We pursue a profession for money and fame at the expense of our soul. There are several things we pursue to nourish the soul in parallel, but we do take these things for granted and tend to disrespect them.
It was about 11 am when I stepped out of the Tube onto the Bond Street Station in London. I had a guitar with me and I navigated my way through the light to moderate crowd inside the station. I was heading for the London Guitar Studio on Duke’s Street. It was not the peak hour and I liked the ambience. But deep within me, the thought of parting with my guitar kept sizzling. My work assignment had come to a close and I was supposed to be returning to India in a week’s time. Tickets had already been booked by the company. All my efforts to get into another assignment in the UK had proved futile, as the projects were going to take more time to finalize my position.
I had come to the UK on a work assignment almost a year back and invested in this guitar with a lot of plans of staying long term here. But as always, plans are not designed to work the way we would want them to. I had been in the UK alone as my wife was working in India and my daughter was working in Ireland. During this solitary journey, I had spent several hours with my guitar, playing some songs repeatedly and also exploring new pastures. It gave me fine company and had a soothing effect on my soul.
The guitar and its bag had cost me a hundred and ninety pounds. I had picked this Yamaha F 310, at the Octave Musical Instruments Store at Dunstable. I loved the instrument and the wonderful sound it offered. My colleague Suresh who had accompanied me to the store, had also sensed the beautiful sound that it had given out on the very F bar chord that I had strummed that day. Although it was one of the simplest amongst the acoustic guitars available there, it was big money spent and a big risk that I had taken on a music passion that I had. There was no guarantee then that the project that I was into would really stand long, as customers were keen on seeing a short window span of a quarter each time. I had also been pretty sure that I would not be able to carry the guitar back to India, as that would entail spending another huge sum for flight luggage costs. The standard thought is that we could always buy another guitar with a value lesser than the cost expended for the flight luggage, but there was no guarantee that one would again get a good guitar on the next purchase. Every guitar is unique. But I had still taken that risk at that time. When I had called up the Octave Musical Instruments Shop again to sell the guitar back to them, they had given me an offer of just fifty pounds inclusive of the bag. The very low offer came in as a shock for me. After calling up a few more stores, I had decided to go with the London Guitar Studio who offered twenty pounds more.
It was through the Jubilee line that I had arrived at Bond Street Station. While I was heading for the exit, I noticed that a light shower of rain was setting in. I did not want the guitar to get wet although the bag could protect it for some time. I changed plans and moved towards the Davies Street entrance of the Elizabeth line. I knew I could do this without having to leave the station premises. There was a beautiful work of art called the Almonds Horizon Line at that entrance. It consisted of 144 individual hand-polished aluminium tiles featuring fragmented numbers, creating a numerical landscape. I thought it would be good to spend time seeing this piece of work, while waiting for the rain to stop. A fast walk of five to six minutes took me to the spot.
I saw a beautiful numerical landscape that stood over the main escalators that referenced daily schedules and transit. This had been achieved through a beautiful arrangement of tiles cast in aluminium and styled to look like the embossed, historic number plates once used on early British steam locomotives. Echoing the fast-paced, ever-changing subjectivity of transit, as to how passengers personally perceive and experience their commute, the fragmented numerical arrays change as the viewer moves. In a heavy contrast with the cold, numerical data like schedule times or vehicle capacity, this is a psychological, emotional, and qualitative side of travel.
I enjoyed this piece of amazing art work by the British artist Darren Almond. It is part of a trio of pieces designed by Almond for the station; the other two are Shadow Line and Time Line, which bear poetic phrases related to time and travel. For a moment I stood still, and thought about his frame of mind while he had designed this piece. In a world where we hardly stand still for a moment of time, here’s a masterpiece about time that draws us to spend time on it. Wonderful indeed! I felt proud that I had the heart and mind of a genuine artist, as I was standing there and spending my time appreciating this piece of art.
After relishing this piece of art for some more time, I moved towards the exit. A little boy was walking along with his parents and his eyes got glued to the little green deer that hung from the zip of my guitar bag. He kept turning and looking at me for a long distance and I smiled and enjoyed his attention for a while. The rain had stopped and the sun was giving out a fine half smile. To go to the London Guitar Studio on Duke Street, I thought a five-minute walk via Weigh House Street in Mayfair, bypassing the main traffic of Oxford Street entirely, would be the right approach. The Weigh House Street came as an immediate left and walking straight ahead would directly take me to Duke Street. On Weigh House Street, I got to see historic architecture and remnants of the city's commercial past. I stopped and took snaps from different angles with my phone.
I saw the impressive Victorian chapel that was designed by the eminent architect Alfred Waterhouse and completed in 1891. The chapel’s original name was the "King's Weigh House," reflecting the area's history as a site for weighing merchandise to calculate import duties in 17th-century London. The walk connected directly through the Brown Hart Gardens area which is an elevated, terraced public garden and features a lovely open-air café. The characterful London rooftops and the trees of Mayfair that were mostly barren, partially hid the distant skyline. My steady walking often got interrupted with my photography. I have to admit that London looks beautiful when seen from any angle. It’s a lesson that we need to learn, as to how a city is managed so very well and remains so clean even when so many tourists move through the city every day.
As I entered Duke Street, I
spotted the red buses managed by TFL (Transport for London) and the black
taxis. These always demanded my attention whenever I spotted them and they
always had a certain beauty that seemed to fit in well with the overall
cityscape. They are indeed world-famous cultural icons of London. After having
inadvertently gone past the store, I then retraced my steps to find its small
glass door entrance. It opened into a very spacious setup displaying a huge
variety of guitars of several brands. There were also a lot of materials
associated with the guitar and guitar music. I approached the old gentleman
sitting at the desk. “Good morning. I had called up yesterday for selling my
guitar”, I said greeting him. “Oh hi, good morning. The manager just stepped
out for some work. She will be back in an hour’s time. You can wait here or
come back after an hour if you have some work to be done outside. Have a seat”,
he said with a warm smile.
For a moment I thought it would be good to roam around for a while, but there were chances of another shower and I also did not want to leave the guitar at the store and do the roaming. So, I decided to stay back. I walked past the collection of guitars displayed. All the new guitars had very high prices and then there were the used guitars too, where my precious piece would soon find a place. The store would buy it at a throwaway price and sell it with a fat margin. Yes, all the used guitars of my type were priced much higher. But that argument was not going to sell as the burning need to sell was mine. A collection of beautiful plectrums attracted my attention and I spent some time there. Besides, there were instructional guitar books, if one wanted to learn the unique scales and techniques required to play the guitar like Eric Clapton and other pioneers. There were a few other instruments too that were not guitars and they stood out as odd pieces.
I could feel my legs ache and so I sat down close to the far corner directly opposite to the door. I took the guitar out of the bag and practiced some chord positions without giving out any sound. It was to just see if my fingers were falling in place. I was happy that they were doing fine. I had not practised for a few days, but my fingers were still doing good.
The door opened and a tall and beautiful young lady walked in. Her little son ambled along behind her. “I am looking for a very basic acoustic guitar, preferably of Yamaha make. If you have good used ones, I would like to have a look”, she said. My heart was beating fast for no reason. After all I was not going to strike a deal directly with her without the knowledge of the store. The man at the desk told her the same thing that he told me. She looked around and spotted the empty chair near me and came and sat. We exchanged warm smiles. “Are you trying out a guitar?”, she asked. “No. I am waiting for the manager. I plan to sell this”, I said. “Oh, can I try it out if you don’t mind?”, she asked. “Sure please”, I said and handed the guitar over to her. Before I could retrieve the plectrum from my pocket, her beautiful hands with well-manicured nails, got into fingerstyle playing of the strings. My guitar suddenly came alive and it sounded so melodious. Her son was now busy checking out the green deer of the guitar bag.
“Why are you selling it?”, she asked inquisitively, suddenly stopping midway of a song.” Well, I am from India and I have been here for work for about a year. I thought my stay here would continue, but unfortunately, I have to fly back in a week’s time”, I explained. “Why don’t you take it with you? It’s such a fine guitar. I would carry it with me. I think a genuine artist would do so”, she said with all the seriousness of a music lover. Her eyes revealed that she was already measuring the depth of musical passion in me while waiting for my answer. She was not taking her eyes away from me. Her last set of words made me hesitate to tell her about the cost of carrying it with me by flight. Since it was a return trip to India for good, I had to give priority for so many other things that I had to carry with me both in the cabin and checked in baggage and the thought of spending more money to take my guitar along, never even knocked the doors of my mind even as a remote possibility. “Well, you know, there are so many things that I need to carry back to my home country as I am going for good. And I….”, I couldn’t complete and she had already started. “Didn’t this guitar and its music touch your soul every day? It did, isn’t it? Without that soul in a state of peace, do you think you could have pursued your profession with the kind of intensity that you did?”, she asked with an intensity that was piercing me. It was embarrassing for me and I looked down. “We tend to take things that feed our soul for granted, isn’t it?”, came another question. She was right. She seemed to know that I had no answers. I looked up and smiled at her. Her son was running his fingers on the strings of my guitar and looking at both of us as a long silence lingered.
I could see another shower of rain coming down. The door opened and an elderly lady stepped in and came and stood at the desk. The man signalled to me and I got up. I gave the young lady a parting smile with a bow and walked up to the desk, taking the guitar from her. She smiled and acknowledged. I was not sure if she had understood my limitations or concluded that music had not touched me deep inside. She continued to sit at the same place and it seemed to me that she showed no urgency to talk to the manager to try and fix a deal for my guitar. I handed over my precious piece and while I was accepting the money from the manager, I could feel someone tug my winter coat. It was the little boy. He smiled pointing to the deer that the guitar bag had, which was now in the manager’s hands. I did not turn back as I did not want to face the young lady again. She was probably behind me, about to talk to the manager about the guitar. I made straight for the exit and stepped out into the rain. I had my cap on and decided to walk through the rain shower. This is what I would normally do when intense thoughts hit me and leave me in a sea of rumination. There were beautiful spots that passed by, but I continued walking and never took snaps. It was a heart wrenching stint for me while I was coming to terms with the fact that I had to part with my guitar, with which I had had some very soothing and satisfying times right through the last one year. It suddenly dawned on me that standing and appreciating the Almond’s Horizon Line was probably the easiest thing an artist could do and that I had really fumbled at the difficult decisions that confronted an artist.
I spotted a Pret A Manger shop (a renowned British sandwich and organic coffee chain) and stepped in. I sat down with a cup of coffee and tried my best to come out of the train of thoughts. The rain stopped after a while.
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