I have been singing since I can remember. Though I am a mediocre singer, my love for music has only grown with time. I taught myself to play harmonium when I was 12 years old. It was an instant love with the instrument. Over these most recent years, I learnt guitar, piano and ukulele. I’m no magician in any of these instruments either. You could call me a Jack of all trades and Saurav.

Some days before, I borrowed a harmonica from my cousin. The sound she produces is vibrant and breath taking (no pun intended) . On happy afternoons, my heart rejoices with joy while playing her. And It feels like I can almost see music, like a painting. Notes you produce in each blow being colorful shades of green and blue. And notes produced on each draw feels yellow. When you play the combinations of blows and draws carefully with your lips enclosed, eyes closed and heart opened, you see it. You see yourself chilling out in green hills of Switzerland with white Himalayas on the background. Like in any 90’s movie of Shah Rukh Khan. You are ready for love. You would have danced like they do in Bollywood, if only it was a bit less embarrassing.

However, playing harmonica does not feel same in lonely nights. Bright and colorful, that you once thought about the texture of sound, now feels lull and melancholic. You’re playing minor scales. You see no colors, only ash gray if any, you are hit and crushed. You want to end the loneliness, you want to run to your lover’s arms. It has been months of not seeing her. You realize old friends with whom you have laughed tons, don’t share common stuffs to laugh at anymore. Vibes are gone. You want to fall asleep in your mother’s arms and be a child again. But, you have an epiphany of how everything is long gone, how time has left you lifeless. A lifeless trying to breathe life into a harmonica, or is it the harmonica trying to make you live out of your misery. I would say the relationship is symbiotic.

You let night grow and let things in life pan out without resistance. Before shutting yourself down, you play last melody of the day for peace.

फुलको आँखामा फुलै सन्सार ।
काँडाको आँखामा काँडै सन्सार ।।