Music is what emotions sound like
Collegian Juie Shah shares the story of how she and music found each other
I was eight years old. Tiny, pigtailed, frail and bony. One could totally lose me in a crowd. The only thing that one could probably notice in me was my eyes. No, they weren’t exceptionally beautiful or brilliantly colored. They were a normal pair of eyes but they always had a humongous question mark in them.
People thought I was lost and quiet but my mind was very talkative and excited. It was always running and exploring the nooks and crannies of the small little universe I had formed in my head. I wasn’t a curious annoying child who would keep asking her parents 50 questions in a minute, but if my mind could talk it would surely be annoyed by the questions I was asking. Probably, it hated me.
I had lost my grandfather that year. My grandfather was my world at that point of time. He used to take me for ice cream every day after school and we had a secret pact not to let my parents know. He would teach me art and music and he was the one who made me identify the different colours that make the world so beautiful and the different notes that seemed so pleasing to the ear. He had a hidden dream for me to become a musician. However merciless it sounds I felt happy the day he died because I remembered him telling me that when somebody dies they are free and reborn. I was happier about the fact that he was a child again, just like me, somewhere in this world.
That day when he died I went walking by the street. I live in a lane at the turning of the market. It is serene, away from the hustle and bustle of the market and has lush green trees. The day was beautiful and I went walking thinking about the beautiful memories I had with my daadu, that’s what I called him. I stopped outside a bungalow.
It was old looking, but huge and absolutely beautiful. It reminded me of fairy tales and it had a charm to it that made me feel like I’d find a treasure house of jewels inside. The curious self that I was, I walked into the bungalow. It had a huge lawn and a verandah. Suddenly I started hearing music. It sounded beautiful to my ear. It went from the sharpest of notes to the mildest of tones and something about it reminded me of a butterfly’s journey from flower to flower, and suddenly I saw a butterfly. I went closer and saw an old man who looked like my grandfather sitting and moving his fingers over black and white keys on a giant brown wooden box. Yes, I didn’t know that was called a piano. I stood behind a pillar absolutely amazed looking at him create sounds that seemed heavenly. My tiny little fingers itched to touch one of those keys to see how it feels. I felt happy and chirpy to hear his melodies. Suddenly, he stood up and saw me hiding behind the pillar. He called me towards him and I got frightened and ran away home.
All day I caught myself humming the tune he was playing. It slowly became a ritual for me to hide behind that pillar but then I started losing my fear and he gave me a candy every time we met but never spoke. That is how our relationship began. Short and sweet. Everyday I saw the yellow butterfly in his lawn, everyday I heard him play and everyday I was given a fruit candy. Then one day I started humming and singing to his tunes and then we had a relationship of me singing and him playing. He smiled at me acknowledging my voice and I always sang louder and better when he did. We had a relationship far more than the boundaries of words. We had a relationship of music, because I started making a language out of the music he played out of the magical wooden box. Few notes made me smile, while few alarmed me… there were few that reminded me of colors and few that matched the evening so perfectly…but then again there were few that were so low and so serious that they made me sad. I hummed a melody with aah’s and ooh’s and he smiled. Nobody knew that half an hour of my life. A year passed and the first thing he told me in a broken, fragmented yet very clear voice was “Child, your voice has the power of bringing emotions. When you sing, no words are required”. I said “Thank you”, took my candy treat and walked away. I never realised what the butterfly meant but I was happy seeing it fly around every day. I felt like how I enjoyed his music, she must be dancing to it too.
Like all stories end, this too ended. I had my final exams for a week and I was caught up with studies. The day it got over I rushed to his bungalow to sing to my hearts glee. This time I saw the butterfly near the gate, as I went in I saw people dressed in black around a casket. I knew he had reached where my grandfather was.
Suddenly a millions thoughts started swirling in my small little head. I was wondering who would give me my daily dose of heaven. I realised it was the end of my singing because somehow the only person I could sing my heart out was him. Suddenly the butterfly came and started flying around me like it wants to tell me something. It circled me twice and then started flying away towards the verandah. It flew to the piano and rested there and that’s when I realised it was a sign. A sign that was probably telling me something. Next to it I found a note which said, “To the little girl who made my world so beautiful”.
That’s when everything made perfect sense. My grandfather’s dream of me becoming a singer, a stranger, a piano and heavenly music were signs showing me that music was probably the right thing for me. Since then the piano has been my best friend and my songs have been my emotions, and I owe it all to my stranger.
Collegian Juie Shah shares the story of how she and music found each other
I was eight years old. Tiny, pigtailed, frail and bony. One could totally lose me in a crowd. The only thing that one could probably notice in me was my eyes. No, they weren’t exceptionally beautiful or brilliantly colored. They were a normal pair of eyes but they always had a humongous question mark in them.
People thought I was lost and quiet but my mind was very talkative and excited. It was always running and exploring the nooks and crannies of the small little universe I had formed in my head. I wasn’t a curious annoying child who would keep asking her parents 50 questions in a minute, but if my mind could talk it would surely be annoyed by the questions I was asking. Probably, it hated me.
I had lost my grandfather that year. My grandfather was my world at that point of time. He used to take me for ice cream every day after school and we had a secret pact not to let my parents know. He would teach me art and music and he was the one who made me identify the different colours that make the world so beautiful and the different notes that seemed so pleasing to the ear. He had a hidden dream for me to become a musician. However merciless it sounds I felt happy the day he died because I remembered him telling me that when somebody dies they are free and reborn. I was happier about the fact that he was a child again, just like me, somewhere in this world.
That day when he died I went walking by the street. I live in a lane at the turning of the market. It is serene, away from the hustle and bustle of the market and has lush green trees. The day was beautiful and I went walking thinking about the beautiful memories I had with my daadu, that’s what I called him. I stopped outside a bungalow.
It was old looking, but huge and absolutely beautiful. It reminded me of fairy tales and it had a charm to it that made me feel like I’d find a treasure house of jewels inside. The curious self that I was, I walked into the bungalow. It had a huge lawn and a verandah. Suddenly I started hearing music. It sounded beautiful to my ear. It went from the sharpest of notes to the mildest of tones and something about it reminded me of a butterfly’s journey from flower to flower, and suddenly I saw a butterfly. I went closer and saw an old man who looked like my grandfather sitting and moving his fingers over black and white keys on a giant brown wooden box. Yes, I didn’t know that was called a piano. I stood behind a pillar absolutely amazed looking at him create sounds that seemed heavenly. My tiny little fingers itched to touch one of those keys to see how it feels. I felt happy and chirpy to hear his melodies. Suddenly, he stood up and saw me hiding behind the pillar. He called me towards him and I got frightened and ran away home.
All day I caught myself humming the tune he was playing. It slowly became a ritual for me to hide behind that pillar but then I started losing my fear and he gave me a candy every time we met but never spoke. That is how our relationship began. Short and sweet. Everyday I saw the yellow butterfly in his lawn, everyday I heard him play and everyday I was given a fruit candy. Then one day I started humming and singing to his tunes and then we had a relationship of me singing and him playing. He smiled at me acknowledging my voice and I always sang louder and better when he did. We had a relationship far more than the boundaries of words. We had a relationship of music, because I started making a language out of the music he played out of the magical wooden box. Few notes made me smile, while few alarmed me… there were few that reminded me of colors and few that matched the evening so perfectly…but then again there were few that were so low and so serious that they made me sad. I hummed a melody with aah’s and ooh’s and he smiled. Nobody knew that half an hour of my life. A year passed and the first thing he told me in a broken, fragmented yet very clear voice was “Child, your voice has the power of bringing emotions. When you sing, no words are required”. I said “Thank you”, took my candy treat and walked away. I never realised what the butterfly meant but I was happy seeing it fly around every day. I felt like how I enjoyed his music, she must be dancing to it too.
Like all stories end, this too ended. I had my final exams for a week and I was caught up with studies. The day it got over I rushed to his bungalow to sing to my hearts glee. This time I saw the butterfly near the gate, as I went in I saw people dressed in black around a casket. I knew he had reached where my grandfather was.
Suddenly a millions thoughts started swirling in my small little head. I was wondering who would give me my daily dose of heaven. I realised it was the end of my singing because somehow the only person I could sing my heart out was him. Suddenly the butterfly came and started flying around me like it wants to tell me something. It circled me twice and then started flying away towards the verandah. It flew to the piano and rested there and that’s when I realised it was a sign. A sign that was probably telling me something. Next to it I found a note which said, “To the little girl who made my world so beautiful”.
That’s when everything made perfect sense. My grandfather’s dream of me becoming a singer, a stranger, a piano and heavenly music were signs showing me that music was probably the right thing for me. Since then the piano has been my best friend and my songs have been my emotions, and I owe it all to my stranger.
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