Music can noble hints impart,
Engender fury, kindle love,
With unsuspected eloquence can move,
And manage all the man with secret art

~Joseph Addison

Coming from a family which DOES boast of a few musicians or at least those who could appreciate good music (actually there’s nothing called good music; its either music or its noise), I was surprisingly dispassionate about it. Of course, I did admire the occasional musical flicks of bollywood but that was the ‘be all and end all’ of my tryst with music.

Don’t mistake me for those ignorant souls who cannot distinguish one musical instrument from another. I’m not that bad really. I have certainly enjoyed some ‘jugalbandhis’ especially the instrumental ones. However, I also hold the record of falling away into deep sleep in a symphony (waking up with a jerk that disgusted the eloquent limousine-owning upper class); I also am popular for dying with laughter watching the ballet; and for breaking apart a ‘veena’ (the musical instrument of Goddess Saraswathi – no wonder knowledge keeps failing me) when I was rolling around the bed in deep sleep.

But today was to be different.

Every once in a while, I had seen a girl standing near the lobby of the Cancer Center where I work, playing the violin. I never bothered to stop and listen. But today was to be different. I was frikkin late to lab and to my horror saw my professor standing close to my desk talking to a coworker. I could dare not walk in then. I had to wait till he got back to his office. So I took a stroll to the cafeteria, and right below me, the violinst played her music.

She was playing surprisingly beautiful music. Surprising because I never had listened to it before. I had heard it alright, but never listened to it. At the end of her first composition, she looked around and spotted me … I just gave her a smile. She smiled back. “She plays well” I thought. The second composition was even more beautiful. She looked up again … I gave her a little clap. And then the third was magical. And then another one. And then one more. She kept on playing … and I kept on hearing, oblivious to the fact that I was gonna be even more late to lab than I already was. It got into my head that leaving now meant insulting her music.

I finally rushed into lab, threw my backpack, grabbed my jacket and rushed down. I watched her play for some more time. It just kept getting more and more beautiful. The variations, the subtle changes in tones, the high and low pitches, some sounds gave me adrenalin rushes, some saddened me, some just made me really happy. She’d look at me at the end of every composition, as if she expects a judgment on her performance. What could I say? For a person like me who thinks ‘Do Re Mi Fa Sol…” sounds really funny, her music really shook me hard.

She said her name was Pooja and she volunteered to play at the Cancer Center. I promised her I’ll stay for one last composition but then I had to leave. I wish I didn’t have to. She’s a part of the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra and a volunteer at the Hillman Cancer Center for Healing Power of the Arts. I never realized what power music can have … when that starts flowing, everything else in this world becomes less important. That’s one lesson I learnt today.