CMS COLLEGE, KOTTAYAM. A CAMPUS SOAKED IN MUSIC

Every evening I walk for forty minutes to one hour in the CMS campus.  People advise me to walk in the morning as there are  any number of morning walkers and I can “walk the talk”. In fact this precisely is the reason why I have chosen the evening time.  The myriads of mundane issues discussed threadbare during these morning walks are often nauseating for me. This is not to say that I will discuss only esoteric topics like global warming, rising sea levels or thermonuclear explosion by North Korea.  Far from  that. Though I am genuinely concerned about the issues mentioned above, I do not consider myself competent enough to discuss such issues at the level I have defined as the lowest for any discussion worth that name. This is one reason why I refuse to be an appendage to the moving  morning crowd in the CMS campus. The horrendous ado, most often signifying nothing  deprives  one of the warmth of the sun at its golden grace in the east and the cool gentle breeze so characteristic of the CMS campus. But the greatest loss is the music of the campus. Though early morning is the most ideal time with all the “musicians” playing with strings and wind in divine unison, the divinity is so cruelly lost in the cacophony resulting from human interference, that it becomes inaudible to the ordinary ear drum.  Since this music descending from the heavens inundating the campus is seldom heard by anyone, none realises the loss. The loss is indeed huge, if only you have an ear for the seven notes. Aren’t these seven notes the greatest gift of God to not just humans but to all living beings?

The evening time when I walk ,ie, from six to seven is not time for music. But being “far from the madding crowd” by  itself  is a source of peace of mind.  But there is music a little later. I have written about this in some previous post. I have heard this many a time towards midnight standing alone before the Great Hall. Chaurasia’s  Bamboo  or Amjad Ali Khan’s Sarod. But quite a little after mid night Shiv Kumar Sharma’s Santhoor  is packed with notes of hope, enthusiasm, vigour and dreams for a new dawn !!! If you feel all these very surreal, I can only invite you to walk in the CMS campus all alone at that time of the night when none except the college is there!!! (....and of course, a romantic heart and quite a bit of aesthetic sense is assumed). I can honestly tell you that this is, inadvertent though, an intellectual exercise soaked in aesthetics. If you still doubt I will venture quoting Amir Khusru though it will be a little too much for a college campus. And if ever it suits a campus, for which one other than the CMS? I quote.

"Gar firdaus, ruhe zamin ast,
 Hamim asto, hamim asto, hamim asto".

Which means,

"If there is ever a heaven on earth,
 It is here, it is here, it is here".

   NOTE: This post is in fact a prelude to my next one. I hope to write that soon.