Julie Garfunkel nee Andrews

It’s been years since I last saw a movie. Well, a month.
Curiously enough, it was titled“Once".
The movie stars Glen Hansard, who, as I later discovered, fronts an Irish band called The Frames, and the irresistibly insecure Marketa Irglova, a Czech popstar who, contrary to name, is lesser known in the trade.

Once is an interesting narrative of 2 people in Dublin who discover each other and a common love for song, then inspire each other to rediscover life, then record an album and then, ultimately, walk away from each other towards their own respective nirvanas. The interesting bit is that Glen and marketa, who are also the producers of the movie, actually started dating each other during the course of the shoot. The autobiographical element came through.
But it was only the arresting and instantly uplifting music that kept alive an otherwise meandering plot. The film in the end amounted to very little.
Music does that to you, though. Gives meaning. Fills gaps and blah.
Lacking it, my days drift. Yet stand still.
Without it, life is a perfectly designed violin, lying lifeless for want of a song.

Looking back, there’s so much that I don’t know or haven’t tasted in life. Music has been the gravest of these omissions. Will buying an iPod change things? But then I wouldn’t know what to download. I miss my more musically-inclined friends who once supplied me my dosage.

Of all the people I envy, and there are absolutely billions of them, it’s the minstrel I envy the most. I can draw, I sometimes write, I can whistle and hum, doodle and drum, but there isn’t anything I can strum. Which makes things very inconvenient. You’re sitting around lacking inspiration, searching ways to stretch time and tether, or just trying to perk up a depressing Sunday sundown. And that’s when I find myself wishing for the gift. Like Manoj Jacob does here . Or Raghu Dixit, one-time radio jinglemeister and fulltime lunatic, now selling his CD online.

You see, music makes things ‘simple’. You don’t need to coerce your mind to gush, or your pen to rush. Music simply flows. Manoj used to hold his guitar and start playing a chord. Then he would put words to it. And then we would stand around and listen, sometimes mocking him, sometimes suppressing sarcasm, but always grateful for such sudden lilts of levity.

Music is the simplest joy in life. No wonder this has been such a depressing blog. A prescription, anyone?