share price. I created a demand for people to buy so that I could download their shares that have not been moving up at all the last few weeks. That’s the secret, he’d said. It’s not an open manipulation, he swore. But, Mani was interested. It felt wonderful to him to be clever.
After the slight brush with the biker on Wednesday morning, Mani realized he was getting stressed, and for no apparent reason. He decided to turn on the CD player. Mozart’s symphonies took precedence over Carnatic CDs. He felt a sudden calm. Curving into the traffic, he saw luxury buses and big cars whiz past. Old tractors carrying hay would dodder on the extreme left side. Some old lorries carrying sand would speed up seeing his swanky car race past. It was time for lunch and Mani stopped his car at a highway vegetarian hotel and tucked into full meals.
The Tamil Adi month—marriages wouldn’t be solemnized during the period— was over by August fifteenth. Light drizzles and occasional showers trickled into Chennai through the escaped rain-bearing-winds of the south-west monsoon. When Mani was washing his hands after the meal, there was a sudden gust of wind pushing up the sand on the ground. Small gravels hit his face. He looked up at the sky. Dark clouds were darting across from the horizon. Rumbling thunder noises traveled back and forth.
He had to be there at Coimbatore by dusk. There were days when he never halted anywhere for the night. Even if it was about driving to Mumbai, he’d drive day and night and reach. But, now things were different. He didn’t want to drive at night. Traffic on the highways was sparse but dangerous. It was not uncommon to get hit by a drunken driver at night and lie dying with no one to care.
It was unusual to have heavy downpours in August. The south-west monsoon in Kerala would start in May and go on till September. But, at Chennai, it was the north-east monsoon that brought heavy showers and would start only in October, if ever. But, recent spells of climactic change has rains coming in Chennai every week getting the met department confused as ever.
He drove faster than racing cars. It was tea time; and he had reached Salem. The sun was scorching hot, and it had been so for the last two hours. His face broke into sweat even with the air conditioning. Reaching Coimbatore for dinner, he checked into a hotel. Lying on the smooth, sponge bed, he saw his car flashing blue under the hotel name, RESIDENCY. After stuffing himself at lunch, he didn’t feel hungry. He’d swallowed a glass of vodka and crawled into the silky bed.
He dreamed that he was in the music house but all the instruments were removed and in their places, were traders bidding and offering shares. Cash and share certificates were strewn all over the place. Traders jostled with one another and elbowed him into a corner. The outcry rose to a din and singing, if there was any, drowned into it. Students were shocked initially but seeing the cash bunches changed themselves into traders and began shouting instead of singing.
Thursday morning dawned and he rose up thinking of the two hundred and fifty kilometers he has to drive. He made a dash at the free breakfast buffet spread: idlis, dosas, appams and stew, vadas, omelets, toasts and corn flakes. He gorged on them, taking one of each. It filled up his tummy and he knew that he didn’t have to stop anywhere for lunch. Usually he breakfasted on oatmeal, an American trend fast catching up in Chennai, but he knew that he needed to tuck in the heavy breakfast for energy to drive. He also bought some chocolates for instant energy. The sky had lit up momentarily. Amidst washed-clean-but-still-wet roads and overflowing gutters, the glowing, warm sun made yellow, caressing streaks on the back of his car.
He crossed the inter-state border and hit Palakkad—second time in the last forty-five years, the first time being his father’s funeral. Further down, he crossed the bustling Thrissur city, a temple town getting ready to celebrate the Onam festival. The last time, he had stayed at a hotel where the lobby area streamed Carnatic music of Mandolin Srinivasan; it soothed his nerves. And then, came the song, “Vinata” played faster than usual, shocking him with its pace. He now saw the shock in a comical way—a song taught wrong.
At a phone booth in Thrissur, he made a call to Mangala. He had a mobile phone but it would be too expensive to make the call— roaming charges were very high. Although he could afford that and much more, he prided on his disciplined spending. He was carrying a check book to make out ten lakh rupees to his brother for the marriage expenses. It was a joint account with his dead wife. He had not removed her name yet. She was extremely upset when he had made out his will leaving her all the money and assets. It sent her into a tizzy thinking how he could even think of death at that young age of fifty-five. People don’t write wills and even if they did, they’d write them at eighty or so, was her idea. Now, two years later, he had to change the will completely and leave it all in his daughter’s name. He had not informed her of this trip of his yet. He thought he’d call her up at Mumbai where she stays with her husband in a fancy apartment later.
“Hello,” Managala’s thick voice came on the phone.
“I’ll be there in about two hours,” he said.
“I thought you were not coming as we didn’t hear from you after I’d called,” she said.
“I’m in Thrissur now and will be there by noon,” he said.
“It has begun to rain very heavily here. The wind is high too. Please be careful,” she said.
“I’ll manage,” he said. This was not the first time he was driving in heavy rains.
In the next few minutes, he took to the highways. A lot had changed about the place. Earlier, roads were narrow, even highway roads were so. As far as the eye could see, one saw only hamlets. The whole state, if you’d driven from north to south, say Calicut to Trivandrum, was just an extension of the coastline. There was no major inland area like in Tamilnadu or other states, for that matter. But now, these thatched house-inhabited hamlets have turned out to be luxurious bungalow-infested towns. Malayalis who made their millions in the Middle East invested in palatial homes that housed an old parent or two. Roads were well-laid. Every town boasted of some tourist attraction or the other. There’d be as many white faces as brown or black especially during peak tourist seasons.
Rain poured heavily on his car. Twenty-five kilometers out of Thrissur, he saw the first board, Sangeetha Illam with the picture of boys and girls with two braids singing to the saint-composer Tyagaraja’s image, classes starting Vijayadashami.
Ok, she said, today I’ll teach you the song, “Vinata Suta” in the raga, Jayanthasena set to Adi tala. Before I start the song, let me describe the raga a little bit. This raga is a Vinta or Vichitra raga—meaning odd. It is strange because it has five notes in ascending and six in descending pattern—a combination of audava and shadava pattern. When Mani rose to fetch water for her in a tumbler, Vara raised his eyes and stared at her. She was singing the phrases of the raga for them to listen. When she sang, she shut her eyes. Vara was of that age when everything interested him in a sexual way. He would curb his instincts when others were around, which happened most of the time.
After she taught them some movements of the raga, she started teaching the song. She dictated the first two lines of the song and they wrote it down in their music notebooks. Can you also tell the meaning of these lines, they’d asked. O, Lord! The one flying on Garuda, Goddess Lakshmi’s beloved, I worship you with all my heart; she translated. The beginning is generally a salutation, she added. So, how come you sang this odd raga for the radio audition, Vara had asked. I sang it for ten minutes, with the Alapana making up for five minutes. It depicts a sort of mastery on the part of the singer to be able to improvise on such ragas, she’d said. She sang both the lines one after another and they repeated. She sang every sangathi twice and they repeated. She asked them finally to sing the first two lines on their own and corrected any mistakes they made.
Onto the next two lines—the anupallavi, she said.
Once or twice he thought of stopping the car and taking shelter by the shops on the roadside. But, at the speed his car drove, he escaped the heavy rains and headed through the slightly clearer terrain. It was the fury of the Edava Mazha he’d escaped. Rain was slowing. The fast pitter-patter turned into a slower rhythm. Heavy droplets that hit the car now turned into lighter ones, though sharper. Visibility was better. Mani didn’t have to force his weak eyes to check the road for vehicles and potholes. The rains brought some chill but Mani could stand it without wearing sweaters. The chills of the rainy season were soothing to the body scorched by excessive heat waves of the summer. At the worst, Mani would sneeze, but beyond that, there was no question of wearing warm clothing. Only hill stations needed that. Mani could have driven through the Munnar hills but the cold there would have been unbearable.
What made him leave the music house? Mani pondered over it. For years he couldn’t lay his hand on the real reason. He always felt he had no specific reason to leave. He’d learnt that song from the disciple that day and felt the urge to leave. It was a strong instinct. The vacation at Chennai happened. When he came back to Kochi, it was only to collect his clothes and the degree certificate and he’d gone to Chennai. Obviously, there were reasons. He had to find his own profession (and it was not music). He had to find something that made money. There was a lot of it out there. He’d seen it. How many times had he made money on shares for himself and for others? He had to escape the rut of the everyday grind and the impending trap of his father or his wealthy friends. All these seemed reasons. But he still couldn’t lay his hand on the real reason. After the wedding, Mani thought, he’d bring the music house back into shape. It will regain its former glory.
With the piercing strikes of the sharp rain drops, the shape of the music house began to gather in his mind; he could recall the boxes he’d made for the Tamburas, wooden cases with glass tops, bought violins and Mridangams for the instrument room, wiped the dust off them all on Sundays—patiently wiping the curves, pegs and holes, tuning the instruments, changing the strings, repairing the Mridangam cords—and learning to play the violin on his own. Vara and he would decorate the Saraswati deity on the day before Vijayadashami and place books and musical instruments before Her as offering to the knowledge and learning She provides. During the next day, Vijayadashami, celebrated as the day of new lessons, students would come to learn music and bring fruits and flowers to offer to their Guru.
Traveling against the dark skies, he checked the mile stones. It was the last forty kilometers. He was racing at eighty kilometers per hour. The roads were given a clean wash. It wouldn’t hurt him to listen to the Carnatic CD he had. When the disciple had taught the song to him and Vara, he’d taped it. And, when he’d come to his father’s funeral, he’d transferred the music recorded in cassettes to CDs, taking some of them to Chennai. Yes, it was her voice, alright. The song created the nostalgic mood he indulged in, these days, and was the perfect setting for this last mile journey. He’d recorded it when she had begun by teaching the nuances of the raga that day. Only one hour. The song was half-taught but the improvising, raga nuances and the first half of the song were worth listening. It was eleven and the sun shone bright. Probably, the rains had taken leave on that day in these parts, he thought. He saw the board: 10 km to Sangeetha Illam.
He climbed the Thevara Bridge and had to stand in line. It had not changed. The bridge fifty years before could not take the weight of vehicles running both sides. So, when vehicles move on one side, the other side waits. Why couldn’t they just pull this down and build another sturdy one, he thought. There was always an underlying stagnancy over fleeting and ephemeral changes here. People brought changes, built swanky houses and bought ultra-luxury cars but the governments have been doddering and squeezing and using worn-out things to the last drop. There was another bridge waiting to be crossed only after which he’d be able to reach the music house. While waiting for the slow moving old red-colored buses and tiny multi-colored cars, Mani heard very loud thunder claps. Dark clouds rumbled on from the Arabian Sea. Sunlight suddenly vanished. Gradual darkness enveloped the place. There was grey light all-around. Drizzling started. Wind was blowing heavily. It carried the raindrops everywhere. The direction of the beating rain kept changing. The rain beat faster. The downpour had started again.
Opening her eyes, the disciple dictated the next two lines of the song. Mani and Vara wrote the lines down. Ok, now the meaning, she said. What’s the use of surviving in this world if it is not meant to be with You always, O’ Rama? But, the word, ‘Rama’ isn’t there, Vara’d said. I just added it for you to understand as to whom the question was addressed, she’d said. And, what is the use of this life lived by cheating and tormenting people? The next line says, she’d said. Vara asked what cheating was.