He could feel the music travel through his veins like heat. It moved up from the roots of the earth, up his short, stocky limbs, to his hanging stomach, his well-intentioned lungs and then, spluttered to a halt at his throat. He knew he shouldn’t have swallowed that ball of saliva.
‘Cut!’
Senthil looked at Mr Govindan, the music director, through the glass division. He could see that Mr Govindan was annoyed – it was the fifth cut, and the song hadn’t even begun.
‘Senthil, Sir, shall we take a break?’
‘No, no, Sir, one more.’
‘Okay, on the cue,’ and Senthil saw his director pump in all his energy one more time as he held up his fingers for the countdown, his whole body willing the silence of the ‘three-two-one’ to be heard, the recordist pushing the button up in slow motion, and Senthil felt the music rise up again, but this time, it did not even make it past his legs.
‘Cut! Break!’
The director left the recording room. The recordist, experienced in the ways of talent and ego, did not make eye contact. Senthil, alone in his glass cage, removed the wireless headphones, placed them on the stand, switched off the mike because even when dejected one had to be neat, and walked out. He could have had a coffee and waited for the director’s assistant to come and tell him they would fix another day for the recording and that they would call him back. He could have told them his throat was not okay, that he would be better in a couple of days, that all it needed was warm water and ginger, and the assistant would have nodded along, given him precisely three minutes of understanding, asked him if he needed a cab to get back home, and then the assistant would pretend a call was coming in and walked back to the studio. Senthil had always wondered what exactly the assistant did once he turned that corner. He liked to imagine the assistant huddled behind the window to make sure Senthil left. No one liked ageing talent.
That day, Senthil left without apologies or coffee and walked into the familiar chaos of Triplicane. The narrow streets with homes and shops stacked together like melted chocolate, the smells of mutton biryani and samosa and fried jalebis jostling for attention, the motorists swerving in and out of the traffic and narrowly missing pedestrians walking at the edges, and then, above it all, the faint strains of a familiar song from the temple’s loudspeaker. He hurried towards it, lifting up his veshti a notch so his strides were freer, and felt that familiar rush of music, of melody that birthed him and that was now slowly burying him.
*
Abdul Rahman opened his eyes from his prayers and watched the deep afternoon shadows dance on the wall in front of him. He thought he saw patterns there, of illness, drudgery, endlessness. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and got up – it was not yet time to sink into helplessness. That was for the night, when the darkness could hold him better.
‘Razia, I am leaving. I will be back for dinner.’
His wife would have finished her prayers too, kneeling next to his mother’s bed beyond the flimsy cloth partition, enveloping his mother’s inert body in the embrace of Allah’s words. She shuffled out from behind the curtain, her salwar-kameez limp with sweat.
‘You won’t forget to buy the medicines? And I will make mutton curry for dinner?’ It was a half question, half statement, like much of their lives walking the tightrope between existence and living. Sometimes Abdul wanted to laugh at the cliché his life had become – poverty oozing from his one-room walls leaving space for little puddles of everyday practicalities – food, sustenance, endurance – reminding them in small, insidious ways that nothing was free.
He made his way out of the winding, narrow pathways that made up the chawl where he lived, where lives were as open as the sewer to the world, and he dodged little naked children with a single black thread tied around their waists to ward off the evil eye; he narrowly missed a rush of soap water pouring out of a house as the woman watched tv and washed clothes; older boys playing cricket waited for Abdul to pass by before resuming their game; he flattened himself against a dirty wall generously marked with paan stains as a tempo full of scrap struggled to get by; he ducked and ran alongside a cyclist to escape Patel Chacha’s watchful eyes – he owed him fifty rupees for rice and dal and oil from a week ago – and when he finally came onto the noisy main road, the surge of Bombay met him. He took a deep breath and smiled, and made his way to Shakeel’s Fast Food, a roadside restaurant that served mostly biryani and kheema pao. He made a quick salaam to Shakeel Bhai sitting behind the counter watching Jeetendra’s furious dance steps on a small colour tv mounted on the wall, and made his way to the kitchen behind. The evening rush of customers would soon arrive.
*
Senthil was standing outside the Parthasarathy Temple. As always, he hesitated before he slipped out of his footwear outside and entered the temple. He felt the stone pathway go from cool to warm as he walked through shade and heat, the music blaring from the loudspeaker guiding him along. It was a song on Shiva from one of his popular albums – Deiva Thunai (Grace of God) – and he remembered a particularly difficult segment as the melody dipped only to suddenly rise, and how everyone at the recording studio had spontaneously erupted in applause when he sang that in one perfect take. He was surprised at how his voice sounded – agile and light like a kite soaring in the sky – and he wished he could hold on to that string again. He sighed, the heaviness of failure escaping in one long breath, and sat down close to the speakers. He could hear the temple bells in the distance and the priests’ chants, and he watched people in different moments of prayer – some with eyes closed, some with hands raised, some prostrated on the ground, and some moving their head to the music.
‘Hello, Senthil Sir! What are you doing here at this time?’
It was Balaiyah, the eighty-year-old canteen keeper. Balaiyah, with his trimmed white beard and bald head, dressed always in a lungi and t-shirt, his small, thin frame always alert, his eyes always sharp, was as intrinsic to the fabric of the temple as the beggars outside were – you couldn’t imagine the temple without either of them. Also, Senthil couldn’t imagine the temple without the sweet prasadham and, therefore, Balaiyah.
‘Nothing Bala Sir. Recording cancelled. Mind too full.’ Senthil looked away. He still couldn’t quite tell people around him that in the last one year his recording assignments had almost come to a standstill. That he couldn’t sing anymore. That he had lost his voice.
‘Leave it Senthil Sir. Here, have some prasadam – sweet pongal today.’ He handed Senthil a small palm leaf bowl filled with the aroma of rice cooked in jaggery and ghee, and sat down next to him in companionable silence. When the song finished and the next one began, Balaiyah said, ‘I met Krishnaswamy the other day, Senthil. He was asking about you. He said you hadn’t visited him in a long time. All okay?’
Senthil nodded. ‘Yes, Bala Sir. Just been busy with work. I will go soon.’
‘With your wife?’
Senthil swallowed. ‘Yes, with my wife.’
‘Is she well, now?’
‘Yes.’
Balaiyah looked at Senthil once, nodded, got up and went back to his place behind the canteen. The music continued to blare.
*
From 9pm onwards, Shakeel Bhai’s restaurant would transform into a bar. Regulars on Mohammed Ali Road knew this and those who didn’t still heard about Bhai’s famous mutton fry with pickle along with a quarter bottle of rum. Abdul had just finished cleaning the tables, his hands stained with the smell of old oil and stale onion from the dirty yellow cloth he was using to clean. Munna had yet to finish sweeping the floor, and night-time regulars had already begun to stream in. Shakeel Bhai had switched off the bright tube lights and switched on the dim red and yellow lights, and was playing old Jeetendra dance hits from his phone as orders of mutton and rum and kheema and beer flew over their heads.
‘Bhai. I need to go home. Just for half an hour.’ Abdul fidgeted. Bhai’s unpredictable moods were legendary by now and Abdul held quiet pride in the fact that he had been at the receiving end only twice in the ten years of working for Bhai.
‘Abdul, look around you. People have already started coming in. You can’t leave now.’
‘I just need to get the medicines to Ammi. Half an hour only Bhai.’
‘Abdul, don’t....’
‘Please, Bhai.’
Shakeel Bhai sighed. ‘Go Abdul. Half an hour. I don’t want your Ammi’s death on my head.’
Abdul thanked Bhai profusely and rushed out. He had made thirty rupees in tips, just enough for one lot of medicines. He bought them from the local pharmacy – coloured tablets for two days in paper packets neatly folded – and ran all the way home clutching his shirt pocket with the medicines. As he turned the corner to his chawl, he crashed into a man and fell on top of him, his elbow piercing the ribs of the man below.
‘Shiva Shiva!’ The man screamed and Abdul scrambled to his feet. The man splayed on the road, his orange lungi riding up his thighs, his long stick with a small drum attached on top rolled to the side, his thick, black beard and long, curly, untidy hair, was clearly a Godman. Abdul quickly picked up the stick, lifted the man up and apologised like his life depended on it. Godmen, no matter which religion they belonged to, were powerful and Abdul knew this like the back of his hand.
‘Maafi, maafi Swamiji. I didn’t see you, I am so sorry, are you hurt?’
The Swamiji managed to look dignified even if shaken. He patted Abdul’s back and said, ‘Kuch nahi hua, Abdul, don’t worry.’
Abdul froze like someone cast a spell on him. The Swamiji smiled. ‘I know everything, Abdul. Go and give your Ammi her medicines and come and meet me at Rahim’s teashop. I will be waiting.’
With that, he took his stick from Abdul and walked away, merging into the darkness like smoke. Abdul walked home in a daze, the sounds of the tv from different homes leaking into his thoughts and making him wonder if he really did meet someone who knew everything about him. Razia realised something was not okay the minute she saw him – his eyes were far away, she had to ask for the medicines more than once, and when he handed them to her, his hands were limp and cold. When she came back ten minutes later after giving her mother-in-law her medicines, Abdul was still standing by the door.
‘Abdul, what happened? You are scaring me?’ Razia’s hands hovered over Abdul’s face like a fly, not settling in any one spot. She wondered if he had suddenly developed a fever and then how they would manage if Abdul also became bed-ridden and how she would probably have to work in people’s homes to make ends meet and probably change her name to Raashi, because no one wanted to hire a Muslim and feeling secretly relieved they did not have children to add to this mix of misery.
Abdul finally spoke. ‘Razia, I have to get back to work. Don’t keep dinner for me, I will probably be late. Lock the house and go to sleep.’
‘But what happened? Is it Shakeel Bhai? Did he hit you?’
‘No, no, Razia. Nothing to worry. I am just tired. Busy day at the mess.’ Abdul gave Razia a half-hearted hug, gave his sleeping mother a peck on her forehead, and left. He went straight to Rahim’s teashop and found the Swamiji waiting for him.
*
When Senthil left the temple, he heard the call of the azan for the afternoon prayers. He hailed an auto, even though he knew he could just walk home. But he felt an urgent need to just be at home, to be with Saritha. He hoped she had ended the cold war with him. After his mother’s death two years ago, Saritha had begun to waver. It was in the small things at first – refusing to fast on a Friday, skipping some routine temple visits, cancelling evening bhajans at home on Sundays. The doubts that surfaced refused to go, like ink stains on shirt pockets. Lately though, Saritha seemed to have completely crossed over to the other side. He trudged up the two flights of stairs, fighting off the feeling that the walls on either side were closing in on him. He opened the door to his house and found Saritha kneeling on the ground.
‘What ... what are you doing?’ Shock and anger tossed Senthil around like a football.
‘What I should have done years ago.’ Saritha seemed calm, like the referee who knew that she only had to blow the whistle for the game to stop. Senthil was terrified.
‘Saritha, we have to go meet Krishnaswamy. Another recording was cancelled today...’
Saritha got up, rolled the mat away, and busied herself in the kitchen. She filled rice in a vessel, washed it and put it into the pressure cooker, humming a little tune under her breath.
‘Saritha, I am talking to you.’
She placed the pressure cooker on the stove, switched it on, added a little salt and jeera to the rice, closed the cooker, and waited for the first puff of steam to escape, so she could lock it in with the regulator.
‘Saritha!’
‘You know I don’t go by that name anymore.’ The regulator fell into place with a loud chink, and Saritha turned to chop some onions.
Senthil waited for a few minutes, watching Saritha – her face that once was like an open sky allowing him to glide in its vastness, was now like the dry earth, hard and unwieldy. He walked into the living room and sank into the sofa. He looked around at their modest two-bedroom apartment. Normally, Senthil would beam with pride that they had two rooms with walls separating them and not a piece of cloth, that they had a flat screen tv, that they had a shelf with several photographs from various award functions and trophies, that once, at the peak of his career, this house was where numerous get-togethers had happened, with alcohol sloshing in glasses and people playing fastest finger first with plates of pakodas.
Why, there was Mr Balasubramanian, his face red with mirth, his breath heavy with whiskey saying: ‘Senthil Sivakumar, Star of the Gods, Voice of Divinity, you are one unique talent, bastard! And I am jealous!’
And there was Mr Govindan, his spectacles and his smile routinely falling off his face: ‘Senthil, the music industry cannot imagine devotional songs without you, your fans cannot pray without your voice, and we cannot imagine fine, imported Scotch, without you. Cheers, Sir!’
Senthil broke out of his reverie and stood up. He was going to meet Krishnaswamy, with or without Saritha.
*
When Abdul walked into Shakeel’s Fast Food a good hour later, no one seemed to notice he had been gone. Many of the regulars were drunk, some were playing cards, some listening to Shakeel’s music, some were passed out on the floor. Everything was as usual, and Abdul slipped in. Munna looked at him and then wordlessly brought out the harmonium, a lone mic, a little diwan and set it up in the corner. Both Munna and Abdul knew this was the only way to calm down Shakeel. Plus, it was that time of the night anyway.
Abdul took his position, cleared his throat and began. ‘Iss mehfil ki raat, chalo sunte hain kuch Sufiyoon ki baat.’ He began to move the flap of the harmonium allowing its flat tone to spread into the corners of the restaurant like light from a single flame of a candle. Something moved inside everyone there as they shifted their positions. Shakeel looked up and grunted and then closed his eyes. He was ready.
Abdul began to sing, his voice deep like an old well at the lower end and light like summer rain at the higher end; his voice lifted the swell of misery that each of them carried and dispelled it into the night; his voice spoke of ancient wisdom and brotherhood in a language that was unfamiliar but wrapped in a music as familiar as speech. When Abdul sang it was as if the soul of Allah itself was in their midst and nothing, not even life, could get in their way. For one hour, Abdul’s voice carried the notes of the night into their hearts and all was quiet in this jungle of men. At the door stood the Swamiji, listening and smiling to himself, walking away just before the last note was sung.
When Abdul finished, there was deafening applause. With Munna’s help, he packed up the make-shift concert area and went about taking a fresh round of orders. Shakeel called to Abdul.
‘Saala, you tame me with your music. How is Ammi?’
‘She is fine, Bhai. And thank you.’
‘Go, go, go before the spell of your music is ruined. And here, ten rupees from Bhai for today’s mehfil.’
Abdul took the money gratefully and went into the kitchen. At 1am, which was the official closing time, a short pot-bellied man walked up to Abdul. ‘My name is Govindan and I am a music producer with Divinity Music. Your voice ... it is magical! Come for an audition tomorrow at my studio? I might have a big project for you. What is your name?’
Abdul hesitated just for a beat. He thought of the Swamiji he had met and he knew what his answer should be. ‘My name is Senthil Sivakumar.’
*
Senthil sat in the reception of Krishnaswamy’s consultancy. It was a swanky two-floor office with glass walls and light streaming in celestial waves. The receptionist was busy taking calls for appointments, declining some politely and some rudely. A family of four – aged grandparents and probably their children – were also waiting with Senthil and Senthil wondered if they had also fallen from grace like him or if they were perhaps new clients. In the last ten years since Senthil first crashed into him in Mumbai, the Swamiji had grown in stature, just like him, and the Swamiji had forgotten his roots, just like him.
‘Mr Senthil? Swamiji will see you now. First floor, video conference room.’
On another day, Senthil wouldn’t have had this humiliating wait of one hour. He would have breezed into the office, past the receptionist who would have stood up to greet him, into the lift and into Swamiji’s office. Now, he trudged up the polished and gleaming marble staircase – he was told the lift was out of service – and knocked on the door of the video conference room. Someone opened the door noiselessly.
The heavy wooden sound-proof door shut behind him and Senthil saw that Swamiji was still in a session with some white man and woman. The someone who opened and closed the door gestured for silence to Senthil and asked him to sit at the back, away from the camera.
‘Yes, yes, Paul. I know. I know it is hard. But life is hard, isn’t it? And the Universe gives pain only to those who can bear it. I am doing a special puja for you tomorrow, and no, no payment is required. It is my duty to make sure my followers are comfortable. Leslie, you are the divine shakti incarnate. Hold Paul, support him, do what you must. I am afraid the hour is up. I will speak to you soon. You can fix the next appointment with Suresh. Suresh?’
Suresh moved with light feet, like a mountain goat, and took over from Swamiji. Swamiji turned around and smiled broadly at Senthil.
‘Senthil! How nice to see you. Come here, my friend.’ He enveloped Senthil in a warm embrace and looked deep into his eyes. ‘All is not well, I know everything. Sit down. Suresh, two cups of tea.’
Senthil wanted to drown himself in Swamiji’s pool of empathy. But he knew better now. He knew the ways of faith held murkier worlds beneath the cool, calm surface.
‘What is it, Senthil? Why this confusion, hmm? Why ruin a good thing?’
‘I ... I don’t know.... Lately, I have ... I am failing, Swamiji. I have lost my voice.’
‘Tsk, nothing like that. Why does God suddenly stop holding your hand? You who have been so dear to Him? I told you then, and I tell you now – all the Gods are the same. Allah, Krishna, Jesus. All the same. Only the energies are different, Senthil. And you have the energy of Krishna. All I told you was to embrace that truth.’
‘But Saritha ... Razia feels otherwise. She feels we have betrayed Allah.’
‘Do you feel that? Here, drink some chai. Thank you, Suresh. Now leave us alone.’
Senthil drank his tea in silence. Once Suresh left, Swamiji sighed loudly. ‘Senthil, do you know the best day of my life? The day I heard you sing at Shakeel bhai’s. It was a week before you crashed into me. Oh, you remember that crash, Senthil? I thought I would never get up! I knew I had found my Krishna. The last ten years ... they have been glorious. Glorious! But now, Senthil, now I am afraid you are on your own. I can’t help you anymore.’
‘But ... Mr Govindan … music director ... you can speak to him?’
‘Senthil, Senthil, Senthil ... the industry doesn’t work that way. You know it. Okay, for your sake, I will ask him again. He will call you, okay? Don’t worry. Maybe Allah will find a way to help you.’ Swamiji pressed a button and Suresh came in and escorted Senthil out and straight to the billing counter. There was a queue with six other people in front of him. Suresh left without a second glance and Senthil, drained and wrinkled like a piece of cloth squeezed dry, waited his turn. After he had paid and left, it was just after 6pm. The neon lights were on and Swamiji’s smiling face and ‘Krishna Swamy Consultants’ beamed above Senthil’s head. Traffic outside was at its peak with cars and buses fighting for space. And, Senthil, like an inconspicuous trickle of water with nowhere to go, was ready to step into the chaos of anonymity.
Far away, he heard the call of the azan. He walked towards that sound, unmindful of the flow of life around him and felt the once familiar rush of prayer seep into his blood. And, for once, he allowed it. Fifteen minutes later, he reached the mosque and stepped inside. The evening prayers were just concluding and he knew the imam would soon begin his sermon. Someone handed him a topi and he wore it mechanically, but Senthil’s eyes were on the muezzin’s pedestal. It was empty. Senthil walked straight to the pedestal, switched on the mike that he knew was connected to the loudspeaker placed on the minaret outside, and began: ‘Iss mehfil ki shyaam, chalo sunten hain kuch Sufiyoon ki geet’.
And Senthil sang, his voice finding its balance again and wedging its way into the cosmos like a determined man in a crowd yearning to see his idol. Senthil’s voice rang out into the world for just one line, before a mob of men pulled him down and beat him up, but his music soared through his body like a fever, like heat. And this time, there was no stopping him.
*
Praveena Shivram is a writer based in Chennai, India, and currently the editor of Arts Illustrated, a pan-India arts and design based magazine. She has written for several publications, including Times of India, India Today, The Hindu, The Swaddle, Open Magazine, Culturama, and Biblio: A Review of Books. Her fiction has appeared in the Open Road Review, The Indian Quarterly, Himal Southasian, Jaggery Lit, Desi Writers' Lounge, Spark and The Helter Skelter Anthology of New Writing Volume 6. Read her work at www.praveenashivram.com