Six Months ago.
Ajit was sitting on his balcony, enjoying the chill after sun down, a
gentle breeze was ruffling his upturned shirt sleeves, and forcing its way
through his dirty hair. Reminding himself for the 12th time that
week to have a bath, he stubbed out his cigarette on the heal of his floater,
and picked up his guitar again.
He quickly ran through the major scale in every position, the series of
notes almost melting into a continuous whole, rather than remaining distinct
notes, as his fingers flew over the fret board. A slight smile lit up his face,
as he ran his left hand through his hair, and cringed over the need to bathe.
But there was time enough for that, and it would make no sense to waste a
lovely evening in the bathroom.
The sun had set a few minutes ago, and the air was still being warmed
by walls and roofs radiating the heat of the day, and occasional breaths of
cool air, conjured from some corner of the heat saturated world that was Vijay
Nagar brought momentary relief. He looked out over the balconies and terraces
that lined the narrow lane that was the backbone of Vijay Nagar, with a collage
of meaningless haphazard construction, the sole purpose of which was to provide
migrating hoards of college students a place to live, and a reason to pay rent.
He wasn’t a college student anymore, but it was possibly the most
accurate description of him. How he managed to sustain himself was a bit of a
mystery, but he usually had a fair amount of money on hand, and never seemed to
deal with the financial drought that was endemic to residents of Vijay
Nagar.
He was also quite popular, amongst his friends, and often aimless
evenings in his flat would turn into small sized gatherings with weed, booze, and
conversation taking center stage. Ajit preferred strumming his guitar as he
listened.
On that day he was alone, contemplating the changing color of the dusky
sky, and trying to conjure up the inspiration to write a song about Vijay
Nagar, something that had escaped him so far.
Then he gave up, and picked up an older tune he’d written, and decided
to struggle with finding words for the song. But there was nothing to sing
about. He couldn’t sing about the problems of the poor, at least not in
English, he couldn’t sing about the problems of his own, they were too
inconsequential to form the basis of a song worth hearing. What else was there
to talk about? Women? The things he knew about them, or thought about would
probably serve a stand up comedy routine better.
