Why music bleeds melancholy

“What’s your latest impulse buy?” Seems like Dr Arun was waiting to poke fun at me. “The last buy, I remember, was a property, the fifth one you bought and sold until there was no roof left over your head.”

“A Bose Soundbar,” I put on an awkward smile. Dr Arun had the right to probe because he’s a physician treating my anxiety disorder.

“Did it make any difference to your life? Did it make you happy?”

I wasn’t sure if he knew the enormity of the questions that he just threw at me, and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to answer him in a casual yes or no. How do I convince a medical officer that music and poetry never make one happy? How do I tell him no one bursts into laughter reading Eliot, Dickinson, Frost et al?

“No, it didn’t.” I said emphatically.

“So, two grants down the drain?”

I wanted to yell a big NO. “Do you watch the sunset? Isn’t it so beautiful? But it bleeds sorrow as it gets ruddier? It’s the same with music.” I kept myself calm.

The doctor leaned back in his chair as if he was ready to listen to my sermon. I said I wanted music back in my life, but that does not mean I was a singer once upon a time. Like any fellow human, I loved music and music loved me back as ardently as I did. Back in the day, the only two sources of music were the transistor radio and the loudspeakers that families rented for events like weddings. I chose to do all the boring house chores in the afternoon when Radio Ceylon’s Indian musical programme pepped up my spirits. And the radio remained a showpiece on the dining table when there was no money to buy battery.

suresh@khaleejtimes.com