Issue April 1- 14

Having one’s own private musician is a boon not granted to many

We have a new neighbour. Our colony has a new resident. I don’t know where he has come from, but he must have moved in quite recently. I realised his presence one morning when, getting up earlier than usual, I took my dog out for his pre sunrise walk. That was when I heard the new entrant. Heard rather than saw, because he was exercising his voice, though clearing his throat, I think, would be a better phrase for it. Whatever it was, I could hear him loud and clear.

I smiled at this rather unusual aural beginning to my day and walked my dog home and forgot about him.

I heard him on and off on the following mornings as I readied to leave for work, and he continued to just clear his throat. I wondered what he was all about, this neighbour I had not yet seen.

Then, I think, his family moved in too. At least his wife did, once he had cased out the colony and decided it was good enough for him to set up residence.

Early in the mornings, I heard him revel in his music, his voice clear as only trained voices can be, raised without fear or hesitation in notes few of us could aspire to, his song loud and long.

I imagined in it the joy of being one with his wife again, of living in surroundings that were pleasant and quiet, with only the occasional chime of the temple bell or the roar of a car engine to break the peace. These I thought, to be the reasons for his joyous singing.

I was not wrong. Before long, I heard a second voice, as his partner joined in, her notes matching his, her joyousness in tune with his. I felt our colony blessed.

I held my own joy close, knowing myself lucky to be privy to such an unbridled, unrestrained exhibition of talent. I did not take it for granted even for a moment though, knowing that anything could change it all.

A shift in the climate of the place, the comfort levels so necessary for song — any of these could change, and my new neighbour could decide to pack and leave as suddenly as he had come, his wife close behind, to relocate to a more pleasant clime. As long as it lasts, I thought to myself, I will exult in the offering I receive.

Quite often I tried, as I went up and down, to catch a sight of the new couple. Were they young or old, I wondered. Young I thought, from the force of their song, but one could never really tell.

I am however, looking forward to our coexistence. To their having their young in these idyllic surroundings, far away from the bustle and din of city life, and yet so close to it.

The trees that our colony abounds in, their leafy tops swaying in the spring breezes, make a sylvan setting for nests, and I can quite expect my musical neighbour and his mate setting aside their song to busy themselves with nest building, and caring for the hungry young. Except that koels don’t make nests or rear their own young. So there will be more time for song!

And so I hope that even as the months pass, and the spring gives way to summer and then to the thick black rain clouds that will screen the parched earth from the June sun, the voices temporarily silenced by the heat will rise in chorus as the young and their parents fill the air with the sound of their longing for rain.

I will then be well able to imagine that I am in the midst of a miniature painting, with the sky in dark blue and the green tops of the trees dotted with singing birds, and I, standing at my window, listening to them and the rustle of the leaves.

All it would need to make it picture perfect would be a flamboyant peacock trailing its many hued tail in the grass.

Maybe I am asking for too much. Or maybe I am not. Who knows?

The Editor