wasted logic

"The air isnt good for you" the doctor said, as he scanned the reports that broke down pretty much every detail about my body. "Its gonna kill you if you stay here much longer" Dr Tejpal continued, "Your lungs are clogging with the infection from the prolonged allergy, hence your breathing difficulties are only going to get worse". But I'd been perfectly healthy barring this infection. "Your body is fine and healthy. It’s just that the allergy gets aggravated by this city's air. A few toxins, harmless to most people otherwise are reacting with your body, hence leading to this infection." He gave me a prescription, a long list of drugs, scribbled in the inevitably illegible doctor handwriting. "These should help reduce the infection for a while, but all of it is strong medication. I know it’s a little far-fetched, but I’d suggest you shift to some other town as soon as you can." But I loved this city. I'd been here five years, give or take, and it just meant so much to me now. It gave me life, and now it was draining it.

He had minor breathing problems within a few months of living in this city. He thought it was the cigarettes. Things were going smooth. Work was good, he earned enough to live comfortably, and he had time to himself too. So he couldn’t be bothered about the cough. It must be the pollution, he had thought.

I stepped out of the doctor's clinic after purchasing the medication, right onto Salakh Colony. I was more than familiar with this area. The first house I had rented when I came to this city was three blocks down this very road. That was a while back.

Five years and how this city had changed. And how it had changed him. He remembered eating off street vendors, around the bend near the roundabout before his house. Now that kuccha road had been developed into a food court. The city grew with him in a way. At least he liked to think that it did. The city had a fully functional metro service. It seemed like a dream five years back. Now it was just another service that people used. But that’s how the city is. It provides, the people forget. But he never forgot. He had come here as a musician, five years ago. He played the piano. He had been learning ever since he was five. Never really knew anything else that would have helped him get by.

My first job was at a restaurant. Fine dining. So they were okay with classical pieces. I liked that. I would've stuck to playing classical pieces, but soon jazz was beginning to be appreciated. Jazz was fun, upbeat. Within 6 months, I was playing jazz at 2 lounges and classical at the one restaurant I started at. I couldn’t really give up on classical music. The city seemed to be an endless sonata too, complete with movements that would rise and fall in time. That was probably how I really connected with the city. That’s what I wanted to capture in the photographs.

Now he might say that it was the old Minolta with a 50mm that he picked up at Talab Chowk that changed his life. But it was really the simple joy of life and music he heard and saw in the city that changed it.

I never was much of a people person. I liked being by myself. Not that I was anti-social. It’s just that I had my time to myself. Mornings were usually free; I played through the evenings into the night which I loved. So I would spend the mornings walking around the city. It was beautiful, as to how much you could see if you actually looked. It was one of the old cities which had seen and been a part of many histories, but like everything evolves with time, she too was being seeped with the modern times. And this was a nice blend. I could literally see music as the city worked on. The Minolta was a nice coincidence. I realized how i could capture these visual movements, and put them one after the other to create a suite. Just like a classical piece. I didn’t really expect these photographic pieces that I created to be seen or understood by anyone else. It was just my silent musical piece. Each frame a note. Each sequence a movement. All the sequences, a piece. Obviously, it still is an unfinished sonata. The pictures became the music, and the music was a part of me. I would imagine the city I clicked in the mornings when I would play at night. How beautiful their stillness would be at night. The first of Beethoven’s fourteenth.

He kept clicking, adding to his perpetual sonata. No-one saw it at first, not that he didn’t want to show it, but because there were never too many people in his life. But then, something beautiful doesn’t remain hidden for too long. One day, the manager of the restaurant (a man with good taste in music and wine) happened upon a sequence that had just been developed, while going through the pianist's collection of sheet music. The manager was quite surprised at first, and gradually enchanted by the simple beauty in the pictures. The sequence in question had pictures from morning to early evening, on the same day. The subjects varied. Some pictures had people going about their daily life, some had just old buildings against new, but in all, it was like listening to a complete sonata that told the tale of a day. Just another day in the city.

Mr. Sethi requested if he could hang that sequence, around the restaurant. Surprisingly, he did understand the order of the pictures. Almost everyone did. Patrons would go up to the pictures and look at them. They all smiled, as they would near the end of the piece. Can’t say if it was a smile of glee, or awe, or maybe they smiled because they had never really seen this city, taking it for granted, for it had been there forever.

What followed was him getting phone calls from a few curators who wanted to exhibit these sequences. This wasn’t bad. He never intended to keep these pictures to himself anyway. But he still played the piano. The music was a part of him. He loved his work and the music, and this was probably the inspiration that led to his sequences, his silent pieces that were his expression of love to and of the city.

I took out a tissue, as another bout of cough started. It was stained in red when the wave ended. Don’t panic. I’m used to this by now. It’d been a while since the bloodied business started. Scared, I kicked the smoking habit too. But the damned cough wouldn’t cease. It just worsened. Prescription pills helped for about 2 hours in effect, but they had their side effects. Strong medication. No wonder they figured they might as well have the same word for everything that'd influence, intoxicate, cure, eat away, or kill. Sometimes, I would sit looking at the row of black and white strips, wondering if I should just stop playing, instead of drifting away and playing it wrong. Sometimes, I’d wake up gasping for air.

Four years, and he finally took the symptoms seriously. The doctor said it was allergy. His lungs were clogged with allergic mould, the air wasn’t good for him, and it didn’t suit him. The very city that gave him life and brought out the joy in him and translated it into silent pieces that brought alive the city's lost sense of enchantment in people. The same city was sucking out his life. He felt betrayed. He packed his belongings within a week. He sold the piano. He decided to move up north, to a neighboring town, figuring that it'd suit him better. The pictures had stopped coming for a few weeks now. The sense of betrayal seeped through his system with the winter chill.

I have three days to waste before I left for Kalba, the new city. Didn’t anticipate that I’d wrap up everything here so soon. Two days left, and I’d ticked the handful of people I knew in the city off the checklist for having said goodbye. Went to say goodbye to Mr. Sethi at the restaurant yesterday evening and I saw the replacement pianist start the evening's routine. Spent the two days sitting in the empty apartment balcony, staring out into the city. The place that took me in five years ago. It went on like it would have, on any other day. I don’t think it'd miss me.

The train ride was about two and a half hours to Kalba. He popped a pill, so that the train ride would be comfortable. The cough stopped, just like the doctor had promised when he prescribed the pill. Sleep didn’t help ease him feeling like a page torn out from a story-book. But it was for the better.

I’ll return someday. The air might change then...

About two and a half hours later, he felt himself breathe at ease, as the slight jerk of the train halting to a stop woke him. This was his stop. He took a long, deep breath as he stepped off the train. He’d booked an apartment, so he hailed a taxi and gave the address. He stared out the window, looked with much detachment as the taxi drove to his destination. He felt uneasy. The taxi stopped at the apartment block written on the card. He coughed hoarsely as he stumbled out of the taxi, gasping for air. He tripped on the curb and collapsed onto the pavement, breathless. He lay there clawing at the concrete, as if it would help him breathe in some air, but all in vain.
The air wasn’t good for him, he'd been told.

He stopped breathing.