Woh Meharban Kal Ho Na Ho

Finally, I bought a harmonium today. This is two months after I began learning Dhrupad. Harmonium is not used in Dhrupad. It is not classical musical instrument but my Guru advised me to buy one because he expects me to learn light music too. Next week I will buy a Tanpura, the real and proper instrument for Dhrupad.

In buying harmonium  I was happier than when I bought the most expensive item in my life—my car; a house is still a (pipe) dream. A long deferred personal music journey picked a definite momentum with Sadhna at home today. Oh! What a feeling!

My guru and Dhrupad exponent Manoj Saraf himself took me in his car to Rajwada to buy the harmonium. Manoj is a disciple of Ustad Fariduddin Dagar and with his wife Sulabha makes the only Dhrupad singing couple in India. His confidence in my ability to learn music fast is really a humbling experience to me.

Next month, I plan to start learning Urdu. My old friend Javed Alam , a journalist in Nai Dunia, will be my teacher. I have seen his ability as Urdu teacher. He taught Avinash Duttt Garg ( BBC) and Hartosh Singh Bal ( political editor, OPEN) Urdu without formal lessons, over cups of coffees and chatting in the Indian Coffee House in Bhopal seven years ago. Now , it is my turn to be benefited from his amazing skills.

Indore is beginning to prove quite a learning experience. So many things are at hand to fill the void caused due to separation from the family.

Rigrous gym in the morning, then music class, then Herbalife shake at health club, then cleaning the house and self, then bath, then cooking, then library, then reading at home and then writing the two fictions I had planned a decade ago.  

The time to go to the office ( 4pm) never felt quicker. Once in the office, it nose to the grindstone till 12. 30 am, except for two outings—one for evening walk and breakfast and the other for dinner.   

Talking about writing, I am feeling adequately motivated to resume writing a fiction on the circumstance surrounding rise and fall ( suicide?) by my friend Sarla Mishra, a feisty Congress leader who was found 70% burnt in her house under mysterious circumstance in February, 1997. The other book is rather hazy. Its contours are still to emerge.         

         With all these, I hope my old age will not be an intolerable  boredom. When the severely punished eyes due to reading will begin to lose sight, music will be there to support.

Of course this will happen at least 25 years hence. Till then, Jo Hai Yanha Har Pal Jiyo, Who Mehraban Kal Ho Na Ho.