Saturday, November 15, 2008

Tequila Sunrise

It's another tequila sunrise, starin' slowly across the sky...
It's been long since i woke up this early. Young sky fresh and blue. The Sun looks beautiful when not at it's brightest best. It's mid-November, and the window puts across the most magnificent view of a poetic nature. I'm with my guitar, strumming the chrods of this soothing composition by Eagles. The cool breeze, the rustling moist saplings, the chirping birds making it a perfect orchestra.
It's strange, but it's only so rare, that you find ingredients like these that feather you into some other world. Now i'm not a singer really, but i felt some good music in my ears. Another morning magic. The sky was getting brighter, against my realization. So I shifted my eyes to a yet mellow ground. It was only then, when i saw a young boy looking up, and another, and more till the count touched 6. They were all looking up, or beyond. I stopped playing, and my voice saw an absurd dead end. I wasn't wearing my glasses, so there was no way i could follow those 12 eyes. I had to find out what had gripped them all of a sudden, so i started strumming again. One of the kids pointed to me, and that triggered a show! A couple of them, the smallest of the lot were jumping harmlessly on the cement slice. The trees filtered the hiking sun rays, partially, and produced a scintillating laser effect. The whole scenario was (in simple words).. 'rocking'. This is what music does to you.
I wished the moment be shot, but as luck had it, the 'lets get started' merrymaking was suddenly interrupted. The very next moment, I saw the kids chased by a middle aged woman with a sweeper in her hand. It din't take me long to realize who they were. Soon enough, i saw the kids pick up scrapps and leftovers, some goin into their pockets, but most into a Garbage bin twice their size. I felt for them. I sat down and got back to the sunrise, but the guitar din't seem going, the music had lost the lustre. It was pointless. I knew what was wrong. Anyways the sun was in my face now, enough for the morning ecstasy i thought. My soon to become frenzy was now a fairytale.
My awww din't end there. I knew that even if i'd spent the whole day thinking about the the life of these pure souls, (and that too at such a rickety age) I'd still fall short of the reality. What's worse is that people like me can feel sorry for them, yes..but can do nothing about it..Or...hmmm.."can I?!"
"Gaurav, why are you running with your guitar, have your breakfast!"...There was a sudden rush of blood in me. I felt the breeze blits across my face as I hopped big leaps over the staircase . I wasn't listening. I sped down.. and saw them, much larger now, but I was still a giant.Their mother was not there. Good!, I thought. I sat on a slab, positioned my guitar and waited till this new and unusual genre of audience surrounded me. I asked the youngest of the kids what his favourite song was. "Rock on!" came back the answer, packed with a shy smile.I started strumming again, and we took off where we left from. The kids were back on the cement slice. The smiles were back. They knew the lyrics, so that solved my problems. The lady with the broom was still nowhere around. And I din't bother to track her motions, inviting another abrupt invasion. Only this time though, it was my audience to bar me. While at it, all the kids started to run, away from the pick of course. Now this was the second time in an hour I was dumped like this. And the worst feeling for any aspiring musician( though I'm nowhere close..still) is when his audience shows him their 'finger or back'! I turned my head only to see the same female approaching..still distant. She was carrying big black garbage bags, more than what she was supposed to i guess. I eagerly looked on as the six kids helped her drag the waste to the bin. I wasn't moving. She bent down and BANG! whacked one of the kids. I tightened a bit, being the probable reason. Deja vu!, the kids started running again, this time in small random circles. The lady was back with the weapon, but this time, with a smile on her face. I stayed numb. The echo of the last string I hit, still in my head. It's amazing how the smallest of things can teach you big lessons in the simplest yet most extraordinary ways. The rare early rise that started from a fiction, had ended up showing me something so prominent in life. Priority and fundamentals of one's nature makes you so wise, so early. The incident made me think of how 'out of a storybook' life I'm living.
I slowly walked back. Smiled at the kids as I passed them. They smiled back. "Tang toh nahi kiya na beta?" the lady asked. I nodded. Bang! another one. They laughed in unison. I laughed back...

10 comments:

anand said...

hats off man, excellent post.bringin that element of joy on their face, must hav felt wonderful.
those tiny moments of happiness ,i am sure u will cherish .. a sense of accomplishment
be proud of urself, u just made world a better place to live for those children of a lesser god ..

pratap kaul said...

shai he..very nicely put. Now we are talking, mr dobhal already spreading shockwaves in the blogosphere.Really good way of putting whatever you had to...this is the shakespeare i was talking about... :D
cheers!

Dimple Nangia said...

brilliant post.. really loved the emotion you've put in.. u can bring a smile on every readers' face (and now those kids too :D )

keep up th great work!

Sanket said...

I am sure it's a fantastic feeling to bring a smile on the face of the underpriveledged. Really touching post and indeed a really good deed by you. With Dobby writing, we are assured of excellent story telling skills and vocabluary, but this social side is really touchy. Keep up the good work, keep blogging.

Gaurav DobhaL said...

It was a great feeling of course..
but then as i said, it was an eye opener. Materialism is somthing so irrelevant to the people who feed on the lifestyle like these kids..
Absolutely we'll all keep trying to make the locality(if not the world:P) a better place for all...

SM said...

hi
nice post

see you later
mitesh

http://realityviews.blogspot.com/

an ordinary man said...

Seriously man i haven't read a better post than this...Bringing a smile on some1's face can work wonders.Life isn't always about greatness, victory or even immense joy. It is more often than not about those little things which we so easily tend to forget.

pratap kaul said...

ahem ahem..mr shake-his-spear doing well with the junta...sahi he beta..jiyo :D

losin_my_soul said...

hey nice one... a very nice (and different) writing style...

dethsoul said...

"Rock on" ...seriously... touched me da!!...... gud one dude...... :-)