Ratrau - 4

I have a curious case of melancholia, one that I think I've had since I was a child. According to my mother, one of my favourite passe-temps as a young'un was to sit in corners and withdraw into my own world. Makes sense, then, that I'm my happiest when I'm alone, late at night, listening to music.

I've always maintained that all of us are tuned in a specific way, that we all function according to a specific musical scale, or a specific raga. And, as a result, we react most profoundly to music we hear based on that particular scale. For me, and for my violin Gliga, I think it's A-minor. There's something uncannily inviting and warm and familiar of listening to Vivaldi's Concerto in A-minor for me. I was hooked immediately the first time I heard it. Over on the Indian side, Malkauns and others in its vein. Tonight, I heard a brilliant Kaushi Kanada by Ustd. Rashid Khan, that had me in raptures (and made me forget to work on my Hindi paper). As a result, here I am - 2:30am - still slaving away at the paper, but still listening to music.

That being said, I'm starting to enjoy being not-so-independent-and-fiercely-alone these days. I don't know what it is, but it feels good. For someone who has trust issues as significantly problematic as mine, it's kinda amazing.

Anyway, if any of you are so inclined:

A Love Letter

It's official. I'm leaving you New York. 

Dearest New York: I'm leaving you - nay, abandoning you - for a city without the same joie-de-vivre, without the same intensity, energy, never-say-never attitude that pervades your very being. A city without your beauty, that beauty that you only get in grime and in soot and in hard work. I'm abandoning you for a city without that je ne sais quoi that I feel every time I walk through the city streets, with those towering towers towering above me, for a city without that certain passion, without what Mrs. H would call 'verve', without this beautiful life and manner of living.

Dearest New York: I'm abandoning you for a city that is quiet, that actually goes to sleep, one where it rains so much that you could eat off the sidewalk and not get violently ill. A city where when it rains it doesn't stop for 28 days. A city where everything is often cloaked in a cape of greyness, of gloom. But, oh New York, the sight when the rain finally makes its way through the mountains, finally decides to torment those on the other side, is glorious. The mountains rise out of the ocean, the sun's rays dance on the water with joy, people smile, flowers bloom, and life is good. Quiet, simple, detached, but good.

So, Oh Dearest New York, I'm abandoning you for one more beautiful on the surface. By all means, call me shallow. Scream at me. Yell at me. Tell me it's not worth it. Tell me that it'll never promise me the dreams you promised me all those years ago, the dreams you still promise me to this day. Tell me that I'm betraying you, betraying myself, by letting go of this world, by going back to where I started, to where I began, by letting go of what I have become and what I am becoming.

Dearest New York: my love for you is not that quiet burning of coals, it is the passion of the ghazal, that burning passion that is never sustained for long periods, but happens in bursts of fierce intensity. The passion of the parwana for the shama', the one in which the parwana circles round and round and round, getting ever closer, getting ever closer to being burned, getting ever closer to being burnt up. Or burnt out - in my case. 

Dearest New York: I abandon you today so that I may return. Energized. Revitalized. Ready to make you my own and to - once again - follow those dreams that you promised me that summer day eight long years ago. 

Forgive me for burning too quickly in your love, my love.

Adieu, mon amour, adieu.

N