[Audio Transcript] Hello, I'm Dheepa Maturi, and welcome to POL.
My last note was about a boy singing on the beach, completely absorbed in his task, and it made me think about the power of music and song to anchor and even transform our moments. For me, listening to music while I'm in the car—if I'm honest, really loud music—turns everyday driving into such an experience of freedom. Listening to Latin dance music while I'm cooking changes that experience, too—okay, that's less of a pleasure, but it really helps with the tedium.
For most of his life, my grandfather struggled with asthma, and it often left him home-bound and bed-bound. But I have such powerful memories of him sitting in a chair in a particular corner of our family home, listening to recordings of the classical South Indian music he loved. He especially enjoyed the improvisational sections, and at those times, his breathing seemed to loosen, and he'd sing along with the artists, his voice carrying through the house until he had to catch his breath again. In those moments, instead of being weighed down by illness, he seemed buoyant, mobile, free—and I always imagined him surfing on waves of sound.
This poem is entitled "Alaap," which refers to the improvisational portion of an Indian musical rendition. It was published in the literary journal, Wild Musette.
Alaap
At night, he chose one of his 1,732 cassette tapes
(we counted), each mixed by his trembling fingers
on an 80s boombox, and he released the ancient melodies
from the tongues of modern singers, and he waited
for the alaap,* when the artists surfed between word and melody.
When he could no longer resist, Grandfather launched
and followed them into those waves—but never for long
because his breath could not carry him across the barrel,
and the air would leave him, mid-stanza, and his body
would lurch, and we would wait—
does he need his inhaler?
—until he broke the surface, caught a rope of breath,
then moments later, launched again, paddled from his
nubby orange chair through the grand foyer, up through the
skylight, and into the swell, until, inevitably, he sank to the
Oriental rug and the tyranny of an aluminum walker.
They say Rebirth can bring justice, so surely, this time around,
he is sovereign of the air and monarch of the movements
that once eluded him, no mere starling, but a murmuration,
no mere minnow, but an entire school of fliers —
surging, rippling, coiling like incense, leaping to light.
***
Thanks so much for listening today. I'll see you in a few weeks!
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