Tuesday, September 27, 2005

musingS oF aN earthbounD guitaR

Jithu owns a guitar. But the poor guitar never felt that it was owned by someone. Like an illegitimate child of an anonymous mother, it dwelled at one of the darkest corners of Jithu’s room. It used to think about its siblings and wondered how well they would have been kept by their masters. For keeping a guitar in good condition, its master has to know at least a bit about music right; it consoled itself. Thus, with a broken heart, a broken string and a body dressed up in dust, it spent its days in dismay.

Three years ago, in one of the unknown locations of Mumbai, popularly known as Vashi aka New Bombay aka Navi Mumbai, the guitar was bought by a ‘magnetic individual’ called Jithu. They were three. Jithu, Pramod and Sabari. Despite having zero knowledge about music, they didn’t hesitate to aim high and start a musical band of their own. The destiny was clear and set. To give a competition to Metallica, Iron Maiden and the like and drive them out of business! They joined a music class and paid 2475 bucks each (after a one and a half hour long bargaining session which resulted in the reduction of the fees by 25 bucks!) as part of the fees for a six month course. They bought three different musical instruments. Well not exactly three; Jithu bought a guitar, Pramod an electric organ and Sabari, not able to afford a costly drum set, bought two drumsticks instead. They named themselves as 'Musician J. I. T. Hu', 'Musician P. R. A. Mod' and 'Musician S. A. Bari' (pronounced like Berry as in Hale Berry)

They were working for a well-known IT company in Mumbai. Well, the company always made it a point to let them off from the office only after 10 pm so that they won’t start a music session in their flat and become a nuisance to other flat owners. With an extremely rancorous mind, they joined a weekend class.

In the beginning the guitar loved its owner very much. Jithu took good care of it by caressing and cleaning it every other second he got. He never kept it down, even for a minute. He always played meaningless notes on the guitar. And the contented guitar sang for him. The guitar used to showboat in front of its siblings.

Good things don’t last forever. So did the guitar’s kismet. After four classes, the three of them concluded that the music teacher was not up to their level and decided to discontinue the class. Some people may say that it is due to their laziness or inability to learn music that they did that. But that is not true!

The guitar got ignored in the dusts of time. Whenever the house maid cleaned the floor and the guitar fell down in her endeavors she used to give an awkward grin to its master but never did she clean the guitar. When Jithu left the job, the guitar thought that its life will become better now and that it will be taken to his home. But that was just a dream and it remained so.

Jithu took the guitar with him to his new location. But for the guitar the only difference was that it got replenished by the Ahmedabad dust instead of the Mumbai dust. The Mumbai dust had at least got that metro status! Oh! Jithu just came to the room. And as usual he didn’t look at the guitar...


34 comments:

Geo said...

interesting !!!

might have been interesting to hear you all perform together.

Sonia said...

you may not be looking at the guitar, but you sure are thinking about it. so why don't you DO something? :P

-Poison- said...

the guitar might find a new lease of life and love its master, when Jithu gets the time for it :-)

silverine said...

Poor poor guitar. I remember my first baby steps as a guitarist..the chapped fingers, the aching hands.....

Do what I did , give it a person who posively loves it:)

kickassso said...

my guitar sits in my room gathering dust too! thankfully , it has a cover.I kinda got lazy after i learnt the notes....never did get around to learning the chords...
@ silverine...though your hands may ache, dont u think the music you get is much better?. I used to play TILL my fingers ached:)...(or were you THAT bad:P)

kickassso said...

now all i do is listen someone else play it, knowing I will never be able to again!*sighs*

Sujith said...

> geo
hmm... u wanted the flat owner to threw them out of the flat or what? :-))

> sonia
yup, jithu is definitely thinking abt it.. ha ha.. he has to do something.. else wt will his guitar think rt.. :-)

> poison
hmm.. jithu is all fucked up mugging shit loads of text books.. if jithu had got enuf time.. :-(

> silverine
hmm.. btw jithu got another guitar to give company to the former one.. he he.. though this is only for a few days, he thinks it will bring a change in the guitar's 'boring' life.. :-)

> kickassso
ha ha.. yeah the transtion to chords is bit tough.. btw u play till ur fingers ache? and ur fingers ache in say 2 mins? ;-))

btw listening to others playing is truly a better thing to do.. jithu knew it even b4.. :-))

Jiby said...

i am somebody who wuz sent to learn music by parents against my wishes...i rebelled and dropped out of my piano classes when i cudnt take the thought of my friends enjoying on the playground while i struggled with strange sounds in a lonely dark room that made no sense to me then...sadly fell in love with music afterwards.

jithu, i can feel how much it hurts you to see that guitar gather dust, like it hurt my pride to tell my mom to give me one more chance...its been a huge loss.

esvee said...

While my guitar gently weeps... eh?

hope and love said...

there is dusty guitar in my house too.
my younger son gave it up. now iv just kept it as a show piece.
:))

Anonymous said...

the poor guitar.....

Sujith said...

> jiby
ha ha.. so u were a naughty boy :-) hmm.. yeah it is a loss, bt u know u have still time to learn it..

> connectany
hmmm... and no one realizing it.. eeh?

> HnL
a guitar seems to be dusty in every place.. doc, u hv to force ur son to learn it now.. ;-))

> divya
so is jithu.. ;-)

Anonymous said...

poor guitar...

Invincible said...

reminds me that i havea guitar and a keyboard back home
*vinci sobs in the memory of the dreams long gone*

Sujith said...

> thulasi
hey u can start off straight away!! its intersting to own a guitar (and learn to use it too.. :-))

> tangy
hmm.. :-) i think i have to do something for it..

> invincible
come on.. hmm.. so there are more ppl like me... :-)

sinusoidally said...

It's pretty cool that you play a guitar...it just reminded me of my college days..

Anonymous said...

excellent post...
i remember u killing the song "soldier...soldier" with the help of ur guitar :)
....and your "guitar" taking up valuable space in the sumo on the mahabaleshwar trip...
what are u using it now as? dumbbells ;-) ??

Sujith said...

> sinusoidally
cool! so u too play guitar? hmm.. there are enuf ppl over here to make a band..

> kiran
:-)) feel good to hear from u those words.. btw u seems to be all the more revolutionary these days, eeh?

> kg
thnx man.. well its nt me, bt the "some"one who killed that song.. he he.. and its the same "some"one who forced me to take my poor guitar to the trip..

Geo said...

There always used to be some sacrificial lambs who were made the butt of all the fun and accusations. (JC for an example ;_) )
Today (or rather this age) its my turn. I know. I know. You put that ‘Some’ link in your post. I thot nobody noticed it. Now you are putting that ‘Some’ word in your comment also.
(defense)

What did u say as KG’s reply? Bloody!!! It was ONLY when I played that "soldier soldier ..." on that godforsaken guitar, that it ever produced something audible. And the reason why I took that for the trip was like "Anyways it isn’t useful as a musical instrument. At least let it figure in some of the snaps".
(attack) bhu hahhaahhahahha

Sujith said...

> niki
hey niki, thank u very much! hardworking? me? u must be kidding :-))

> geo
lamb and u? he he.. dont maro joke geo.. ha ha.

hmm.. dont force me to explain more abt soldier soldier okay.. btw it didnt come in any snaps :-(

kickassso said...

SInce we're on the subject of guitars...who do y'all think is the best guitar player?
My vote goes to Mark Knopfler(Dire Straits)

kickassso said...

Oh and btw...anyone who posts here is automatically disqualified from being nominated:P

Minime said...

Haha, very well written. My piano has two purposes these days, or rather, three when I think about it. 1. As a “token” antique looking item, adding to the other antiques that my mother has an obsession with in our old English style house, 2. As a source of entertainment for my little cousins when they come over to visit, 3. The piano seat with the hidden compartment doubles as a fantastic extra drawer that holds the feather dusters. It’s ironic that we wouldn’t hardly need the feather dusters if it wasn’t for the piano, yet the piano houses the dusters anyway. The piano attracts most of the dust in the house, yet it is also the piano which we insist on keeping. Some things we just cannot part with I guess, no matter how useless they are just sitting there :)

Praveen said...

Hmm... really nice post! Evoked a great deal of sympathy in me for the ignored guitar. Maybe you should give it off to someone who loves playing it.

Mahdi said...

poor guitar,hope her owner soon caresses and feeds her,
I dont think her owner should hav broken his promise or he should make it up somehow.
;))

venus said...

May beyou should start playing guitar. Sometimes it's just initial inertia you have to overcome. You just will have to start. May be one day we will hear you tunes online on you blog :)

Sujith said...

> kickasso
Mark Knopfler it is.. any doubts ;-)

> veiled ninja
ha ha.. so many uses for it.. yeah true, somethings, we cant just part with.. ownership itself is a pride. :-)

> praveen
hmm.. its like giving my heart to someone u knw ;-)

> ms
ha ha.. yeah i started the caring session once again.. now i spend lots of time with her..

> venus
oh come on.. i dont want ppl to run away from my blog ;-))

> sangeetha
ha ha.. thts always there, the teachers are never 'up to the mark' u knw ;-))

Thanu said...

I was strongly thinking about getting a guitar.. you made me reconsider. Jithu guitar bechna hai tho lemme know ;)

Sujith said...

hmm.. i dont think u r as lazy as me.. hence u can go ahead with buying a guitar. :-) btw my guitar is a valuable humsafar to me u knw, tho bechna, kabhi nahin.. ;-))))

Anonymous said...

hi,
i m interested in learning guitar. do u take classes or can u refer to someone who can help me. please contact me at anjanalal@rediffmail.com.

regards,
anjana

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