The music in and out of a raindrop ~ Malinda Words

Pic, courtesy Lankapuvath

The percussionists of the sky are temperamental. There’s rhythm in drumroll and heavy-metal composition, but the conductor of astral orchestras seems to follow a score encrypted with silences, for the lulls are random.

There’s the pitter-patter of rain. A dainty accompaniment whose intensity is faithful to the tempo. At least right now. There are moments when the composer demands drumroll and raindrop in delightful harmony, but at times it’s just one or the other.

Rain drops differently on roof, pavement stone, grass and puddle. It obtains range in drip from height and shape of leaf. Taps on a window pane and glances away, rebuffed but uncaring nevertheless.

The percussionist is temperamental. The music slows down, the intensity diminishes. There are times when it begins without preamble and ends without epilogue. Breaks are taken, it seems. Sometimes it’s just a few minutes, sometimes an hour or two or an entire day. Goes on vacation, it seems. Without saying ‘see you later.’

We get used to patterns. Rhythms get ingrained in the conscious and unconscious regions of our days. When patterns are wrecked we stretch ourselves to connect dots we are convinced exist.

That’s the nice thing about pauses. We can fill them up with whatever we like. Well, it’s not that we do, but somehow spaces get filled up. Like vacuums. And it’s usually what’s welcome that is at the front of the line of thoughts, images, words, music or whatever standing in line to enter our minds. We have our preferences after all. We are comfort seekers.

Of course, sometimes it’s the nightmares that fill these spaces. Psychologists would explain this better, I am sure.

For example, I dread weddings. That is, weddings where the band ends up playing Sujatha Attanayake’s ‘punchi dawaswala.’ It makes me cry. So when I sense that the song-moment is imminent, I just flee. Out of the reception hall, out into the parking area or even beyond.

The song breaks all theories of physics pertaining to sound and finds me. And I cry. I have daughters. That’s why.

Rail-silences, happily, are happier. At least for me. I look upon the dry bed of a reservoir and imagine water. I imagine the lowering of temperature in the winds that caress the surface. I imagine Olu, Nelum and Manel. Buffalos at the far end. Sunlight riding the ripples, moonlight making for romance.

In the middle of a storm, when the percussionist takes a break, I imagine that the world has stopped and wonder if the immemorial rotation has resolved to reverse. What is the residence of the music, I ask myself. Where is it born, how does it grow and what or who shapes the melody? Does it live in a special raindrop as a conductor that can command fraternal raindrops, decide intensity and tempo, demand stop? Is the script owned by the ‘betweens’?

There’s music out there. There’s music within. There’s musicality that wants fulfillment. There is silence that music will harass, quietness that is felled, emptiness that is transformed into orchestra.

It need not say ‘curse me!’ Those inconvenience could and some do. It need not say ‘delight in me,’ for those who do, will.

Rain. We make of it what we please. We keep out of the way. We watch it from a distance. We are perturbed at times. We forget that it can and does rain. We wish it will come another day and lament when it decides not to come at all.

Somewhere on this planet, at this very moment, someone is getting drenched. Somewhere, it has stopped raining and there’s a child sloshing in the puddles left behind. Somewhere there’s grass that has realized there’s reason for living. There’s a smile, somewhere. There’s a tear. There’s rain and there are unforgiving skies. Spaces between raindrops. There’s love moving around. There’s music. There are memories being made.

Let it rain!

28 November 2020

The music in and out of a raindrop

0 comments: