Songs from unstrummed guitars

The waiting rooms at my doctors office were always brightly lit and there were colorful fishes in little aquariums that spread on the walls. Yet, we could all spell out the gloominess, the darkness, the hopelessness curving onto us, waiting for the next call, next scan, next surgery dates.

I would sit there on the edges of the cushioned seats like everybody. Everybody in that room had the same body language. None would look directly into the eye of each other. We all knew on what our life depended on. Our young faces with imaginary wrinkles from the stress. Yet, I never could share it with anyone.

My swarming big family was always there, hugging kissing..caring. I was the big one, the big sister, the big aunt, the big niece, the big brave face, always giggling and carefree. Like the painting where the girl with the wind in her hair, looking out a window of sunny colorful blooms. and yet I didn't have anyone to share this pain. I held it within myself, scared to switch on the lights, scared to face a mirror.Yet I had to act as the big shoulder. the Big Girl to everyone.

One day, the person who sat next to me never looked at me but she started to speak in some strange language only I could understand. Suddenly she started to tell me her woes, just like that, without a start, without any punctuations, just deep breaths in between. I responded equally with vigor. You know, I said, I cannot even share this with my mother, yet I am very close to her. I felt she wouldn't understand...she said yes...same here.

We just stared at the fishes again. Its that feeling of that single sock that didn't get into the wash bin. That handkerchief on the clothes line, forgotten to be picked up, left for the next drizzle. Your life hanging on to strings of hope waiting for turns. Everywhere, every time. Like waiting in a long endless corridor, hearing the ticking of a huge grandfather clock, a room where there are no windows. The strange talk I had with a total stranger at a doctor’s office was one of the moments I found my feet to stand up and brave the World again.

Sometimes its just hard to believe that one exist. I did things never imagined, brutal. I was sick, poked into, scanned, buried, cut open, insulted, ridiculed, rebuked, hurt, cheated on. Sometimes by the closest dearest ones.

And at one such lowest point, a few days ago, I re meet an old friend of mine. Not exactly a friend, but he was always there in my class, his presence felt only through his music. We rarely spoke to each other other than in a long bus journey when we were forced to take it together due to a sudden public strike.

He was the guitarist in our college, never attending classes but the constant face in every concert. The teetotaler who never enjoyed the college life but was with his music. Rarely do you meet people like that in our trade, where everyone were flipping vocabulary cards for GRE and TOEFL. His fingers were always folded ...pretending to play music, strumming his guitar whether he had the guitar or not with him. And he would grin at me with when I shake my head when he fake plays. In that long journey, when I asked a child who was standing near me to be seated on my lap, he stopped and told me never to give space which you cannot. As I saw his name again on an FB list, those words just boomeranged into my life again projected from the clouds.

Strangely, he is now a photographer. I couldn't believe his new profession. Yet, I never asked why he changed but I mentioned his guitar and he said, he plays that only rarely these days. He is in Mumbai now and he is the unsettled one in our batch. My other friends in FB are full with settleness, smiling children’s pictures, the last vacations they took, the whoami-seeme displays.

His page is clean, nothing but his amazing brilliant stunning photographs. He is singing the song of unsettleness. We didn't exchange pleasantries, he never asked me what I am up to these days, the usual questions. It was okay whatever I am and it was okay whatever he is now. We dint need to know. Then silence.

There it is again, a stranger, a strange incident...gives me the vigor to stand on my feet again. Have the wind in my hair again. And learn to undo the things I so wanted to. Just needed to listen to the music from the guitars that were never played.

With that, I am starting my blog again in a new format. All I know is I love to write and I want to use the same space instead of a new one. This is going to be like a mix of songs, stories, politics, movies, and then food. Like a day of your life.

To start one, I started with a chocolate mousse. There were days when I didn't know what a hand mixer was and stiff egg whites meant, stirring in eggs and getting your hand stiff. I have come a long way, where the mousse is as heavenly as the one I had at Ebony in Bangalore a decade ago.

I followed Sanjeev Kapoor's recipe. Didnt add whipped cream, instead melted some chocolate and made rolls.

INGREDIENTS
Chocolate 150 grams
Coffee powder 1 tablespoon
Eggs, separated 4
Butter 1 tablespoon
Vanilla essence 1/2 teaspoon
Sugar 50 grams

METHOD
Melt chocolate in a bowl over a slow heat, used a double boiler or chocolate would burn. Stir in coffee powder and two tablespoons of water as the chocolate starts to melt. Simmer until slightly thickened. Remove from heat and beat egg yolks into the mixture one by one until the mixture thickens. Beat in butter and vanilla essence. Let the mixture cool until tepid. Whip egg whites with sugar with a stand mixer starting slow and increasing to high until stiff peaks and fold into the above mixture. Pour into individual glasses and chill. Remember the egg is not cooked. So used good fresh eggs. Serve within the same day.

Dedicated : To all those strangers who left me with their songs.