Music in the Morning

I am not a morning person. Don’t talk to me in the morning, at least for an hour after I have woken up, unless you want to lose an ear. Barring the blue moon days I go for a walk, you will find me sitting on the steps to the verandah, a cup of tea on one side, morning newspapers, English and Malayalam, all strewn around. A grumpy old man, frowning from behind a pair of ridiculously small reading glasses perched so comically over his bulbous nose. Don’t come within 10 feet; only Sancho is permitted within this perimeter. In fact, Sancho is the only personnel authorized to lift my morning grouch. He would nuzzle my ear affectionately; pull my arm with his paw for a chest scratch. Sancho has some cat blood in him; he would rub the entire length of his body across my legs or toes, to and fro, to and fro.

My old music system had gone kaput for nearly a year. It was a good one and I could not afford to buy another. And I kept on postponing lugging the heavy system all the way to the service guys. Music was limited to the tinny noise coming out of the tiny PC speakers. Terrible. Hence the morning blues.

So? So last week, I got it fixed. Paid a whopping Rs.3,000/- but now sound floods my room from the big speakers. So? So, instead of reading the horrid tabloids, I flip open my mind to music – and get flipped high.

Biking my way to office, I hum Kumar Gandharva or Subha Mudgal or Prahlad Tipanya or Unnikrishna Kurup. Hemant Da and Mukesh and Talat have absconded from the heavens and are hiding somewhere undisclosed. At traffic signals, you might notice this man waiting for the green, relaxed unlike others, his fingers tapping a strange tattoo on the handlebars; you wouldn’t know the beat – it could be the Chenda, Edakka, Mridangam, Dholak, Pakhwaj or Tabla. Do not mistake him for an autistic, from the irregular jerking and twisting and twitching of his helmet – he is singing some great song inside it. If you approach this person in his office for help, you may not get it as quickly as you would like to, though you are sure to get a blank but happy smile; you see, he is somewhere far away in a village in Malwa .Or in Himachal. Or in a dark temple in Kerala. Don’t bet upon it, he could be at many other places, except where he should be, physically.

********** Balachandran V, Trivandrum 10-11-2010

Charlie Brown & Snoopy courtesy Late Charles M Schulz ( He is one among the 10 most lovable persons in the world - for me!)