The Silent Raga by Ameen Merchant

Author:Ameen Merchant
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000, FIC019000
ISBN: 9781926685854
Publisher: Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd.
Published: 2011-01-02T16:00:00+00:00

N I

We couldn’t sleep, so we lay facing each other on the two lower berths, trying to identify the rhythmic patterns of the moving train. Everybody else was fast asleep, rocked into dreams of beats and heat. Nalini Miss’s seat was in the ladies’ cabin, a metal box with six sleepers. It was a mistake in the booking made by Savitri Mami’s travel agent, or else Revathi and I would also be locked in there. Even the TT couldn’t make the change, as the other women who had been allotted our berths were older Brahmin widows. We both pretended horror but were internally delighted by the change. We got to be in the general cabin, which was definitely more airy, and we could also use the bathroom whenever we chose. No opening and closing of doors, and no murmurs of annoyance from the other women in the cabin.

“Rupakam,” Revathi whispered. In the single blue light between sections of the passage the word seemed filled with dusty secrets.

“Right,” I replied.

Then we fell silent again. My suitcase was below the wooden length of the sleeper, on the cabin floor. Safe. I had put two locks on both the clips, and I could feel the keys, which I had pinned to my manimalai, press again between the cleft of my breasts. But the fever of excitement running through every vein in my body made sleep impossible. Revathi had the same problem, and I was sure that like me, her thoughts were also about the competition the day after. My veena had been specially packed and sent to the fragile luggage section. I wondered what it would be like to play my instrument in a bigger hall, maybe double or triple the size of the school hall in Sripuram. Will there be many people? A thousand, perhaps? What if my fingers froze with fright? Or my raga did not capture the colour of the scale?

I closed my eyes and tuned my ears to the tracks. They seemed to be right under my sleeper, the wheels rolling hollow over a bridge at that very moment. In my heart I knew we had to win the competition. All the hours of rehearsal had to bear fruit. Appa had allowed me to participate. It was a first, and I had to prove myself. Show the world that when I played the veena, I played it with a bhakti that quickly found its way to the listener’s soul. I had seen the effect it had had during the night rehearsals on the terrace. So many mamis, even the ones that were usually all clipped words and pinched faces, had come up to me in the temple queue and said I was Kalaimagal, the Goddess of the Arts.

For me to have a second chance, the first chance had to be at least close to the best, if not the best. Nothing else would sway Appa.

Revathi did not have the same pressures. I looked across and in the darkness I saw that Revathi now had her back to me.

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