Jasmines in Colorado (part 1 of 3)

I walk into the dark crowded auditorium. It is small, but packed. About one hundred and fifty people. A desi student, part-timing as an usher, looks at my ticket, and points me to my seat. “Third row; isle seat,” he whispers with a surprisingly American accent.

“Thank you,” I reply, trying to figure out whether he is Pakistani, Indian or Bangledeshi.

I have no interest in classical music. Only in ghazals. I am not even interested in any of the, “new age” Urdu poets, who are making a presence. “The best new Urdu poets in North America,” the brochure stated. I am only here because a friend gave me a free ticket. Also because, I am in the USA for eight months of training, and am bored beyond bits, after my first two weeks in Denver.

And, of course, I am here to listen to the Ghalib recitations. Now that is something worth making the forty-five minute trip to the campus of the Colorado College of Fine Arts.

I am a half an hour late; not realizing such functions, start on time, here in the USA. A group of six girls, in their late teens, is finishing a tableau of Sattriya, to the beats of an overly-excited tabla player.

“Not bad,” I say to myself. Even though I have no idea what they just performed.

“Yes, you missed it,” the elderly Indian lady sitting next to me replies, when I ask her about the Ghalib recitals.

“What a waste of time!” I say rather angrily and get up from my seat to leave. As I am walking, up the aisle, towards the exit, I hear the crowd clap loudly. I turn around, and am stunned - like a deer caught in headlights.

The dancers are gone. The tabla player, dressed in a white shalwar qameez and a black vest, has moved to the center of the small stage. He is joined on the other side by a harmonium player and a sitar player. Both dressed identically. And there, standing barefoot in a bright red sari, in between, and slightly behind them, is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my life!

“Dear Lord, I never ask for much. Please let her be a Pakistani. Please,” I find myself, all of a sudden, praying at a very fast pace. She seems a few inches shorter than me, and about my age. Perhaps five feet six inches, or so, I quickly calculate. “Kind of tall for a Pakistani girl,” I think, discouragingly, to myself.

She adjusts her sari, and slowly sits down; folding her legs to the side, with both feet pointing to the back. As if she is sitting down for her afternoon prayers. Her bare arms are completely visible; extending outwards from a small sleeveless red blouse. I find myself trying to locate her belly-button, which is vaguely visible, through her partially see-through sari. She is wearing a gajra of chambailis around her wrist. “Where did she find jasmines in Colorado?” I think to myself. Unlike most ghazal singers, she has not tied her hair. Long dark wavy black hair; flowing freely, in front of and behind her shoulders.

I look around at the crowd. Everyone is in a state of stunned silence, staring at her, as if they have just seen a ghost. “She could just sit on the stage; not say a single word, and the audience would go home happy,” I whisper to myself. The lights start to dim, and slowly, only a solitary spotlight is shining on her and her small orchestra. Her bright red sari makes her stand out like a blooming rose, caught in between her thorny and stale orchestra colleagues.

“I am a graduate student, studying Creative Writing, here, at Colorado College,” she starts off, in a melodious soft voice that displays years of classical training. “I fell in love with Ghalib, in high-school, and will perform some of his ghazals, today.” She moves on to introduce her orchestra…

“The face of an angel; the body of a goddess; the voice of a nightingale. And she loves Ghalib.” I whisper out-loudly. “Just one more thing. Just one more thing. Please…”

“I started singing during my college days in Karachi………”


“Thank you! Thank you!” I look upwards at the heavens, and raise both my hands, almost hitting the lady, sitting next to me.

She nods to the tabla player to begin the proceedings. She bows her head, strangely locking her eyes onto the keys of the harmonium, and starts off with her first song:

ba-aaa zee-eee cha-eee-Itfa-aaal hae, dunyaaa mairay aaaagay
ho-ooo-taaaaa hae shub-o-ro-oooz, tamaa-shaaa mairay aagay

For the next half-hour, I sit there; mesmerized. I am in heaven.

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It is still only late afternoon. Warm enough to wear the polo shirt that I am wearing, in the summer Colorado weather. A gentle breeze is blowing down from the Rockies, crackling the drying leaves in the gambel oak tree branches that cover the road, outside the auditorium.

I am standing at a distance of ten yards, with my back to the auditorium door, trying to look as casual as possible; staring downwards at my white Reeboks. I find myself, anxiously, adjusting my white shirt, into my faded blue jeans. “Calm down. Calm down,” I repeat to myself.

My palms are starting to sweat.

It has already been a half an hour since the show ended, and there is still no sign of her. I even circled around the building, to ensure there was no backdoor.

Finally, my prayers are answered. I see her walking out the door. She has changed into jeans and a tan tank-top. Her long hair is tied in a purple scarf. The gajra is still on her wrist. The transformation is remarkable. From a traditional sari-clad classical ghazal singer to an American college student. She looks at least five years younger. For some reason, I feel less intimidated, seeing her in this get-up.

“Assalam-o-Alaikum,” I struggle to speak loudly, as she passes me. She walks by, as if not hearing anything. “English, yaar! English,” I remind myself. “Everyone here speaks English.” She accidentally drops her bag, and I quickly rush to help her pick it up.

“Thank you,” she replies, looking straight at me, as I reach her bag before she does.
“I am such a klutz,” she laughs loudly, throwing her head back, as I hand her the bag.
“Yes! Success!” I think to myself. “Hansee tou phansee.”
“Are you going in this direction?” I ask, pointing in the direction she was walking.
“Yes. Obviously,” she rolls her eyes, and replies in a perfect American accent. I start to feel slightly intimidated again.
“So am I,” I quickly add, trying to sound as much like a yuppie Pakistani-American, as I possibly can. “Do you…I mean…Would you mind if I join you?” I ask, trying hard to get my grammar correct.

She doesn’t seem interested, and starts to walk away, still looking straight at me, for some strange reason.

“You know, I translate Ghalib.” “Into English!” I lie with the desperation of a fatally thirsty man, looking for water. “I am writing a book, on his ghazals,” I lie again; though with more control, this time.

“Really!” she seems excited, all of a sudden. “I love Ghalib!” She thinks for a few seconds. Then shakes her head, telling me to join her; with the confidence of a beautiful young girl, who knows she can have any man, she wants. I take it to be a gesture - indicating she is allowing me a small opening, in the next few minutes, to impress her with my knowledge of Urdu poetry.

The minutes turn into three hours. We walk and we talk. We talk and we walk; straight into the most beautiful evening of my life.

Her name is Nadia, I find out. Her father is heart surgeon in Karachi. Her grandfather was the ex-Nawab of some princely state that I cannot pronounce. That makes her royalty, I assume. Her grandmother is Persian.

“That’s where my family got our interest in the arts,” she tells me.
“You know the Mughal kings used to marry Persian women, for this same reason,” I try to impress her with my knowledge of history.
Her mother is an author and critic of Urdu novels. “That’s where I got my interest in writing and poetry,” she tells me.

She has been taking classical dancing and singing lessons, since she was nine. She tries to explain the differences in the various types of dances, in which she has trained: Kathak, Kathakali, Manipuri and even some ballet. I try to follow along, but it is beyond my comprehension. Ballet being the only one I have ever heard of. “My experience in classical dance is limited to Bhangra,” I explain to her. She has been at the college for two years, and will be finishing in another four months. She likes Chinese food and hates Italian food. Italian food makes her skin pop into zits, for some unknown reason.

I find myself, walking quietly, next to her, staring into her large dark blue eyes, as she goes on and on about Urdu poetry; Ghalib to Mir, back to Ghalib; to Momin, back to Ghalib; to Faiz, and then back to Ghalib again.

Our hands rub together, occasionally, as we slowly complete countless circles around the college’s main education block. I, gently, grab her little finger, with mine. She does not resist, and keeps chatting away, as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened.

“It’s getting dark. I better get back to my room. I am going to have to let you go, now.” “I hope I didn’t bore you with all my yapping.”
“No,” I reply with a content smile on my face.
She turns around to leave.
“Can I call you, Nadia?”
She does not answer, and continues walking, as if she didn’t hear me.
I quickly run after her and tap her on her shoulder, “Can I have your phone number, Nadia?”
“No. No! Not now,” she answers quickly, getting extremely anxious all of a sudden.

I am surprised by her blunt response. “Perhaps I should have waited for a few more days, before asking,” I tell myself.

We say our good-byes, promising to meet at the same time, same place, tomorrow.

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We meet every afternoon, for the next two weeks, at the same spot, in front of the auditorium. Each day, I can see her, from a distance, standing there, in front of the door, anxiously waiting for me. Walking back and forth in circles, hoping that I will not be late. Then, as soon as she spots me, she tries to look busy, as if surprised at my arrival.

The small city surrounding the mid-sized campus, in the summer time, is the most beautiful University town in the world. The skies are a clear – almost transparent – blue. Hundreds, thousands of young, idealistic students, rushing from one building to another. The large open green grassy fields, starting from the base of the greyish-brown Rocky Mountains, extending all the way through the campus down to the city below. Each road covered, from one end to the other, with thickly-leaved branches of large oak, pine, willow and elm trees. All enveloped bewitchingly in the gentle cool Colorado summer breeze.

In the middle of this soothingly beautiful postcard setting, each day - between the late afternoon hours of four to seven – we walk hand-in-hand, totally lost in each other.

She is a chatterbox. For every twenty sentence she says, I struggle to utter one. I am amazed at how quickly she moves from philosophical discussions, way beyond her years, to the naïve innocence of a fifteen year old teenaged girl. Invariably, we end up discussing Urdu poetry; trying to outdo each other, by finishing off the other’s verses.

She is obsessed with Ghalib. And slowly, but surely, through her, I am, as well.

“Is he related to you?” I joke.
“No. He was from Agra. We are from outside Bhopal,” she replies, as if I had asked the question seriously.
“Did you know he wrote most of his good stuff in Persian? I can understand it because I speak Persian,” she informs me.
“Are you saying that I am illiterate since I can’t?” “And by the way, he spoke Farsi; not Persian,” In self-defence, I inject the only Persian verse, belonging to Ghalib that I know:

farsi bein taaba beeni naqsh haayee rang-e-rang
bagzar az majmua-Urdu kay bay rang man aast

She ignores my comment, like she has ignored so many before. As if she didn’t even hear it. She waves at an American friend, who passes by staring at me.

“Would you call Ghalib a poet-philosopher or a philosopher-poet? You know Jacque Pierre Jean Louise – the famous French playwright - translated him and said that he found Ghalib’s poetry to be an exquisite combination of the styles of the modernist Greek poets and the colonial poets of the post-renaissance liberal genre. What do you think?” she speeds through her long sentence, in one single breath; expecting a quick answer.

I raise my left palm and wave it over my head, “Oupar say guzar gaya.”

She throws her head back; her long black hair flowing in the breeze; and starts to laugh. “You’re so stupid!” she continues to laugh uncontrollably - a carefree laugh of a habitual optimist, enjoying life to its fullest.

“Have you ever been in love?” she asks, surprising me with her question.
“Yes.”
“When was that?”
“Seventeen years ago.”
“You were in love, at the age of eight?” she smiles.
“Afshan Maqsood, from Peshawar,” I reply. “She sat in front of me, in Miss Jehan Ara’s third grade Math class.” “She had the most beautiful little ponytails, I will ever see.” “Her mother made her eat paratha-andaa for breakfast every morning. She always had a little bit of fried egg, hanging on the end of her lips. But, unlike the other kids, I never made fun of her, for that.”
“What happened to her?”
“She left me for someone older and more settled - a good-looking boy in the fifth grade.”
“What!”
“Yes. I used to give her the chocolate that my mother would pack in my lunch, each day.”
“Then?”
“It turned out she had been taking chocolates from five other boys, and was selling them to her girlfriends for a profit.”
“That little whore!” she screams, trying to hold back her laughter.
“Yes. She broke my heart. Traumatized me for life. It took me fifteen years to recover.”

We have detoured off the main road, and are walking through a mesh of large oak trees, on our way to the lake. Nadia is dressed in blue jeans, with a brown shawl wrapped completely around her. Her daily chambaili ka gajra on her wrist. She is looking as beautiful as ever. Continuously giggling and laughing at everything I say; even if it isn’t funny. She trips on a rock and almost falls backwards. I bring my right hand behind her waist, trying to break her fall, and pull her up right next to me.

We are standing face-to-face. I can feel her heart beating against mine. I notice her eyes quickly moving left and right - the instinctive reaction of a young Pakistani girl, afraid to be seen, publicly, in the arms of a boy. She closes her eyes; her long eyelashes almost hitting my cheeks. I can feel her breath on my face. Our lips, barely an inch from each other.

I don’t know what to do. It’s the first time in my life that I have found myself in such a situation. I feel her lips slowly moving closer to mine. I am trying hard - extremely hard - to control myself and not kiss her on her lips.

I, instinctively, run my fingers through her hair; lower her head and gently kiss her on her forehead. She lays her head on my shoulder. I lay my head, sideways, on top of hers. My arms around her. We stand like this, without saying a word, for the next ten minutes. Two young innocent souls….lost….somewhere in the golden-brown oak forests of a beautiful foreign land.

The cool breeze picks up speed; drenching us, completely, in the sweet fragrance of freshly picked jasmines…..We are in love.

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There is a solitary brown marble bench, at a remote edge of the lake; which, itself, is right outside the south-eastern edge of the college campus. It allows a perfect view of the mountains to the right, the city to the left and the evening sun, setting, at a distance, into the heart of the gorgeous lake.

We have decided to meet at, “our brown marble park bench” (as she likes to call it), from now on; instead of in front of the campus auditorium. I have been away for a week, and Nadia, as usual, has refused to give me her phone number.

I am sitting quietly at the end of the bench. She is lying on it, looking up at me; her head on my thighs; her long wavy black hair hanging over the edge, almost touching the grass. It is the first time in my life I have seen a Pakistani girl in a t-shirt, shorts and tennis shoes. I am having difficulty keeping my eyes off her perfectly tanned legs.

“You have big beautiful round….umm…eyes,” I finally move my eyes upwards from her legs, and find myself staring at her chest.
“Those aren’t my eyes, silly!”
Her comment catches me off-guard, and I feel embarrassed.
“You’re blushing,” she breaks out into her characteristic laugh.

“I saw you staring at my legs, earlier.”
“I wasn’t staring. Just contemplating.”
“Pakistani guys are so frustrated. Aren’t they?”
“Look….I have been locked up with men in uniform, in the boondocks of Pakistan, since I was fifteen,” I respond in justification. “There were times, when we didn’t even get to see a girl, in a burqa, for months.” “So I get excited when I see a bare ankle. What to talk of a full bare leg!”
“Hmm…I never took you to be a perv.”
“Well, now you know.” “Don’t tell me you dress like this in Pakistan, also.”
She winks at me, “Of course I do.”

“You know my mother would kill me if she saw me, lying on this bench, with you, like this.”
“So would mine,” I reply.
“Your mother would kill me! Why?”
“Not you! Me.”
“Why would your mother kill you? “You’re a guy. Everything goes for guys.”
“I’m sure your mother did these kinds of things, in her day, also,” I tease her.
“What about your mother?”
“My mother wasn’t that kind of a mother.”
“So you are suggesting that my mother was a slut?”
“No! I don’t even know your mother,” I reply. “Forget it. I should have never mentioned your mother.”
“What if you saw your daughter, with someone, like this?” she continues with her irritatingly inquisitive questions.
“I think,” pausing for effect, “I would probably….ummm… kill her.” “And then I would kill her boyfriend, also.”
“So you have no problem sitting here with someone else’s daughter. But you would kill your own daughter, if you caught her with a boy?”
“I told you, I would kill the boy also.” “In fact, I would expect your dad to kill me, if he ever caught me with his daughter, like this”
“And what if he didn’t kill you?”
“Hmm…then…I think….I would lose a lot of respect for him.”

“Do you fly fighter jets?”
“No. I just fix them.”
“Do you like your job?”
“No. I hate it.”
“Do you like the military?”
“No. I hate it,”
“Then why did you join?”
“It was your poet friend.” “I flunked Urdu literature in high-school, and didn’t have enough marks to get into any decent Engineering college.” “Not to mention strange family traditions of military service, going back to my great-grandfather.” What did your great-grandfather do?”
“He was a womanizing Nawab. Two wives. A few concubines. And countless mistresses.”
“My kind of guy,” I reply in an unsuccessful attempt to introduce some humor into the discussion.

The light orange sun starts kissing the horizon. “Time to go home,” she says. I put one arm under her knees; the other under her back and try to lift her up. She locks her hands around my neck, but I am still having difficulty holding her up.

“Awww! Isn’t this cute. My He-man. My Prince Charmiiii……nnnn….gg,” her voice tapers off, as she slips out of my arms, and with a loud thud, falls flat onto the grass.

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We have been meeting at, “our brown marble park bench” for a month and a half, now. It seems like we have known each other for years. I have no interest left in my training course, and am barely passing. Though, least bothered. I have attended three more of her singing performances. Each better than the other. I have now, myself, started taking interest in music. She has turned out to be a good teacher.

“Sawaras defining the ragas. Ragas defining the gamakas. Gamakas defining the melodies. The melodies defining the composition. And finally, the compositions defining the whole performance. This is the hierarchy of classical music,” she tutors me. “Oh yeah. I forgot. There are thaats and jatis also.”
Ragas, talas, kafis, khamaj, behr, atvar, radif. kayada, tukra, thaats, jatis: I am surrounded by things that, just two months ago, I wouldn’t have touched with a ten foot pole.

It is early Saturday evening. The stage is set in the exact same layout as before. The lights are low. The audience is quite and packed into the mid-sized auditorium, again.

“I am going to perform a small behr ghazal in raga bhimpalashri,” she starts of with the introduction. She glances over at the orchestra and gently nods.

The tabla player takes his cue. His right hand resting on the single headed bass byha tabla, with his wrist in the center and his fingers touching the front edge; his left hand on the cylindrical high-pitched dynha tabla; the index and middle finger straight on the trailing edge, with the ring finger at a forty-five degrees. He starts off by a set of ge, te and na strokes, performing a slow solo as he moves into a rhythm: ge ge te te ge ge na na; ke ke te te ke ke na na. His fingers moving back and forth on either tabla, adjusting to the technical requirements of each sound. He repeats this set of beats again and again, as if warming up the orchestra. As he accelerates, he jerks his head, nods to himself and breaks into a stream of the seven beat Rupak taal.

As the tabla player holds the beat, the sitar player joins in to handle the transitions between the ragas. The mizrab on his right index finger, shining in the light, his right thumb clinging to the edge of the sitar’s dand. He moves the mizrab across the four playing strings of the sitar gelling the gentle sitar melody with the bellicose beats of the tabla. His right hand moving up the strings in a dha stroke and downwards in a ra stroke.

The beat and transition established, the harmonium player finally decides to join in. Defining in music, the up and down sawaras (tones) of the raga the singer will be performing in voice. His left hand pressing the bellows the harmonium as the fingers of his right hand gently caress its black and white keys: seven tones of ne Sa ga ma Pa ne sa on the way up and eight tones of Sa ne Da Pa ma ga Re Sa on the way down – the aarohana and avarohana of rag bhimpalashri.

With the orchestra fully revved up, Nadia raises her right hand, her open hand facing upwards and starts off, perfectly matching the raag established by the harmonium. “Aaa-aa-AA-aa…,” her voice moving up and down the scale, in synch with the fingers of the harmonium player. She is a natural artist. Every person in the auditorium completely in the palm of her hand, as she utters the first Urdu verses:

jala-aa hae jiii-ism jaha-aaaaan, dillll bhi jal gayaaaa hooo ga
kuraaaaiiidte ho jo abb ra-aaakh, justajooooeee kiya hae……..

She moves from one ghazal to the next, switching between English during the introductions, and Urdu during the singing, with the command of a maestro. The audience - stunned by her good looks, impressed by her vast knowledge of poetry, and charmed by her beautiful voice is in complete daze. . Each man wanting to be next to her. And each woman wanting to be her.

I feel like the luckiest man in the world.

The show ends. I meet her backstage after she has changed, and we walk out of the auditorium.
“Did you see! Did you see how I had them glued to their seats?” she gloats. “They can’t get enough of my voice.”
“They can’t get enough of the see-through saris, you wear.” I reply.
“Yeah, right!” she punches me on my arm.

xxxxxxx


... to be continued

Part 2 to be published on August 1st