That day I was a participant in the college song competition. I do not sing so well but I had participated. For me participation was just a further discovery of my talents. Like me, many students cluttered the stage and used the microphone to amplify their hoarse voices. Only very few good singers occasionally appeared among them like brilliant flashes who swayed the audience with their melodious voices. My turn came. I gave my performance. It was full of spirit and energy but was of average order. I was the 33rd Number of participant.
I was daily coming to college from my village covering a distance of 50 Kilometres. The last bus to my village would pass by my college before 4pm. That day I was late to catch the bus to my hometown. I was reluctantly leaving the spacious auditorium because there all the teen agers had gathered and a strong current of romantic feelings was flowing in and through the auditorium. I was unwillingly stepping down the stairs leaving the bubbling auditorium behind me. Like other teen-agers, I was also in search of a beautiful face in whose beauty I could forget the tyranny of my subjects. Young boys and girls were expressing their intense love-feelings with heart-rending gestures while they sang many popular romantic or poignant songs. It was enthralling to witness powerful expression of young emotionality breaking the monotony of educational institutions. I was one among them but I had to leave the place because the private bus will not wait for me. While I was about to cross the entrance of the auditorium, a child like female voice sang a song whose meaning was ‘life lived in isolation is meaningless’. The unusually beautiful voice allured me to discover the owner of the voice. I turned back and rushed to have a glimpse of that girl. From a distance, I saw her. She was a beautiful short-heighted girl with double pigtails and plump cheeks. Her appearance rang bells in my heart. I was dumbfounded for some moments. After her performance, she smiled at the audience and her dimples invited the longest clapping from the audience. I still remember that among the audience, I was the last one to stop clapping.
That day I missed my bus and stayed in a friend’s hostel room.
Mornings came and days passed away but I could never meet the girl once again. When I could not see the girl again, I wanted to listen to that song that she had sung that day. I went to many music stores to get the song. However, I could not tell the lyrics of the song exactly to the shopkeepers as a result I failed even to get a copy of the song as a token of her memory. I could get neither the girl nor the song linked to her magical appearance in my life. Slowly and slowly, her memory receded from the conscious working of my brain but occasionally she would pop up like volcanic eruption from some corner of my mind and would silence my whole being in some strange forgetfulness. This process continued for one or two year.
After 12 years, one day my son was playing with the remote control of the television set. He was aimlessly switching from one channel to another channel. At one music channel, he stopped for a moment. A song was on the screen. My heart responded to the music instantly. I took the remote in my hand, turned up the volume. Eureka! I had found the song, which I was desperately seeking 12 years back. The high volume of the TV made my wife rush from the kitchen like a bulldozer. She shouted angrily, “Have you gone mad? For your kind information, the sound is beyond my toleration.” I answered her, “My dear, just for a moment think that you are back into 12 years and in the college auditorium you are singing this song with a smiling face and I am in the audience.”
My wife could not understand why I responded so imaginatively and emotionally to her enraged voice. She got confused for a moment but later gave a heavenly smile. In her smile, I was lost in dreaming that same auditorium, same gathering, same song but this time my wife had fully replaced that girl...........Somebody shook my hand. When I came to life from my daydream, my 4-year-old son asked me, “Daddy, you will be standing at the audience and mother on the stage but where shall I be?” I lifted my son into my arms and told him, “You would be in my shirt pocket, very close to my heart, son.”
No comments:
Post a Comment