The Tale of the Singer

Baba Gene spoke:

“No one knew where the Singer came from and nobody could remember a time without him. Even the old folk of the mountain villages could only pull at their beards and admit that the Singer had seemed old even when they were children, helping themselves to apples from the orchards in season. Perhaps his hair was not so grey at that time, they might venture.

Of course, to suggest that the Singer's hair was grey now showed that their eyesight was fading along with their memories - More it resembled long threads of silver that flowed down from the Singer’s scalp and, from a distance, it was easy to mistake him for a small waterfall. His face was made of a soft leather that smiled as gently as the evening sun and he dressed in a long gown of forest green that draped down from his shoulders to his feet.

It was usually the shepherds who saw him first as he descended from some high mountain pass where few had any cause to go. They'd put their fingers to their lips and herald his arrival with jubilant whistles that others passed on down the hill. So by the time the Singer skipped down the path to the first set of houses, the children were already waiting for him and he usually scooped one or two of the smaller ones up onto his shoulders.

There was nothing more guaranteed to lift the hearts of the villagers than news of the Singer's arrival. Everyone hastened to abandon whatever task they had in hand just to rush down to the temple to greet him, hoping that his visit would be a long one.

But he never stopped anywhere for more than three days and sometimes he even declined to sit, content to sing his endless verses from where he stood. Never to anyone's memory had he ever accepted one of the countless chais and chapattis laid before him and if someone presumed to lay a garland of flowers around his neck, then he never acknowledged the gesture.

For he came only to sing. His songs he gave without condition and never accepted anything in return - unless it was that their gratitude and love soaked into him as he gave a voice to Beauty. One village even attempted to worship him as an incarnation of one of the higher deities but, without anyone knowing how he came to hear of it, the Singer avoided that place until they scrapped the idol made of him and threw it in the river. Then he returned without a single word to say about it.

In fact, the Singer never said anything. He only sang. And there was no beginning or ending to his concerts. He entered each village singing and left in the same melodious way without ever pausing to take applause. Song sprang from his lips with the incessant flow of a river, a collage of sounds composed of a thousand splashes of love. And everyone heard something different. It was never quite clear if he sang spontaneous verse or just a strange medley of ballads and rhymes he'd picked up on his wandering of the mountains. Whatever the source, his words reached out to each person in the crowd, who leaned upon each other in a happy trance, convinced that he was singing just for them.

For whatever troubles stirred within them, the people found answers and counsel in his song. The tragic and bereaved were given solace. The afraid and struggling found hope. The words of the Singer accompanied them long after he'd departed, making home in the nest of their ears and comforting them through the course of uncertain days. A tonic in the mornings and an ease to trusting sleep at night.

The mountain folk learnt to recognize the changing of the seasons by the tone of the Singer's voice as he visited them at different times through the year. Villages often hesitated to harvest their crops until he passed their way in the autumn. His arrival was ever an auspicious omen and great importance was conferred to a wedding or a birth if he turned up during the event.

Then one year the monsoon started early. The high passes collapsed into the surging streams and the Singer was obliged to make his way by the main road, low down in the valley. Although the rain hammered down in exuberant release around him, he continued to chant happily, picking his path through the remains of the road with a great deal more ease than the carriages bogged down in the mud.

One of these grand vehicles was adorned in fabulous silk fancy that rather lost its splendour in the onslaught of the season. Inside sat the whinging daughter of a powerful maharajah of the South; she was holidaying in the mountains to escape the merciless summer heat of the Plains. Furious to be caught in the rains, she now returned to the refuge of her ceramic Palace chambers, where she could isolate herself from even the thought of mud.

But when she heard the voice of the passing Singer, she forgot her discomfort in an instant and her heart demanded that she absolutely must have him. She dispatched three of her footmen to capture the minstrel and, in a few moments, they had him bundled up in a trunk on top of the carriage. She then sent a messenger ahead to prepare things for her arrival. When they arrived in the hot, flat lands with the fall of the next day's evening, everything was ready.

A large golden cage awaited the Singer in the main courtyard of the palace to which both her father's and her own rooms overlooked. Whilst she had fallen deeply in love with the Singer from the first moment she heard him, she understood of course that he royal blood could never mingle with one of such dubious caste as he. Better, therefore, to keep him as a kind of favoured house pet - Fed, sheltered and groomed in the best of tastes with his every need attended to. In return he would grace the splendid Palace of gold and crystal with the complementary brilliance of his song.

She gathered all her family and the highest ranking subjects to witness the unveiling of the cage. The thick, velvet red blankets were cast off and everyone gasped to see the decrepit old man before them. His shoulders were sunken forwards and his chin slouched onto his chest. He staggered against the bars and his emaciated limbs could be seen through the mouldy green robes that had largely rotted away. Yet though the shine of his hair and eyes was reduced to the barest glint, still he sang.

Yes, he sang but not with the glorious tumble of mountain rivers and lofty glaciers. Instead his voice leaked out like the overflow of the sewers. His song filled the air with the misery and frustration of confinement and all who heard him wept inside at the sound of his pain. The high and mighty sat transfixed under the spell of his song, yearning to escape but unable to turn away from the truth of his song.The Singer lamented the sourness of their confined culture, locked away inside their precious Palace while the real riches of Life were in free play outside. They heard in his melodies the insecurity and despair of their own hearts that none had ever dared to describe. Soon, they were all on their knees and rolling around on the tiles in unrestrained grief, sobbing wildly and tearing out their hair.

Finally, the daughter of the Maharajah could bear it no more. Weeping terribly, she crawled over to the cage and unlocked the door. The Singer staggered out and along to the main gates without a look back. With the first breath of free air his head lifted a little and, the more miles he walked towards the mountains, the more strength came into his bones. By the time he surmounted the crest of the first foothill, a cheeriness already returned to his voice and he soon made a full recovery.

Still, after this, he became more cautious, spending much of his time in the upper reaches of the mountains and he was more often seen as a distant figure skirting the tree line than as a performer in the village squares. Although everybody learnt to get by without his regular visits, he was not forgotten and it was a occasion for celebration when he did honour them with an appearance.

And then a year passed without any news of him in any part of the valleys. It was feared that he had met an unfortunate end at the hands of a treacherous slope or a prowling snow leopard. Prayers were said for him in every home and sacrifices of food and treasured possessions were made in the temples to implore the gods to take care of their beloved minstrel.

And so it was that waves of ecstatic relief swept through every house when the familiar whistles announced the Singer's arrival. The curious thing is, that every village in each of the valleys remember him turning up in their temple for his last public concert. He was thought to look more weary than before and his feet scuffed along a little as he walked. He stood before the central altar and raised his hand for silence. Then, for the first time that anyone knew of, he spoke:

" Good people, when I was young I used to spend all my time on the highest mountain points that I could find, listening to the wind as it licked the faces of the rocks and cliffs. Other times I sat beneath crashing waterfalls for hours, immersing myself in their glory. I was head over heels in love with all this Beauty that filled my eyes, ears and nose from every direction and my only regret was that I had so little to offer in return..." He ran his hand through his silver bear and continued:

"Perhaps perceiving my unspoken plea, one night the Spirits of the Mountain, Wind and River came to me in my dreams with a proposal: They desired a human voice through which to express themselves and reach the ears of society that had grown indifferent to their environment. In return, I would be given life beyond that of an ordinary man to spread the Word of Nature. Naturally, I accepted without hesitation and these Spirits poured into me until I shined with their vitality from the inside out. As long as I have immersed myself in their presence, they have continued to refresh and rejuvenate me. But now I have reached the limits of my mortal body and the time has come for my final song."

He opened his mouth wide and the temple seemed to sway under his resonant voice that was grander than anything they'd heard from him before. Some thought that a flood must be coming whilst others prepared themselves for the rumbling boulders that were surely coming their way. Torrents of rain were heard splashing all around yet no one got wet. And though hurricanes charged through the skies not a single head shawl was disturbed. The sounds of the elements poured out of the Singer's throat with such intensity that everyone cowered to the floor. The song expanded in volume and multi-tone intensity, stretching octaves to their possible limits and then beyond - The symphony burst into a crescendo that seemed to melt sound and then, after uncounted time, subsided into a rain of silver threads upon the floor.

The bright ring of falling jewelry softened into the gentle trickle of a stream. Everybody in each of the temples removed their hands from their faces and saw that the Singer was gone. His silver hair now sprang up as water from the ground, surrounded by a ring of grass the same colour as his robes. The rest of him had been dissolved into the elements he had served for so long, his body and voice returned unto their beginning, his song only ever heard again in echoes upon a rare wind."

Chapter 5