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| Monday,13 May 2002 |
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Thank you for the music..! The monsoon rain clouds have started gathering and as I looked at them this morning, my heart felt heavy and burdened. I have never been too fond of the rains and just the sight of those dark clouds brought a black mood on me. And then I heard the singing. It came from the flat below. She sang as she sang every morning to her children and when I looked down later I saw them bouncing to school, cheered on by their mother's happy voice. I listened to her voice and my heart lifted as my thoughts went to another age and another woman, my mother. She sang from morn to nightfall. It was years later that I learnt, that, that singing voice never ever revealed the problems that our family faced. Financial situations and bad business days, compounded with strange sicknesses that my body always seemed to be receptive too. But my mother sang on. I still remember her voice as it, from darkened kitchen lighted up our home. She had a powerful melodious voice, sweet and full and as her hands lit fire and made the afternoon dish, her voice poured out and filled the house. We were mischievous, my brother and I, as boys will always be and often got into problems with neighbours around, who thought that boys were meant to be raised behind prison walls, and not in good, clean neighbourhoods. But hearing the voice of our mother made us bold and gave us courage to play prank and practical joke on some bully down the road, and run and hide and laugh and shout thereafter with naughty happiness that only joyous children could feel. A joyousness that came from song that a mother sang into our very hearts. She sang even though her days were not as bright as her songs seemed to portray. They were quite a mixture were the songs she sang. Some rang out in praise to her maker, some were ballads of yore and many times we heard love songs that she had heard from the radio and that were sung to the husband she loved with all her heart. She sang and as children our hearts were delighted and untroubled, cuddled, hugged and enfolded in harmonious song. I hope that voice sings on. I heard it last when she went to the graveyard to visit her beloved, who lay buried after a struggle with cancer. She sang at his grave and my heart broke to hear her sing. It was the voice of sorrow and sadness. She sang looking down at where he lay deep down in the earth.. But I hope that joy has returned into her voice, and that in her home in a city called Baltimore a thousand miles away, she sings as she sang in the days when we were young, songs of praise, with chords of love and vibrant notes that brought harmony into our lives. I listen to the voice downstairs. The clouds are still dark and heavy but my soul is not. It's Mothers Day today and I whisper, "Thank you ma, thank you for the music..!" |
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