About Indian music

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My father writes to me: “I have to discipline myself otherwise I will go on listening to this music constantly”.

My father writes to me: “I have to discipline myself otherwise I will go on listening to this music constantly”. I am holding this letter in my hand and reading it now and I will read it again later. The letter arrived a few days ago. The day I received it my father was no more there. Here is my father; here is his Gramophone, here the small metallic box containing the needles, here the records, here the yellow piece of textile to wipe off the dust. I see my father looking at the cover of the record I sent to him. He is studying the letters on it. The German title on the cover remains meaningless to him. He knows that the record holds music composed by Richard Strauss. My father is now listening to Richard Strauss songs. He is listening to songs called the “Last four songs”, unable to understand poems sung in German. He listens to them every evening. Especially one song he listens to repeatedly; this the last piece of music my father heard:

At Sunset

Through joy and sorrow we have

walked hand and hand;

We are resting from our wandering

now above the quiet countryside.

Around us the valleys slope away;

already the air is growing dark,

only two larks are left climbing

into the haze, dreaming of the night.

Come near and let them flutter;

soon it will be time to sleep,

lest we loose our way

in this solitude.

O broad, still peace.

So deep in the sunset,

how tired of wandering we are-

could this perhaps be death?

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