Wednesday 21 January 2015

A FIDDLER ON THE FLOOR AND A DANCER ON THE ROOF

"When the only sound in the empty street
Is the heavy tread of the heavy feet
That belong to a lonesome cop 
I open shop",

Wrote Cole Porter 


"When the moon so long has been gazing down
On the wayward ways of this wayward town
That her smile becomes a smirk, 

I go to work"

I dont know what town Porter had in mind. New York? LA?  Peoria, IL, perhaps? He may well have meant Chennai had he known my neighbours.

One of my neighbours goes to work long before the moon begins to gaze down on the wayward ways of this wayward town, and well after its smile becomes a smirk. But not before his morning ablutions which, most days, include a stern dressing down of his hapless wife. These  days the prayers have doubled to accommodate the ones meant to speed up his father's recently departed soul which, without some help, might lose its way and hover around its earlier haunts. With nine ancestors waiting for a forward nudge from the most recently departed soul, the latter's failure to join the astral queue could be calamitous.

Then he begins to fiddle. Literally. My neighbour is in the process of learning, at an advanced age, to play the violin. His effort is commendable. His talent, alas, is not. More often than not he also sings the notes he is supposed to play on the violin. His stentorian voice lends itself admirably to scaring a business rival or a hapless wife, but not to the tonal discipline of Indian classical music. "Off-key" is putting it mildly. 100% for effort, 0 for results. Now I understand how Lord Macaulay's view of Indian music  ("caterwauls") might have been formed.

There are no cops, lonesome or otherwise, leaden-footed or light of feet, on our street at night. Occasionally they cruise by in their newly acquired SUVs with the flashing blue and red beacons. Mercifully their sirens don't work owing to their serviceable batteries having been exchanged for the dead ones in their bosses' private vehicles. Else they would have been turned on at full volume; we in Chennai do like to be heard. In general our Chennai cops are too busy attending to VIPs when not consuming free food or alcohol to plod the lonesome streets.

The heavy tread of heavy feet are those of the neighbour living directly above me. It is an interesting household which appears to be founded on the principle that a working marriage requires the spouses spending the least time together - a very sound idea, I might add. It is also a household that, like vampires, appears dead through the day and comes alive only at night. The latter is interesting in a town where the days ended at 6 p.m. and only lights went out at night.

Things have changed a bit since Madras became Chennai and coding took over from manufacturing as the principal provider of family incomes. With an eatery around every street corner - some streets have quite a few - eating out has become the main post-sunset activity. It is only second to drinking. Drinking here is not to loosen inhibitions and tongues sufficiently enough to have a good time fully conscious; the object of drinking in Chennai is to get inebriated as quickly and as cheaply as possible. It is all about the efficiency of inebriation. All that malarkey about fruity notes, smoky hints and clean finishes are for those who do not care for the quick oblivion that the Chennai man favours. But I stray.

The lovely family above me comes alive after 11 p.m. While my fiddling neighbour has gone to bed, no doubt after administering another tongue-lashing to his wife, the one above begins to dance. Sometimes it's ballet leaps, sometime the rhythmic Kathak and yet some other times a Bharathanatyam piece, but always involving heavy foot-stamping. I used to think that they played squash in their living room, but the arrangement of furniture ruled that out, unless of course they have invented an interesting variation involving playing the ball off items of furniture. The later the hour, the more intense it gets.

Is it, as Miroslav Holub put it, "hundred miles from wall to wall", recalling a love that was lost? Or two?  Or is one running from it while the other is chasing?  Whatever it is, for me it is an "eternity and a half of vigils" every night.

Believe me when I say it is NOT beautiful.





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