This Saturday noon on 2nd April was different. Southern wind was blowing everything out of its way. It hummed in blooming Krishnochuras and rustled in mango trees bedecked with late arrived flowers that bore small fruits. Bees were swarming about. Dust was swirling all around. This picture was incomplete with Bade Gulam Ali’s raga Basant.
Like the unwieldy wind, his voice was a passion unleashed on and I succumbed. The record came to an end and the radio announcer moved on to the next programme. I struggled to reach for the knob of vintage Philips to turn it off. I turned over and found my pillow wet. Tears were rolling down without pause.
Why am I crying? I asked myself.
Tagore might have some explanation to offer. When someone comes into contact with something great, he cries. Tagore says to Moitrayee Devi in “Mongpute Rabindranath”. Because, it is emotionally impossible to remain at that exalted position for long. As one drops from that height, tears brim over silently. The loss of empire of supreme purity leads to accumulation of tears. So in extreme joy man cries.
May be.
But my mind travelled back to times that were different. I, a standard two boy, ran away from the baro ghar, the large front room when father excitedly took out a long-playing record from a cover that had a face of Bade Gulam photographed on its cover. A rotund face and a fat moustache that was twirled was enough to remind me of Bihari gatekeeper of Town school who pressed tobacco leaves with chun on his coarse left palm, powdered it with the slap of right hand and transferred it to his mouth. Then he rubbed both his hands in visible satisfaction and removed from his moustache whatever powder he believed stayed there still. He would not let us run out of school when Anil sir was rampaging inside a dark class that had no possibility of seeing the sun due to its cornered position for not differentiating between “week” and “weak”.
That record had on one side raga Basant and on the other thumri – Ka karoon sajani aaye na balam. Father played both the sides right into midnight. When I went to sleep, in rapturous stillness of the house the record burst forth melody—Ka karoon sajani. These three words I could make out. I found out that though the cover face had an uncanny similarity with the fierce-looking gate-keeper of school, this man was different as he could only sing.
The fearful has its own attraction. I kept on looking at the record cover every day. And was getting used to its tune. 20,Nutanpally’s day was not complete without Ka karoon sajani aaye na balam…
Ka karoon sajani aaye na balam I sang out one day as day-long rain held us captive. Father looked startled but smiled generously at a ten year old boy. Water was knee-dip in our garden and his rose buds were all shredded. Father looked concerned. The smile smoothed his creased forehead.
When Kajol di, my next door didi, married her childhood love Kishor da, Kajol di’s father (I called him mama as mother did) had one request for my father on the day of marriage: Lend me your record please, just for a day…. . My daughter’s favourite… . Father looked amused. ‘Of course,’ he said and gave him the record. From the evening till the groom arrived just two lanes off, father’s record churned out at mama’s well-decorated bunglow: Ka karoon sajani….
The noontime of Choitro has remarkable ability of feeling melancholic and getting immersed in memories. From Nutanpally to Ulhas, the journey is long and difficult. Times are in flux. Not Bade Gulam. His timeless Basant reminds the other side of slowly gyrating black disc – Aaye na balam.
A line can travel back and forth decades in minutes. Passionate nostalgia, thy name is Bade Gulam; take pronam from a teary-eyed man who once fled from you as a boy.