Lyrics & Music

Years ago when my world was ruled by pigtails with ribbons and arithmetic homeworks, one summer, I had decided that I wanted to be a musician. A world renowned one no less. Kids my ages where dreaming of becoming doctors and pilots, but not me. I dreamt of standing on a stage with red velvet curtains in front of a thousand people … which was at least twice the number of people at my school, so yes to me it was a very huge crowd … and sing my own songs. My dream performance would invariably end with me being carried off the stage by my fans chanting my name over and over again.

I had spent many a summer afternoon sprawled on the floor on the floor surrounded by pens and notebooks accompanied by a tall glass of lemonade and a bowl full of mangoes. I filled pages and pages with what I thought were lyrics. My songs were about roses and moon, one or two about the adorable cat my neighbors had. But most of all I wrote songs about the rain – the gentle afternoon showers in August, the heavy downpours from the middle of summer; there was even one about a night of heavy hailstorms. My favorite one though was that about a princess who danced all night in beautiful balls dressed in gowns of sparkling white silk and silver shoes.

It was only when it came to putting a music to my lyrics that I failed miserably. Since I did not know how to write music, I decided to do the second best thing. Use my dad’s old tape recorder to record my songs. An idea I soon gave up given the fact that on playback it sounded like a cat in agony. No way it was how I sounded when I sang. Of course it was the tape recorder’s fault.

Half way into my summer vacation I decided I wanted to be taught music. To my delight, my decision was greeted with much enthusiasm by my parents. Couple of days later I met my first music teacher, Swapna di, a young girl in her early twenties who would come in every Wednesday and Saturday evening and teach me music. I dove into my lessons with great gusto. Swapna di was extremely patient as she led me through the basics. But try as I might, I could not seem to get it right. Perhaps she had set the bar too high because I had told her of my dream to become a world renowned musician and world renowned musicians must strive for excellence and no less. I was determined. I put all my heart into the lessons but it was not long before I had to face the sad truth.

I could not sing. I just could not sing.

Needless to say, it broke my heart. I spent a week moping over my notebooks filled with lyrics which I could never set to music. Until I moved on to obsessing about my next dream.

Some dreams are meant to be just that. Dreams.

Now I sing for an audience of just one. Me.
_________________________________________________________________________________

#IndiMarathon #tatazica #tatazicamarathon #music

This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.

2 comments:

  1. And that's the most wonderful thing to do :-) enjoyed reading your article :-)
    Cheers, Archana - www.drishti.co

    ReplyDelete
  2. Beautifully written. And really, what is better than singing for yourself!

    ReplyDelete