“We’re going to the pool,” my father said, just as I got comfortable with my book. There was no follow up of “Do you want to come?”, because it was implied that I had to.
It was six in the evening, and getting quite cold. But, my sisters’ achings to get into the pool will always trump any bodily discomforts. It had been six hours since we’d arrived at the resort for our family holiday-and-a-half, and we’d done nothing besides lunch and naps. That said, though, I already had my sweater on, and the thought of burdening myself with even more cold, was far from appealing.
Being the family oddity, and with my physical insecurities, my history of asthma, and my less-than-stellar swimming skills, I decided to be brave, and ask if I could read instead. There were sighs and glares at this, as expected of Sri Lankan parents, but I got away with it. “Stay close,” my mother said, which I was glad to do, as long as I wasn’t in the water. Book in hand, I made my way to the lounge, overlooking the pool. I had not more than a few chapters left to read, and I was determined to only leave the lounge having finished my book.
It wasn’t too big of a room, and it wasn’t too full; only a few families and honeymoon couples, with the exceptions of the waiters, and the lone sitarist in the corner of the room.
I immediately go over to the bar. I’ve always struggled to read with my throat dry.
“How much is a glass of pineapple juice?” I asked the barman.
I could tell it wasn’t something he was used to; being asked how much a glass of juice is. I long for the day when I don’t have to, but as was, the scanty allowances for a lazy nineteen year-old didn’t permit it.
The barman replied, “Seven hundred and fifty rupees, sir.”
In an overcooked attempt to hide my surprise, I told him to make me one. I later regretted it, needless to say. I spotted the smallest table in the room, and went over, contemplating how a single glass of pineapple juice costs more than five pineapples.
I settled into the more-than-comfortable lounge chair, amidst quite a bit of chatter around me. I selfishly wished that everyone would stop talking or would leave, and allow for my book to be read in peace and quiet.
Just as I opened up my lousily bookmarked book, the lulling notes of the sitar filled the room, almost as if the sitarist was waiting for me to start reading.
I looked over, to see a man in his forties or fifties, short and well-groomed, wearing a pink Indian Kurta. He was sitting on the floor, legs crossed, with his spectacle of a sitar over his lap. He had a faint smile on his face, which he could have been wearing, because I couldn’t imagine he was comfortable the way he was sitting. He was looking into blank space, as his fingers were moving swiftly over the frets, and the metal pick on his free index finger was picking on the strings, forming the ever-so-recognizable resonance of the sitar.
The melody was considerably more bearable over my reading than the chatter was, which was why I was thankful when the talk was dropped, as more and more tuned in to the music. I moved my head back down to the book.
I barely got through half-a-page, before a waiter rushed over, placed a coaster on the table, and over it, my glass of pineapple juice. It was almost as if everyone in the room had a conspiracy against me reading.
I thanked him, and hoped dearly that the world would finally leave me at peace for an hour or so.
The glass was garnished with a wedge of pineapple, and had a stirrer in addition to the straw; neither of which are commonalities in everyday Sri Lanka.
“At least it looks its worth,” I supposed.
My bone-dry throat was screaming for it, so I took a sip off the paper straw. The pineapple was unripe, and was void of any sweetness. The acidity was diluted in water and ice, to a point beyond recognition. The texture was far too grainy for it to be appetizing.
I didn’t like it, but that didn’t surprise me. Sri Lankans are used to being ripped off.
Sipping on the juice from time to time, purely for my thirst’s sake, I had my head firmly planted on the book. The same could not be said of my mind, owing in no small part to the sitar. He was playing Amaradewa; one of his most notable pieces of music.
I noticed rather quickly, as I reacquainted myself with the music, that his performance was incomplete. He was consistently missing notes, in bulks at a time. Thanks to five years studying Oriental Music, Amaradewa’s music was customary to me; hence my rapid realization of this.
I scoped the room, hoping people would agree in disapproval; nods, glares, anything.
Nothing.
They were still paying attention, but there wasn’t the slightest reproach.
I realized then, that he was missing notes not because he wasn’t skilled enough (the notes he did play were close to faultless), but because he had no need to.
The locals in the room, the ‘locals’ who think seven hundred and fifty rupees for a glass of pineapple juice is just, were folks who would wear their Sri Lankan-ness with shame, if they ever do wear it. They wouldn’t know Amaradewa from Lahiru Perera, I was certain. As for the non-locals, bless them for their interest on an oriental instrument in the first place.
I could tell the sitarist knew all this all too well, as his forced errors didn’t cease. The fact that he was missing the right notes, so as to not tarnish the nature of the original music, implied that he wasn’t a featherweight in what he does. His tact let him breeze through pieces that would ideally cramp his fingers up beyond usability.
I couldn’t help myself as my frown of disapproval changed into a sly smile of acknowledgement.
I got back to reading, and back to my under-par pineapple juice.
Maybe the crowd there was oblivious to a good glass of juice, just as they were to good music. Maybe the barman and the sitarist were no different. I despised the barman more though, possibly because I didn’t pay for the music.
I had always found reading in public to be very unnatural. I’ve grown to realize that I prefer to be in my own comfort over anyone else’s for a lot in life, but especially for reading. In any case, nineteen year-old boys don’t read, so it isn’t like I have the option.
My preference didn’t stop the fact that I was far out of place, though. Everyone around me was getting boozed up and socializing, while I was in the corner, on my book, drinking pineapple juice.
I could feel myself reading deeper and deeper into loneliness.
I looked over at the sitarist. He no longer had the thin smile he did before. All but a non-local couple sitting close to him had now lost their attention towards the music. Humans, after all, sometimes have the attention spans of goldfish.
He had now faded into background noise, after being the spectacle only minutes earlier.
He was alone, just as I was. The difference was that no one would notice if I stopped reading.
For him, to perform seemed more a need than a want. His face showed no tiredness, but discontent. He envied everyone in the room; everyone to whom he meant nothing, but everyone who, unfortunately, was supposed to mean a lot to him.
I imagined he envied the waiters too; not because they had a much easier job than he did, but because the thanks they get would have been encouraging.
I had, at this point, finished my pineapple juice, of which I took note to finish every last drop, despite the taste.
Perhaps in my lonesome trance, I had the sudden urge to order something else. I knew how pointlessly expensive this would be, and how it would only push the stake further into my already bleeding wallet, but I didn’t stop myself.
Ordinarily, I would have walked over to the bar myself, but my tired legs and the soft cushion under me were dragging me down. Reluctantly, I placed my open book face-down on the table, and looked around for a waiter. I didn’t even have to call one over, as one came rushing towards me.
He greeted me with the most pretentious smile I’d seen in a while. I hated it. Had I come across so much as an outsider, that he felt obliged to smile at me?
“Can I help you, sir?”
“Can I see a drinks menu, if I can?”
“Yes sir, of course,” he said, as he rushed to find me a drinks menu, as if his life depended on it.
We spoke in Sinhalese, but I might as well have spoken in Hebrew. It was sad how transactional politeness had become. I’d rather have him not smile at all, than wear one on.
I imagined the sitarist, if he was a waiter, wouldn’t care for imitation courtesies. He would treat me as I was; one of his own.
I glanced through, once I got a copy of the drinks menu.
At this point, the thought of alcohol was very tempting. A double-shot of rum wouldn’t do my emotions too bad. However, drinking anywhere near one’s parents would be an act of sacrilege in Sri Lanka, and it certainly wasn’t worth going through. I flipped past the alcohols on the menu, and opted for caffeine instead; the next best thing.
Amongst several varietals, the menu read:
Sri Lankan Black Coffee – Rs. 450
Cappuccino – Rs. 550
Neither seemed particularly good value, but four hundred and fifty rupees for a cup of black coffee was plain stupid. It would cost no more than seventy rupees at any small eatery on the streets, and would cost even less to make at home.
I thought very little before calling the waiter over, and asking for a cup of cappuccino. He nodded, took the menu and my empty glass of pineapple juice, all with a grin on his face, much to my annoyance, and left.
A few pages later, my cappuccino was brought over, with a small bowl of sugar packets on the side. The cappuccino was topped with coffee powder, sprinkled into a pattern of some sort. It looked pretty but I saw its futility. I felt guilty for having to ruin it, because I doubted that it was easy to do.
I told myself; what’s better than a caffeine high, is a caffeine high on top of a sugar high. I then emptied three packets of sugar into my cappuccino, and stirred it till I thought was enough. The pattern on top was gone, but at least I could drink it now.
I took a sip of it, and realized that despite the three sugars that I added, it wasn’t overly sweet. There was just enough sweetness to compliment the bitterness of the coffee. My sugar rush wasn’t to be, but I would be relishing my cup of cappuccino.
Finally finding contentment in my evening, I opened my book back open.
I was almost done with my book when the overhead speakers started playing lounge music out of the blue, catching me by surprise. It wasn’t too loud, but it was enough to dampen out the sitar music.
Just as I was turning to see the sitarist, I heard him, for the first time the whole evening, fumble on a note.
The shocked and saddened look on his face was painful to see.
He looked betrayed, and he was. The uncalled for lounge music hadn’t just spat on the sitarist, but also at what I could only imagine would have been decades of his life spent on his craft. His craft had now been deemed inferior to a mere recording of generic music, found most likely at a single search on the internet.
In a fleeting moment, I concocted in my head a narrative for the sitarist.
I imagined him a prodigy from young, but without the best means to live. Coming from a farmer’s family, he would have been expected to be the same. But, seeing the talent in himself, and driven by his passion, he would have studied as much Music as possible from the village school he went to.
His parents wouldn’t have been able to afford to buy him books to write on, let alone a sitar for him to play. So, he would spend long hours at school, with his teacher’s sitar; the instrument of his devotion.
He would have, in his late teens, moved to a town, strapped for cash, to further study. Working odd jobs, he would have been able to barely afford his needs, while he learns. He would send whatever measly savings he had left, back home to his struggling family. He would have refused to collect these savings and buy a sitar for himself.
Years of toil later, he would have finally gotten his Degree in what he loved to do the most. Ecstatic, he would have chosen the only respectable commonplace job for a classical musician in Sri Lanka; teaching. In his teaching days, he would be moved around different schools around the country. During this, he would marry, and have two kids. He would still be sending money to his parents, who would be struggling both physically and financially at this point. He would still not have bought for himself a sitar, despite it being his livelihood now. He would have believed there were more pressing spendings to make.
Having worked for over thirty years, he would have moved back to his home village, now with his family. He would have wanted to teach at the school he was taught in himself, even though he was qualified to and asked (sometimes bribed) to teach in far more prominent schools, all of which he turned down.
A few months later, he would have gotten his Letter of Termination from a higher-up, for no good reason. He would have been black-marked strongly enough, such that he would not have been able to teach in a government school again. He would have realized that a political backhand would have been at play, against his denials of offers and bribes. Such incidents were, and still are, rampant in Sri Lanka.
He would have been punished by people not as smart as he was, and not as qualified as he was, because he chose his passion over money. There would have been nothing he could have done to change the circumstances.
He wouldn’t have regretted losing his job, but his family would have. His government salary, for the most part, would have been the only income for the family. His wife would have needed food to cook, his children would have needed books and shoes for school, his parents would have needed medicine to carry on, and he would have needed nothing but the best for everyone he lived with.
This sack of financial burden would have taken him to the doors of any and all resorts and bars he could have gotten to, offering gigs. He would have come to terms with the denial and deafness that would be to come to his music; to which, after decades of teaching, he would not be used to. He wouldn’t have been sure if his earnings would be enough to make ends meet, but it would have to do.
There was nothing else he could do; nothing else he knew.
At long last, here he was, having his life’s work drowned out by the ignorant tunes of a stranger.
Creeping up behind my sympathy was anger, strongly against the prejudices of the world. It was beyond unjust that a waiter, whose highest qualification probably was a six-month training course from Hotel School, was being treated with more respect than a time-hardened professional was.
I looked at the sitarist again, and saw nary a sign of anger on his face. He couldn’t have afforded to. With food having had to be kept on the table, and with children having had to be sent to school, he would have had to persevere. The disrespect would be part and parcel with the commitment.
As wounding as it was, there would have been nothing he wouldn’t have done for his wife and kids.
The book had gone stale at that point. So, despite having only a few pages left, I had to put a bookmark on it. I set the book down next to my cappuccino, and looked around.
Expectedly, the crowd was just as unsuspecting as they were before. The honeymooners were too busy flirting and smooching, the other families were too busy with small talk, and the non-locals were understandably unfazed.
The bottom line was this: sitar music or lounge music, background noise was background noise.
No one understood him, but me. In that sense, I felt a profound sense of connection with him, for which I was strangely proud.
It took me a good half-a-minute or so to realize that the sitarist hadn’t stopped playing, despite the music over the speaker. His face was blank, free of all emotion, except pain.
His fingers were still frisking neatly over the frets, and he was still picking at the strings faultlessly. He was still staring into blank space.
His melodies were as clean as it ever was, and he was still abbreviating his notes as he did before.
I saw in his face, a failure; not to me, not to anyone else in the room, but to himself. He didn’t want respect; acknowledgement alone would do.
I felt tears build up in me.
My constant thoughts had turned my cappuccino cold. I finished it off in two gulps, trying to savour the bittersweet of it as much as I can.
I stood up, and walked over to the bar. With a heavy heart, and an even heavier hand, I pulled out my wallet, and paid.
I apparently could have added the bill onto the room’s bill, but I didn’t want to go through the hell of my parents finding out of my atrocious spending habits. My wallet, therefore, took the shot on my behalf.
Soon after paying, I was treated, by the cashier, to a smile that made me somehow appreciate all the fake smiles I’d seen that evening. Pretense really does know no limits when in the face of money.
With that, I left the lounge, with a hole in my wallet, and a story to remember.
As I was walking out, I met the sitarist eye-to-eye. Before a thought, I pulled a smile. He gave me a smile in return, far brighter than mine.
In his smile, I see my thoughts of an hour-and-a-half summed up. The hurt was still visible, but there was a firm understanding.
I was one of him. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have bothered. I understood, and he understood that I did. He was content, knowing he might not be alone. But more than that, he was hopeful; hopeful that I might not be the only one.
His smile hadn’t stopped his fingers, which still danced over the frets, as he looked at me.
I walked back to my room, with my stomach not feeling the best.
I was the last to come, after everyone else had come back from the pool, all of them trembling, and covered in blankets. I patted myself on the back.
My growing stomachache made me lie down in bed, to no avail.
Forty-five minutes, and three trips to the washroom later, I realized that the seven hundred and fifty rupees for the pineapple juice might have been inclusive of food poisoning. What’s more, we were to have dinner in a bit.
I winced at the thought of more food having to be shoved into my stomach.
“Get dressed, we have to go now,” my mother said, through the washroom door.
“I don’t want to, I feel awful.”
“Food will help. You can’t starve, you have to eat something.”
I knew then, that I was going.
Reluctantly, I got out of the washroom, still feeling pathetic, got dressed, and went with everyone else towards the restaurant.
The restaurant was adjacent to the lounge, so we would walk past the lounge to get to our table. As we did, I noticed that the sitarist was still there, and still playing. The lounge music was still on.
It had, at that point, been more than three hours since he had started playing.
The food poisoning had tired me too much for me to sympathize, but a singular thought of respect occupied my mind. This was not only because of how difficult it is to play an instrument so well for so long, but also because he was willing to go through more than three hours of blatant disrespect, selflessly.
We had dinner for two hours. I ate as much as I can, but it evidently wasn’t a lot.
With every bite of food that I fed into me, I could feel my stomach worsening. Not starving myself was the only reason I forced it in.
The lounge was close enough for us to hear the sitar music over dinner. My parents, who love some good classical music just as much as I do, commented on how good he was with the sitar, despite noticing the obvious ‘mistakes’ he was making. This made me unexpectedly happy, to know that the hopes of the sitarist had been fulfilled. He didn’t know it, but I wasn’t the only one.
I wished he did know.
Over the sitar music, and over a slow dinner, my thoughts reoccupied me. I wondered how much he would earn. I wouldn’t know how to put a price on such a subjective craft, but I sincerely hoped that it would be enough. The happenings of the day made me doubt that, though.
Silently and unkindly, I hoped that he would be paid more than the waiters at the lounge.
I noticed that, against all odds, my sweet tooth had survived, and had stayed strong. I took the opportunity to fill myself up with chocolate fudge. I let my tongue trump over my stomach, and I was full when we were done.
As we walked out after dinner, I noticed that the sitarist wasn’t there anymore, almost five hours of continuous playing later. My food poisoning was beyond appalling at this point, so I couldn’t pay heed to his absence.
Dinner hadn’t done me any favours. I went into the washroom as soon as I got back. My head felt as if it was on the verge of exploding.
I needed air.
At eleven in the night, I stepped out of the room again, to catch a breeze, and to calm the hell inside me. Everyone else was asleep, so I snuck out, and took the key with me.
I walked aimlessly through the dimly lit walkways, hazed almost, by the agony. A while later, I had ended up at the parking lot.
I looked around, and found somewhere to sit on. The cold breeze definitely helped, and so did the sitting.
The parking lot was the spitting image of the crowd inside; a majority of them were quite upscale.
As I was taking the breeze in, I saw the sitarist climb down the flight of stairs from around the lounge to the parking lot.
I saw him walk past the BMWs and the Land Rovers, and get onto an old bicycle leant against a tree. He turned on a flashlight tied onto the front of the bicycle, and rode out the massive gates, waving at the security guards. He carried only a cloth bag with him.
He had left behind the sitar he had played all evening.
