Years ago, for my cousin's wedding in Jalandhar, my uncle had festooned his home with none-too-cheap lights, like you might see for Diwali or Christmas, and made sure that the money was spent wisely for the wedding celebrations, so that we could all celebrate without too big of a bill flopping down on his threadbare income. Of course there was alcohol, reserved for the men who could have it, along with firecrackers, many of which I, 9 years old at the time, lit and watched scintillate in the near-night darkness, and there was a dholi who banged away while others flailed around with jerky bhangra moves. But my uncle had also hired just a single musician to sing and play for the crowd gathered at the wedding, someone who was respectable enough and charismatic enough to keep a crowd entertained, but somebody simple, without a fee-demanding hubris. Where he found him I'll never know, and I don't think anyone else knew this either, but he'd found a singer-cum-harmonium player to don the stage for that night, a pin-thin man in a cream-colored kurta-pyjama and stiffly starched wedding jacket with a thinner Raj Kapoor-style mustache. Looking back, I'm sure there were some men who were disappointed with my uncle; they were expecting some kind of vampish mujra in skimpy clothes to shimmy in front of them and give their whiskey a more intoxicating effect. But then it was my uncle, and the joke among my father and some other men from the last wedding he'd given was that given the choice between bad alcohol or good alcohol and bad-looking women or good-looking women he'd choose good alcohol and bad-looking women (kind of unfair since he himself married a shimmering beauty from Patiala, and had a good name otherwise unstained by liquor). But not long after the man had gotten on the none-too-high stage, he'd gathered a crowd of spectators, and his surprisingly clear voice suited his dilapidated harmonium's chords well. He was actually something beyond a professional; his songs were stylistically rendered with evocative riffs of the harmonium's keys, and his grace was there in his soothing voice. Even though there was no percussion with him, one of the guys took a dholki used for the women's songs and started drumming along, and others clapped while he sang. His repetoire was mostly a motley collection of Panjabi wedding songs, Hindi film songs, and other songs I hadn't heard before that I later learned were his own. He sang sarke sarke jaandiye muthiyaare ni with geniune Panjabi gusto and the happy taarif karun kya uski in a light Mohammed Rafi-style voice. This mehfil lasted for nearly an hour before he left the stage and handed out some mithai to the children, and dropped into a corner of the light-brimming courtyard for refreshments. He kept close to my uncle, and met with other people after that, including the blushing bride before the baraat came to take her away, and left after the baraat. Later, my uncle gave me a keepsake the man had given him in exchange for his generous tip, an amulet blessed by goddess Kali. I kept it in my kurta pocket and carried it with me, and the sole thing I later remembered about the wedding was that singer.
And then years later, in London, just a few days before my wedding to Simran, I went to a local desi cafe, a hole-in-the-wall just off of Soho Road, and found the man there, harmonium and all. He'd aged over the years, his hair graying at the temples, but everything else was untouched by time, including his voice, which blended into the emotions of the songs he fingered on the old harmonium. Around him was a small all-desi audience, including the cafe's owner, who was obviously a special friend of his he'd wanted to share with others who came in, and I had just happened to come in the middle of the mini-concert, asking for a plate of aalu parathas and a cup of chai, which I waited for in the ensuing rendition of Kishore Kumar's Aa chal ke tujhe. The air redolent of garam masala and his distinctly soulful voice, I sat in a corner under a sultry kodachrome of Hema Malini and listened while I sipped from my steam-rimmed cup, watching how he strummed the discolored keys without even a glance down at his hands, his eyes closed in concentration as his voice reached for the next note. When he finished a song, there were a couple of wah-wahs of appreciation from the audience, and the singer would stop pumping the harmonium's bellows to say a side word to his listeners, sometimes to ask for a request, other times to playfully argue with someone, and always to sip from a glass of water he kept by his harmonium. I wanted desperately for him to croon a Panjabi tune, one of the folk songs I'd heard at the wedding, even one of the new disco-style bhangra songs from Heera or Alaap or something, but I didn't say anything. By the time I'd been sitting there for over an hour, my second cup of chai down to little more than a trickle, he started to turn to me while in the middle of a verse, to smile or waggle his head, and I remembered that I still had the amulet in my pocket. I fingered it while he continued to sing, and when he was tired, unable to sing after a few hours of his singing and playing, I reached for my wallet after most everyone had left and gave him a small sheaf of pounds out of appreciation. He smiled beatifically at me as I wandered over to him, and pointed at the money in my hand. "Eh ki hai, bhai? What is this?"
"This is my token of appreciation, sir-ji," I said, and gave him the wad of money, but as I was about to go, he called out to me.
"Arre, ek minute yaara! Just a minute!" he called out. He held in his hand a photograph, something that looked familiar. Then I saw that the picture of my to-be wife, the one I had kept after my engagement to her, was in his hands. "In giving me your money you've left something else behind," he said, and his words at that moment he reminded me of one of the songs he'd song that night at the wedding. Did he recognize me? I wondered.
Bashfully I returned to him, and took the picture from his hand. "Eh kaun hai? Who is this beauty?" He was smiling at me in his avuncular way, and I thought I felt him recognize me despite my mustache and my age.
I couldn't avoid telling him. "This is... well, she will be my wife in a few days."
He handed back the photograph. "Khush raho, beta. May the two of you always be happy." After a pause, he turned to me. "I used to perform a lot at weddings in the Panjab, until my older brother brought me here to Britain. Would you a like a song for the two of you?"
I could tell that he was tired from performing, and I tried to refuse. "Nahin ji, saade lai taa inni takleef naa karo. Don't take the trouble to, Paji. You've sung enough."
He insisted, gently tugging at my shirtsleeve. "Beta, this is my gift for you and your wife. Please take it." So I sat down in the nearly empty cafe and listened to him start a song I'd never before heard, a Panjabi song, suffused with a sindoor-laden bride under a saffron evening sky and a uxorious groom riding in on a white mare to claim his wife, and when he'd finished with the rasp of his antique harmonium he nodded at me in goodwill as I folded my hands in goodbye. "Jite raho, beta, khush raho,"he said, and I left then into the autumnal evening, fingering the amulet in my pocket. Though I returned again and again to that cafe after my marriage, I never saw him again, and though I felt as though he had recognized me, I could never be sure. I never learned his name, and he never knew mine, but for me he was always a special character who'd bestowed gifts on weddings, rendered them moonlit by his scintillating voice, and I always will regret not knowing his name.
