Death, Thou Art Beautiful

It doesn’t matter when I die, while I live.

[Note: This was written back in 2017. I’m 27 now and I commend 25-year-old me for knowing exactly how to inspire me today :D]

I’ve been playing music too long to think of it as something separate from me. I started off in the Hindustani Khayal tradition but after a few years (when my hormones really kicked in) I switched to the guitar. When that bubble began to thin, I found myself dissatisfied with what I was doing yet again. I began to question my reasons for playing music at all.

My quest to find something that fulfilled me took me on a trip across India, when, in Bhopal, I finally discovered Dhrupad, the mother of Hindustani Classical music.

I didn’t come full circle too soon though. I’m 25 at the time of this writing, and only just beginning to learn how to sing. You see, in the course of the past few years, I’ve also suffered an injury that prevents me from playing the guitar for too long.

So not only have I changed my primary instrument, something I’ve been playing for almost 10 years, from guitar to voice but I’ve also immersed myself into a style of music that demands complete surrender for all the years to come. And I say this with all honesty — I gladly surrender myself to Dhrupad.

I’ve had doubts — before I had taken this plunge. I was worried how I would manage doing this. I’m not the kind to do something half-heartedly, and I knew that if I took this road, I would want to see it to its very end.

As someone who’s quit his job for music (back when I could still play guitar), is a 25 year-old half-adult and has been laughed at for not being able to hit a steady note with his voice, this is an uphill battle, to say the least.

I don’t have the money. I don’t have the years. I don’t have the skill.

With the money, I could stop worrying about my current needs.

With the years, I would have more time, arguably, youth.

With the skill, well, I’d have a headstart on this path.

The only thing I have is my determination.

Why do this? Why not take an easier route? Well, for one thing, I didn’t choose this path because of its inherent difficulty. I chose it because Dhrupad aligns with my goals. I chose it because I feel my age-old quest for a guru has been fulfilled. This road just happens to be a difficult one.

My guru tells me to take one small step after another, and keep at it. It’s worked wonderfully so far. Each day I feel I’ve achieved nothing but all these days of nothings seem to have added up quite well.

I’ve asked myself many times before how I would feel if, before I had the chance to be an exponent of Dhrupad and share its beauty with others, I died. It’s a bit melodramatic, I know, but I’ve wondered if there’s any point to what I’m doing if all I ever do is learn it a little.

Today, I think I’ve answered this question to my satisfaction. As long as I’m alive, I want to learn more. I want to dive into music and experience its depths. I realise this is my goal, and whether or not I perform, I can always do this. The means and the goal are one and the same.

And if, for argument’s sake, I die tomorrow, then it doesn’t matter one bit. I’m dead.

Death is going to happen one day. And there will be always be more to do, more to learn, more to live for. You can only live for more when you’re alive. In death, you are dead. And in your performance of death, you are doing it very well. It couldn’t be done better.

Ah! The perfection of death.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m extremely grateful for being alive and experiencing this wonderful life. If it weren’t for life, I wouldn’t be able to experience music. But I see the futility of my hoarding ways, to accumulate more and more, always being afraid that it could all be taken away in one stroke of lifelessness.

All the times I’ve thought about how my goal is to discover music to its end, I was talking about the end of my life without even realising it, because what other end could I be talking about? The end of music? There’s always more to be explored in this life. There’s so much more that could be done to explore sound, and I believe we will never run out of ideas. Music is, after all, an organisation of sound, and it’s upto us how to organise it.

I would be long dead before I fully tasted a drop of the ocean of sound. So onward I march!

Whether death happens now or a hundred years hence, it is all one and the same.

I take one small step at a time and go on walking.