Why I stopped listening to music—and how I’m finding my way back

And music? Music was my oxygen. For 42 years, it was the pulse of my existence, the bushed of my being. I lived wrong its intricacies, its ragas and talas, its rises and falls. I studied it, chased it, mislaid myself successful it. My guru, Marina Ahmed, shaped my ears, my voice, my knowing of the beingness itself. She taught maine not conscionable however to sing, but however to listen. “Music,” she would say, “is not sound—it is soundlessness wrapped successful melody.”

She was right.

And I understood that silence. I lived successful it, fto it talk betwixt the swaras, betwixt the alaps that stretched time, betwixt the breaths that carried my dependable done space. My mornings, my afternoons, my nights—they were each hers, each music’s. Raga Bhairav astatine dawn, Yaman astatine dusk, a stolen infinitesimal with Malkauns successful the quiescent of the night.

And then, 1 day, the soundlessness turned against me.

First, came the helicopter.

Its blades didn’t conscionable hum; they hacked, tore, and throbbed done the air, done my mind, done my body. It started subtly—a distant noise, a tremor connected the horizon. But it grew louder, closer, until it wasn’t conscionable thing I heard. It was thing I felt. Deep successful my bones. Inside my chest. A vibration that rattled my teeth, my nerves, my precise being. It lived wrong me, a mechanical beast that battered my mind, stealing my thoughts, scattering them similar autumn leaves successful the wind.

I would sit, frozen. Muscles locked. Breath shallow. Heart hammering.

The chopper made a location wrong me, and nary 1 other could perceive it.

Then came the scorpion.

Where the chopper was blunt, the scorpion was cruel. It didn’t onslaught with noise—it stung with precision. It recovered the places wherever I was weakest, wherever I was rawest. My eyelids. My skull. My eardrums.

The symptom did not clang into me; it crept. Slowly. Methodically. It dispersed similar ink successful water, seeping into each corner, pulsing with venom.

It did not onslaught each day. No, the scorpion was acold excessively diligent for that. It fto maine breathe, fto maine judge I had escaped, past returned erstwhile I slightest expected it. Some weeks, it came each fewer days. Some weeks, it gave maine mendacious anticipation earlier sinking its sting backmost into me, sharper than before.

And I hated it.

I spoke to it sometimes, erstwhile the symptom was unbearable, erstwhile my assemblage was excessively exhausted to fight. “Why are you doing this?” I would whisper. “What bash you privation from me?”

It ne'er answered. It didn’t request to. The symptom was its response. The suffering was its message.

But it wasn’t conscionable pain. The scorpion and the chopper stole thing much ineffable than my comfort—they took euphony from me.

They rewired me, made dependable unbearable, made soundlessness sinister. They turned the happening I loved astir into thing I feared. They took Marina’s voice, my riyaz, my mornings filled with tanpuras humming successful the background, and they shattered it all. The thought of euphony became unbearable. The thought of listening felt impossible.

I stopped.

And that is wherever radical find maine now—stopped, silent, caught betwixt the echoes of who I was and the uncertainty of who I americium becoming.

But what they don’t know—what I don’t archer them—is that the scorpion and the chopper didn’t halt astatine sound. They near smaller, quieter scars. Things nary 1 sees. Things I hardly talk about.

When I speech for excessively long, saliva builds successful my mouth, and I person to pause, discreetly swallow, sorb it earlier it spills over. And erstwhile I sing—oh, erstwhile I sing—drool sometimes drips earlier I tin halt it. And I hatred that. I hatred it truthful overmuch I privation to halt singing altogether.

But I don’t. I can’t.

My lisp, erstwhile truthful faint it was hardly noticeable, has go much pronounced. Words sometimes slip, trip, tumble retired of my rima awkwardly, refusing to signifier themselves the mode they utilized to. My voice, erstwhile my top instrument, present betrays maine successful ways nary 1 tin spot but me.

And yet, I sing.

Not due to the fact that it is easy. But due to the fact that it is necessary.

The unusual happening is, my ain dependable does not unsettle maine the mode different sounds do. Where the voices of others apprehension me, invade me, capable maine with distress, my ain dependable feels… safe. Like an anchor. Like a span betwixt the antheral I was and the antheral I americium now.

It is not the aforesaid voice. It is not the aforesaid music. But it is inactive mine.

And determination are conversations I person now, betwixt the antheral I was and the antheral I person become. The aged me, the 1 who lived and breathed music, asks, “Why are you afraid? Why bash you fto the scorpion and the chopper specify you?”

And the caller maine sighs. “Because they didn’t conscionable wounded me. They changed me.”

The aged maine watches. Listens. Waits.

One day, I volition person an reply for him.

My person Smita Tharoor, omniscient and crisp arsenic a blade, erstwhile taught maine astir unconscious bias. About the mode we inherit fear, the mode it moulds america without our permission. She made maine realise that the scorpion and the chopper trained maine to fearfulness sound. Conditioned maine to spot it arsenic an enemy.

She made maine wonder—was it genuinely euphony that terrified maine now? Or was it memory?

So I americium trying.

Trying to fto dependable backmost in. Trying to perceive to a opus here, a raga there. Trying to unlearn the fear, to abstracted the melody from the memories.

Ashish Sharma, my mentee, erstwhile said to me, “Chef, you’re a musician. How tin you not perceive to music?”

And the information is—I can. I conscionable person to take to.

I cognize I volition ne'er beryllium the aforesaid antheral I was earlier the scorpion and the helicopter. But I don’t request to be. The antheral I americium present is different, yes. Changed. Marked. But helium is inactive here. He is inactive telling stories, inactive cooking, inactive mentoring, inactive searching for himself successful the spaces betwixt dependable and silence.

And yes—he is inactive singing. Not with the aforesaid ease. Not with the aforesaid freedom. But with the aforesaid love.

So erstwhile radical inquire maine wherefore I don’t perceive to music, I inactive don’t cognize however to answer.

But possibly the reply doesn’t matter.

Maybe it’s capable to accidental that dependable is analyzable for maine now.

It is some my torment and my solace. My fearfulness and my hope.

And maybe, 1 day, I volition perceive to euphony not with hesitation, but with joy.

Until then, I volition support moving forward.

One note, 1 breath, 1 dependable astatine a time.