Debris

While poking around some remnants of the past, I chanced upon my first assignment here at the University. It had to be a short story within 700 words or less and on any of the seven deadly sins. According to the Bible, these are: pride, sloth, envy, greed, gluttony, lust, and anger.

A lot has happened since that assignment. I have completed two years in the program and most importantly changed my track from fiction to non-fiction. So I don't write stories any more, I write essays instead.

So, here it is.
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Perfection

I am on my way to pick up my seventh award of the year. Incidentally, today is my father's birthday. He would have turned sixty today had he been alive. He died three years ago, rather prematurely. He still had so many years of professional success and personal glory before him. I miss him, he was my best friend. But that trek in the lower Himalayas, and that fatal combination of slippery earth, monsoon sky, increased body weight, and finally the slip. That's how it ended for Dad.

Sadly enough, he had always been a mountain person. As a child I used to love listening to the stories my grandmother used to tell me about Dad's adventurous boyhood, when he used to beg his parents to take him to their ancestral village simply because it was surrounded by mountains, thus giving him an opportunity to explore and pretend to be Alexander on yet another dare-devil adventure.

Then one fine day, in his twelfth year, he happened to accompany his parents to a party thrown by some of their friends. Incidentally, the country's leading music composer was also a friend of the hosts and had been invited to the same party. A chance conversation, and the gentleman was convinced that the young boy he had just spoken to had something special about him. Under his influence my grandparents -- who until then had never paid much attention to whether or not their boy could sing -- put my father under rigorous music coaching.

Six months later, Dad made his stage debut. With time it became apparent that he was exceptionally talented, that he could sing literally any thing, on any key, with or without any accompanying music.

By the time he was nineteen, Dad had recorded his third album. This one too was a runaway success, and there was just no looking back. Songs, albums, concerts, fortune, fame, and a succession of wives and children followed as did pride, complacency, and an increasing love for alcohol. Yet, in spite of it all, he continued making magic with his voice, and the world loved him for it.

I am my father's eldest child, and like all good sons, I inherited his height, his looks, and even his voice. As a child, and even as a young man, it was a matter of no small pride. I was the object of everyone's envy. Not only was I the son of the country's most popular male singer, but I also sounded like him! I won every competition I participated in, I had girls fawning all over me everywhere I went, I had people of all ages and backgrounds eating out of my hands. It seemed the best thing in the world when I got offered my first independent song, and with it, what seemed at that time at least, a huge amount of money.

The first few months went off rather beautifully. I sang some really nice songs and that too with debutant musicians, so all of us had the same thirst to do well. They let me experiment with my voice, and I loved it. I began to enjoy my work, and even got married to my college sweetheart.

I remember clearly how the bubble burst. One June night my heavily pregnant wife said to me, "Dearest, sing that song I love, and this time sing it exactly like your father. I love it even more then." I indulged her. Just the way I had to indulge the next crop of music composers, who wanted my father for their songs but could not afford him, and I had a family to feed.

The tide continued to grow, it overwhelmed me and swept my protests aside. But through it all, Dad stood by me. He had always been my closest friend, and I knew how much it hurt him to see my increasing frustration and despair. He tried his best to step back, to curtail his kind of singing, to push me ahead, to encourage me to sing in my distinctive style, but his hands were tied. After all, these were the pressures of the market. We could do nothing to change it, we were two mere commodities in a ruthless world of buy and sell. At least we had each other, along with a common love for food, treks, and our mutual friendship.

But the last trek changed it all. I remember how on that fateful day, I was walking behind Dad, taking in the fresh mountain air and the clear blue sky when suddenly Dad lost his balance and skidded, and even before my hand could reach out to save him, he hit his head on the sharp rock jutting out of the side of the mountain. His skull cracked and he died instantly. I could do nothing to save my father, the man who gave me my life, and my voice. There he lay, my father, my best friend, and I could do nothing.

Except close his eyes and tell myself, "Finally perfection will mean my kind of music."