Lily takes a tongue-in- cheek look at music and singing in this humorous piece.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress
~ Sailing to Byzantium, WB Yeats
“God respects me when I work; but god loves me when I sing,” said Rabindranath Tagore. The whole human sings, it’s never just the vocal chords! If this life were a song, then the music must definitely be love. The full throated, lusty, diva like, singing sound that emerges from
the wash rooms of the world collectively, must surely be the happiest, purest form of abandon and joy!
It is the primordial sound of the heart, throbbing with sincerity – the notes that one is hitting may be wrong, but the pure droplets of ecstasy are incomparable to any high. The soul turns cartwheels and the spirit soars to unchartered horizons, as each one of us, is the rock star, who gazes rapturously into the steaming bathroom mirror!
Celestial melody can meet you on a local train, in the garb of a beggar girl, lisping away her poverty stricken heart, for anyone, who cares to listen. Divinity, can also hit you in the eye, with a stinging whiplash, as you, hear a labouring mother, crooning her baby to sleep, with a lullaby, as she rocks herself, near a gravel heap, on the traffic smothered highway.
One can, totally, fall in love with a stranger, because he or she sings a song that only you can hear. Fancy cars and majestic mansions have no place, where the heart “sings its own sargam (musical notations). Shakespeare said that a certain lady could sing the savageness out of a bear!” Trust the Bard to have grizzly thoughts! The murmurs, the growls, the groans, the love sounds, emerge from the innermost recesses of a feeling, thudding heart.
A gypsy in the desert, sings to the vast expanse of the universe, when she sheds all inhibitions and calls out to the rolling sand dunes. That is perhaps the true music of the soul. Those who sing, frighten away their ills. The healing, embalming, sounds of music, are like endearments. If you can get, the hurt in your heart, out in the open light of the day, away from the dark shadows of your aching soul, then sing away! Sing out aloud, from the pit of your stomach, to the highest branches of the cedar, ignoring the flabbergasted looks of your own bewildered progeny. Try it out. It’s fun!
©Lily Swarn
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