Saturday, September 18, 2004

Festival Time

I woke up to the calls of a yak in distress. No . Not quite! Three important pieces of evidence proved it beyond doubt that the noise emanated not from a yak
1. There are no yaks in bangalore
2. Yaks in distress rarely call out the moos with such perfectly timed notes and pauses. I'm guessing yaks are rarely sticklers for regularity!
3. Yak's calls are never accompanied by the strains of a tanpura in the background.
On closer inspection, the source of the noise was a Ganesha 'Installation'. The words, or rather the word, was 'Om', repeated a thousand million times. The singer had to say just ONE word and he messed it up so badly. So much for his future as a performer. The Om chant is said to aid meditators in some mysterious ways. You don't want to know my opinion on that!
I lay in bed hoping to stay asleep a little longer and enjoy my weekend break by indulging in laziness. But the music was singularly designed to tug at every nerve in my body. It took a lot of effort just to control myself from going mad and breaking all the breakable things at home. It was really a character building experience! Hey maybe that explains why it's effective in meditation as well.