The blind flautist

At the Andheri railway station, during odd hours of the day, you can hear a melodious flute rendering sounds you stop to listen to. For a moment, it doesn’t matter whether you are on your way to college, school, work, or just hanging out. Whether you love music or you don’t.

Your ears strain in the direction of music, which flows steadily. Every note measured. Every note exhaled and inhaled with practiced ease. You follow your ears to where the old Hindi films’ music emanates from.

You come across this grand, old, blind flautist. He sits on a metal, folding-chair, and plays the flute with grace. I feel that he feels he holds a world class audience in sway. Everyday he hopes for the trains to run late.

Some days you just pass him by because you don’t have the time to stand and stare; in this case, you have no time to stand, hear, wonder, and ponder.

But, he plays on. For money, for daily bread, or for passing time. Or maybe for love of music. Maybe his children threw him out of the house. Maybe his wife died and he plays for her. Maybe he is a fallen angel. Maybe he is a poor, reborn, New Age Krishna.

Maybe, he is a hopelost, rejected musician. He never talks.

Or, maybe, playing the flute is the only way he can convey what he feels inside. What his heart has to say about life in the city of dirt, dust, and grime.

The city where nobody loves nobody. Where each passerby is waiting for his or her own train. Where missing a train can be a life-altering event. Where life is a series of catching a certain train, so that, you can catch a certain bus and so on and so forth.

All he gets in return for hours of his free-for-all, lung-wrenching music is four or five ten-rupee notes, if lucky, and a few coins which were too heavy for somebody to carry around in a pocket.