THW story of the soloist and the soprano

1. THE SOLOIST
PART-1
NOVELETTE
MADATHIL NARAYANAN RAJKUMAR
This is the tale of a soloist and a soprano, though I title it
as the soloist. The soprano was my kinsman. The soloist was
my next-door-neighbour. We three grew up concomitantly. In
brief, this is a narrative of chances. And also some griefs, a
narrative that is the gloss of significant visits and rallies. This
is my proem. You can skip the prologue
If you fancy. I am only supporting the ritual of great authors
as Shakespeare to state the finish at the outset. Though their
method is to show it very discreetly. I am not a fabulous artist
but would like to tell you shortly that the soloist is no more.
Only the soprano and me, the living people to the adventures
in which the soloist also took part on whom this story is titled
after. To tell the fact, repeatedly, the soloist is no more. He
met with a road mishap in a Scandinavian town amidst

2. traffic. Several people who met me in later years attested to
the fact that the actual cause of death was not the traffic
mishap. But the fact that the soloist was already suffering
from the fluctuations of blood pressure levels, for which he
had been on medication for years back. The blood pressure
shot up suddenly prior to the accident and he lost control of a
car and a Jack Russell Terrier suddenly crossed the road and
he lost in a final attempt to save the animal and himself. The
beast came from nowhere and another vehicle from a hidden
direction also came meanwhile, as if to entrap him in a very
special appointment. In my growing years and the later years
youth, we used to dine at good inns in Delhi, places with
stunning doilies and carafes and I treasured these balls. Once,
when we got out of the cabins, another buddy was with us
and he was cripplingly woozy and he passed a wicked word
at a guest and the state of affairs turned precarious by the
involvement of the other guy's two bosom aides and it was
the soloist who conserved the life of my companion by his
tender parleys.
On another instance, we went to a place called Chang Puri. I
do not recall the exact setting now, but the soloist took me
there and there were additionally two journalists with us and
we had a nice evening and a sort of country drink. The host
was a very loving family, and it was a kind of family business
and there were many families similar to this one in that area. It
was a close community with their own beliefs and customs. In
brief, it was a happy evening and whenever I think about the
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3. soloist in the later years of my life, I think particularly of that
evening and later our wanderings in the New Delhi platforms
seeing off friends and relatives quite often in those trains
bound to the south. The good money with him and he
frequently paid from his pocket, for such costly dishes I could
not afford those days due to my meagre teaching assignments.
It happened that the soloist's brother was very dear to me once
upon a time. When my father bought olive virid cycle for me
his papa bought him green Raleigh cycle, the police green
Raleigh cycle was slightly dearer than the other one. I don't
know the motive behind it still it was so. The soloist's brother
whom I would like to call Thomas, though it is nor his real
name were classmates. Though he had a croaking voice, the
territory of his heart was warm and he was a good company.
We were together for sophomore and graduation and having
studied in the small schools, our communication facility in the
language was not good enough and our classmates had an
upper hand in this field having come from affluent homes and
famous halls. So we made it a routine in the secondary and
third years of our commissioning to converse British whatever
came to our intellect, voice out if there is grammar or not. But
discourse anyhow. As we had to pass along the isolated
demesne on our way back home, this speaking English
enterprise was detected by none other than the wind which
sometimes tried to swerve our bicycle wheels, but we steadily
continued cycling and discoursing. But at this stage, there is
no way to go back to the wind and enquire if it laughed at the
English speaking challenges. The wind, I assume will only
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4. cheer with the pat on our shoulders. The upshot of this slightly
weird but passionate activity was that we enriched to some
extent in the language and later got better paths to grow. But
the soloist who was a grim chap is was not seen in these trials
of language. The soloist's brother had another weakness, as
he effortlessly believed everybody and was easily influenced.
He did not have any steady thought to grab and lead him to
fluctuate scenes, instead, he anticipated for other's verdict in
virtually all matters, whether they be slight or great.
Let us come back to the protagonist, the soloist who grew
into a prominent musician of his era. I am not a great
overseer in command to undertake a statue of the soloist at
the from midtown within the clover leaves and not a bard
like Homer to conceive a saga of his labour. So I will
inscribe a small story which is within my means. Certain
things apart this is also my account in connection with them,
sometimes, becoming a fragment of their quests and later
bust-ups and the final get together. A story from my transom.
As I am not a musician and do not hold essentially what takes
place in the head of great musical genii, how they imagine,
how they are fashioned internally. But have curiously marked
them.The soloist in his grave study, that is adorned with
Botticelli paintings, and also the artwork of a Renaissance
friar, keyboards and musical literature and later when he
practised alone on the promenade, in moments his father
would watch over the washermen that came in the evening,
where his mother was away in another town for a
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5. government job that made her reach late home. His first
manoeuvres were copies he made on old European masters
and later solos based on Mozart and Handel- he imagined that
he played the flute with a movable brass at the end and a blast
in the hall. Then he came in whiskers and wearing buskin-a
gentle fellow for his age, immature-looking but wise to the
bottom, took regular sessions of walks and oats to keep him
nimble through the night when he will slide into one of his
usual sleep in the middle of the play was the good echo. The
organizers had trips meanwhile. This all happened when he
was the student in Edinburgh and travelled to Westminster
London did some Mozart researcher hall had a -the early
stay--it was a colourful Friday an evening with the mayor at
the duel- she wrote diaries and tasks for each day each week
and each month- the days were not achieved, but there was a
good rhythm, in the beginning, a lot of enthusiasm, a feeling
that life is so near, the meaning is so near, you are into the
heart of the kernel of life, anything is at your beck all and
call, unless you have that nasty headache
that habitually comes in a fortnight on a Thursday- father
and mother calls each Sunday morning, the mess is fine, the
chicken, her favourite omelette and garlic loaf, and cheese
and orange juice and bread on spattered honey and the
evening is cold, a walk near the Thames to see the pelicans in
a park, near a marshland, that covers so many acres, -and she
walked every morning, except Saturdays and Sundays. On
Sundays, she had the congregation. She will recite Scripture
to the select audience before the vicar of the parish arrived.
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6. And her father, an old conductor who also ran a school will
make the preparatory address where he will present a bouquet
of flowers to her unless she has a headache and could not be
present. Nick will probably have the same routine in another
style.The resolution mantras, from ethical teachers. Oh, this
on was her classmate in the academy of artistes.He resorted to
fairly up-to-date conduits. That way he could make two
albums with May, until the exchange turned into romance and
they met privately at a jazz bar in a suburb and she cut it
cruelly, and he was much affected and told that he will
become a churchman if she did not marry him. He said that he
followed music because he thought as the ultimate reality and
hoped he soon will hear the music of the universe, the music
on will probably the stars rested. And love, he has not known
in childhood, as her parents were separated at a very early age
of his boyhood and-and it was with her that he found love and
if she deserts him he will become a churchman because he
can pursue music as a churchman also, and he will compose
devotional chants and sing for him or his group. The love he
will get, but in a better and eternal mould and not affected by
seasons and human vagaries. for her music was all and he
said it is for him also, the same the thing, since she did not
grasp what music is don't talk about since she did not
know what love is don't talk about it., better talk about things
you know well, that is not the way to grow, be humble at
heart, he said. he also thought that music and love are the two
things noblest as far his knowledge of things are concerned. It
is the song, and he is getting to know about love through
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7. hymnology and since both are moving away from his clasp,
also since he is at bay to know the final end of a search, he
cannot take many risks since he wants to know for sure what
is worthy of lasting, he is for a time ready to believe the old
seers who they say died happily. Even the passing of her
mentor who was sage and a musician is a controversial thing,
some say he was not happy, but nobody is sure of such
things, nobody can say the sinking man is happy unless you
go into his thoughts, many flutes and trumpets-her
accompanist was the man of huge whiskers, an artist from
the out who was also a singer at his family shrine in the a
morning where his father was a priest and his mother a lady
who made garlands and imported zari embroidery things for
church stoles, she opened a small shop of stoles and
embroidery items and it fetched market. she employed two
more energetic ladies in the shop as assistants as sometimes
the seasons were full and there was tourist attraction nearby
and houseboats and water sports and amusement parks. Later
when her business thrived she bought a big farm adjacent to
the waterpark and it was convenient for her to swim, an
activity she had left so many years after marriage. she, in fact,
gold Edinburgh at a national meet and in consequence got
admission in a sports school to continue the studies in water
sports events, but her father thought that she felt married soon
and found an alliance for him. This was an administrator who
was also a son of an administrator and he disliked sports so
much as he thought it will strain your legs and muscles
unnecessarily and like simple exercises such as walking by
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8. beauty sports and he dislike exposure to the sun so much
because he feared the further exposure to the sun will darken
and wrinkle his skin. At the mascot hotel where they dined,
she went writers and filmmakers with them and the chief
discussion was about the question of widening the roads. the
poet told that big interstate roads are bad for the environment
and public and-and it spoils the genuineness of the landscape
and the entrance into the capital of the city with a big van is
potentially life-threatening. there were speakers for big roads
and somebody told that big roads spoil love because almost all
line takes place by small streets and alleys and bowers, bid
roads are against nature of the human beings, we are and we
are more becoming a commercial community and in the long
run, intrinsic qualities will be forsaken. This was the good
argument. but her husband was making a final summation of
speeches. In fact, it was the opening ceremony of a detective
fiction writer. He also did not like some people, who claimed
to be her fans writing private letters to her and addressing her
as 'darling'. She knew that the real reason was the last. Even
in meetings where the families of dignitaries are invited, he
would stealthily look into her eyes to see if her eyes
wandered. You may call it chauvinistic, but not. He was too
concerned about her and in a way, possessive. he disliked
totally her mentioning any male figure in his presence in an
admiring tone. According to him, the best and greatest male
company for her was himself, te thought he liked to ruminate
numerous times, in waking and in a dream. Some say, that we
are all the products of our dreams, but I am not sure about
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9. that, still can very well say, that there are many things that
which experience in our day to day existence, for which the
causes are more mysterious than clever...Since she had
already got it, she would, he expected to be better contented
with it, for sober and festive events. They resided than in a
house which was part of a row of houses and had no
telephone, only a small post office by the side small coffee
shops and the villagers had simple ambit -went to --on a tour
of six and her associate was also a part of the retinue, but
later left as he was more interested in his academics and
wanted to be a surgeon of repute do as many transplants as
possible.At 14
16. the hall for another orchestra, at another hall the
composer also had a similar problem with recurring
headaches and he did breathing exercises instead of tablets
and narrated the story if his brother who also was the
composer and a man with similar dilemmas and who took
capsules often with each meal as if it was his food and aid
finally in the midst id selling big albums and some
watercolours for which he held a studio at the gate of the city
where film people and artists of the nearby art school visited
died with his two kidneys come to void., her uncle a theatre
designer, and her dad a deacon.At Cambridge, she took
English literature and staged Shakespeare and Ibsen and
Brecht. To know more Ibsen, she went to Norway, her
future mentor told her at the first interview with him he was
very private man, to meet him was always his choice, not
yours came at the break of her ninth performance at ---hall
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10. Scotland, that your talent is not the solo songs but your bright
eyes, that I can not help, she said, was mama was standing
near us all laughed, later he came to our flat in the country,
and he was a businessman who supplies stoles to churches,
embroidered stoles to churches and hit Europe often always
alone, he travelled alone, except with a translator whenever
he did not know the language of the country, on this tour, she
particularly composed strain for growing babies and also to
pets. That day she went on a tour at the invitation of the
philharmonic orchestra and there she met her future spouse, a
smiling man with a long beard, but a ribald fellow. In his most
private moments and he told that it is part of 16
18. intimacy but she quoted Emerson that character is hidden
power. Social behaviour is a facade and when he sent
photographs to his fans and would be students, he created the
clown halo, in fact, he was much better in real life than his
photographed lives and did not drink liquor a whole season.
Smiled without teeth shown, and he told that he got the idea
from a Buddhist pamphlet and said Buddha denied showing
teeth in public. He changed his notions of life quite speedily,
and he told that it is growth, and in germination, you
perpetrate mistakes and make a lot of experiments to get
balance of the body and mind , still, we grow, and quoted a
new thought author, that this life is a school for the
development of good measures. He took photos with an eye
for the movement of life and drew meticulous sketches of the
buildings in his music book. His own uncle, he old man was
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11. an aficionado of Indian classical music and art and had taken
part 17
19. in a dance tutor in a dance school, a folk school in a town
by eastern ghats a place where the greenery was nice. The
structure was located in sprawling paddy fields and there was
also good torrid winds that the body was attuned to and there
they made the body flexible and pliant by exercises and
massage and she stayed there for six months studying dance
and percussions and went later to Amsterdam for some other
lessons in western music. Her cousin Fenella joined her but
later she got a scholarship to London and then to Edinburgh
and visited Arthur's seat. Most of the well-known sites are in
this area. The city ’s exciting new waterfront.And the wander
through the streets of the Port of Leith, take a cruise on the
River Forth and traverse the rough territory of the volcanic
reverberations. She made much travel in the first seas18
20. Seat.travel far from Edinburgh city centre to escape to the
beautiful countryside of the Lothians. Stroll along Portobello's
the pretty beach which is only a stone throw away from the
city centre, head to Pentland Hills Regional Park on the
outskirts of the city, or spot incredible wildlife at Polkemmet
Country Park and went to sweeping landscapes and sandy
beaches such as Belhaven Bay along the John Muir Way.
Later went to Edinburgh and the Lothians a variety of picnic
activities. Then she went to those ferns, and swamps, and
reed beds that are a distinctive type of swamp comprising
dense stands of common reed that can mount up as high as
many meters. you see birds like birds like bearded tits and
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12. bittern and have a useful function of mopping up nutrients
from the water.nullified, Lowland raised bog and the peat.
The peat is formed mainly from a moss called sphagnum
which has the amazing property of holding many times its dry
weight of water. This ability to act like a sponge helps reduce
the amount of water flooding at peak flow. She was
practically ill at ease with the prodigals who are lazy at heart
because when they were children, she was close to her
brother, when they will eat their humble lunches and suppers
together and there were great warmth and cooperation in the
family and the neighbours would ask their wellbeing or even
fetch a doctor if you are ill and the funerals of the village
was a public grievance, and though they judged the man and
his family liberally, they took part in all the proceedings and
helped them in every other way. because her brother did who
wasry close to her in childhood never came to see her or her
for the last ten years because whenever she called he told her
that he was busy. She walked among tall grasses which
practically covered both and they had a good time of hiding
and seek, a sort of death and life, obscurity, and face. But
she loved more obscurity than fame because she was afraid of
the limelight and big money and often spoke to tall grasses
growing at the water's edge, Dumfries and on one ride,
practically swooned or slept till her friend came and called
her from the semi-state of sleep. She stayed in the highland
for a month with her friend taking long walks and stayed there
additionally next year when the music season was over and
met a Walter Scott researcher who was of great help to her in
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13. times of need, especially, when she was sick and the
scholarship was delaying. He advised her to take one entire
year off from all concerns and do research in Edinburgh and
develop her art and talent, but he mother was not willing to let
her do that, as the family business in Milan was dwindling and
her father needed her help. after two heart attacks, one
changes the philosophy of life. In this case, it happened. But
she left for India with a performance group, in spite of all the
business and wandered on the coasts of Malabar eating fish
curry and studying the more expressive art called Kathakali,
or in other words, enacting the story. The narrative is of
sacred or mythological content. Some of the journey her
friend had a border-collie-dog. Therein Amsterdam she went
to the lanes the tulip gardens and the windmills when it
rained it was enthralling. The many boat rides and the
Danish summertime and from there they went to Switzerland
and stayed one night in a bungalow by The Alps, where a
famous master had written his last journals in purple and gold
and are still to be published in full. There was much laughter
as drinking and play acting and love and food and music until
some flibbertigibbet from an Elizabethan play makes an
entrance and spoil it with a bad note. When the seasons were
over, she was fairly free but, went to the book club and
purchased books on music and poetry and practised the
cadence. Winter came and her mama sent a wire that her
father is seriously admitted and she went with her new
companion because the soloist was fully steeped in music and
never bothered for her and the marriage was practically
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14. nullified, though legally they were man and wife. Mother at
first did not approve of this, but the father in his sick bed and
intravenous tubes in the hospice, intervened because all he
wanted was her joy in life. And the life he recognized is
precious, even for one day. Coming back, she, attended the
jazz series scheduled for Thursday. On Sunday there was a
string quartet show which was by her elderly uncle who was
the first son of a man who in turn was a guide as an Alpine
climber and was present in the first ascent of the Westerholm
in 1854. The scene those days was dominated by British
climbers in a golden age of alpinism. 3 He was a musician of
talents, scantily used, having been subject to addiction and
finally ended in a transplant hopital.-- In his first years in the
academy, he was dressed conservatively but as music went
inside his soul he started to live in another grandiose region,
perhaps inaccessible to us common lot, and his outer attires
changed greatly and were considered outrageous and perhaps
hideous or even dangerous to the young public. But because
of his great music, that in a way incorporated the melody of
the universe, people accommodated him and he was asked
opinions in matters of import. Sometimes he had a quaint
historical air as if he took recovery from a classical pool of the
symphonic brains of past and whenever he visited our
settlement for cosy vacations to walk around the grapevines
and mount strips, the boys nevermore neglected him without
remarks. The soloist carried it very casually as he was always
thinking of his next notation and treatise or a superior
interpretation of a major composer, he has left incomplete that
13

15. season. It is my belief that the wind understands musicians
and it blew in beautiful rhythms to carry away his inner
aches of the season.
His was the chequered journey. Major concert wins, bigger
contracts and sessions in sanatoriums for he was subject to
some addictions by this time, out of some values associated
with the rhythms he carried for long in his head. His beer
sessions were longer than the longest I attended in life.
towards the last part of the picture, he will remain with his
bottles with either a cat or a hound of his company [in his
walks] but no human presence to note. After the first day, a
duo came from the north-west and sang and after that the
chamber strain and the two parts of Schubert's swan song [1
and 2]. The academy was named after a priest who made
some. improvements in the Gregorian chants and whose life
exemplified the pedagogy he read day and night from the holy
book and he was always a friend of poor who presided over
his housemaid's wedding giving an equal share of dowry as
his daughter. The tickets of varying hues and classifications.
The symphony hall was full of people, veterans from diverse
fields the master of the chamber music was a man of thick
beard and he smoked in spite of the advice from his mentor
who was a teetotaller and a non-smoker. New solos with
grace and electricity-a master of chamber music-s.t.'s works
stood with great pattern -and dominance with its ingenious
merging of bravura dancing -virtuoso
songstresses,bass,tabla,pianos,drums, a cross of jazz and
14

16. music of India-accompanied by a famous bassist and joining
them -by the acclaimed saxophone player and computer
vocalist-a wonderful young boy from Indonesia 27
29-a gala of vocalists and sopranos-and young pianists and
classic jazz album-debut was at Alexandra hall-selection of
-nocturnes, mazurkas and preludes-Beethoven-piano sonata
no-20[?]- Shostakovich-preludes and
fugues-Wagner-solemn march to the holy grail-from
Parsifal-swan song curate, chamber music
party-Beethoven-no-24. Instinct told her, he was not nice,
which later turned out to be more or less the fact.- After
coming back to the country, she stayed near the East Coast
mainline, which links Edinburgh and London King’s Cross, is
the fastest intercity railway: you can travel between the cities
in around 4 hours. She travelled overnight, a sleeper service
runs between London Euston and Edinburgh Waverley
almost all nights a week for attending classes in the morning.
She wrote detailed entries in 28
30. the diary of the train schedules and checked them
frequently. . The journey to Glasgow only takes 45 minutes,
while York, Newcastle, Inverness or Aberdeen can be
reached in about 2 hours. But, no matter whatever happened
in the middle of the day, she became late or just in time for the
last locomotive. She sat at George square often with a friend
who was the only non-musician in the group. 4 The end was
so near to the soloist after he did not listen to the experts who
advised him not to attend so many shows in a year. He
pooh-poohed the idea, as he made fun of the idea of taking
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17. eggs every day. He had peculiar eating habits. The first shoot
of blood pressure was on a journey, ill-planned where the
flight took so many hours to commence and the morning food
was unsuitable for his humour.
Before he arrived the next destination, symptoms mounted on
a journey that spread two and a half hours. From the hotel, he
went direct to the hospital with his touring manager and they
again warned that he should cut short his trips and retire
temporarily to his house in Aberdeen and see the nursery in
morning and evening and limit his agenda to local
performances. Forty-six is not a great year to withdraw, he
contented, having major goals of music and investigation
ahead that included his vision to develop tunes for animals
and the mentally retarded. The soprano went to see her
beloved in that season. That was apparently the last
appointment of the lovers, who had five years of get together
in youth, first in the centenary celebrations and later after
marriage in almost all European towns, Milan, Dijon, Venice
to name a few. The day before his end, he attended his last
concert as I told you earlier. On that destined day, after sauna,
he took his car and went straight to that Scandinavian town
and a Jack Russell Terrier suddenly crossed the road and he
lost in a final attempt to save the animal and himself. It came
from nowhere as he failed to stop the vehicle. Yesterday I
was in the countryside with the soprano while relating some
of these ancient tales and urging about the late shifts that have
mediated her life. She was graceful and conversed mostly
16

18. through gestures, as some of them I could not make out as
they were mixed with meanings and a lot of emotions.
………………………….
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