She tried Fur Elise on the piano,
It was hopelessly out of tune.
Not her fault though,
She is almost a prodigy.
Not yet nine and grade three of Trinity,
But the old upright is beyond repair.
Tried to have it tuned and ready for her;
Good old Fernandez tried his best
To coax out of it a decent pitch,
And pronounced its life was over.
The keyboard was silent,
Springs and hammer gathering dust
From the day her mother left
Chasing her dreams in another continent.
Tracing the label under the lid, she exclaims,
Oh, so much older than you!
It was a steal for its brand and price,
Second hand at Braganzas of Wellesley Street.
And definitely worth the joyous scream
Her mother greeted its arrival with,
When four sturdy piano porters hauled it up
Three flights of steps to the old sarkari flat.
It took three transfers in its stride,
And enthralled many a familial evening.
She unearthed the collection of music sheets
Hiding all this while under the seat of the piano stool,
Her mother was surprised to see the old metronome,
Bought after painstaking search from Regent Street,
The only thing she demanded from a foreign trip,
Keeping excellent time after all these years.
Why don’t you dispose of the junk,
Now that it serves no purpose, she says,
The house is too full, with too many things,
From all the places you’ve lived in the past.
Yes, it makes excellent sense, I say,
Though what I really wanted to say was:
Many things in this house are there,
Not for their use, but for the memories.
Madras Courier originally ran as a broadsheet with a poetry section. It was a time when readers felt comfortable sharing glimpses of their lives through verse. If you have a poem you’d like to submit, do email us at editor@madrascourier.com.
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