An Ode' to the Queen of Music

When the music lingered

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As you take your seat beneath the arclights,

my heart turns into a sky of a million lights.

That broad vermilion kumkum upon your serene face,

the diamonds that sparkle, the flowers that grace.

Your hair-bun, your ears, your neck aglow,

the silk that falls softly in colours that flow—

Nothing gaudy, nothing loud, yet regal beyond compare,

as though Parvati herself had descended in prayer.

And there you sit, composed, serene and still,

with a presence that seems to command the hall at will.

Those diamond nose-studs catch the gentlest ray,

as though even the light pauses awhile to pay

its obeisance to the woman before us—

before the music, before the first note, before the silence does.

The hall falls silent; the tanpura begins to hum.

And slowly, from somewhere beyond, the first notes come.

The world that I knew begins to fade from view—

There is only your music, and me listening to you.

Your eyes close gently; and begin with an invocation.

And something within me surrenders, without explanation.

I dissolve in your raagam, I lose my coordinates—

And drift into a world where something sacred awaits.

The kirtanas flow, steeped in a bhakti so rare,

And somehow your devotion becomes mine to share.

You do not merely sing what the composer has sung—

You make me feel the prayer before it leaves your tongue.

No flourish, no gesture; no need to display.

You sit almost motionless, and yet carry me away.

Your still frame is an exhibition of equanimity—

Can the Murthis of Goddesses really sing, too?

There is a calm in you, like Ganga at Haridwar,

Majestic in its stillness, yet flowing afar.

From that stillness comes music that moves the soul,

A current of bhakti that makes the broken whole.

Every little noise, every wound, every care

Falls away into silence, and something sacred is there.

Three hours pass as though time itself had ceased.

Then suddenly the music ends- the night descends.

You rise, you leave; the hall slowly empties—

But something of you remains, my soul, to tease.

The Nightingale has flown, but the song lingers on;

The last note has faded, yet the silence still sings.

I walk into the night, but I do not quite return—

With your Bhakti, my heart feels a strange turn.

And long after the lights have dimmed and you are gone,

I remain suspended in the spell you have drawn—

Gasping for sur-ambrosia, deep into the night,

Still lost in the trance of your music and light.

❤D❤