This beautiful insight I came across recently. Somehow it has triggered my neurons to expand on it. So I thought life’s ups and downs are like undulations of music – the komal and the teevar, one cannot be fully appreciated without the other. In both cases the contrasting positions also have a certain in-built rhythm or a cause-and-effect relationship, so to say, that complements them.

Troubles in our lives are like discordant notes of music that we would or should like to avoid. Similarly, a perfect note (or sur) can be likened to a state of bliss, happiness, success or achievement that one always aspires for in life. Whether, in effect, we have full control over them is quite another thing but it may come in the fullness of time and with better understanding, patience or as they say by taking things in their stride.

WE PLAY IT BY EAR
One can put it in further perspective. Man being a social animal, life cannot be imagined without communicating your thoughts within your circle of close friends, family or colleagues – in other words your audience or various publics that you deal with. Same is the case with music. You cannot think of singing well without an appreciative audience, one that knows the fine art of good listening. And that goes beyond the superficial jerking of one’s head at every ‘sum’ or gesturing with one’s upper or lower limb.

On a personal note one’s passion for music, singing goes back to one’s ‘teens’. While walking to or back from Rang Mahal Mission High School, I always felt a certain ‘pull’ by the haunting voices of the likes of Rafi, Lata and Noor Jahan resonating in the winding lanes of Lahore’s Walled City. In this phase of my life I have relatively much more time to devote to and stoke the flame of singing in me. Humbling as it may sound, I am fast learning, not unusually for me, to avoid the kind of audience with half an ear for music.

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