Instrument

I apologize in advance: my memory is hazy and I am not familiar with the names/procedures of certain religious practices.

My father owns a small tailor shop in Soho, where I worked every so often after school. One night, just around closing time, he got tangled in a situation that required him to stay longer. To pass the time, I grabbed my Ibanez and went to the back, behind the forest of dry cleaned clothes, to play. I strummed away a little song I wrote. When I finished, an unexpected clapping sounded in the front. Kauser, the artisanal tailor from Bangladesh, paused his hem job and walked over. “Ali, you sing biutiful,” he told me, through a reverent nod of approval and his thick Bengali accent. “You wrote?” I nodded sheepishly. “I write song too, Ali.” “I’d love to hear it.” He cackled through a set of perfect, white teeth and the brown skin around his eyes wrinkled. “First you must teach me guitar!” He said, as he rummaged through a shabby collection of clothing scraps, books and other miscellaneous belongings in the back. Kauser pulled and a strange instrument emerged from all the junk. It had the same basic structure as a guitar, except its body had an egg-like shape, with a very long, thin neck. I don’t remember how many strings it had; it was more than six. The imperfections in the wood were particularly beautiful. “Play song,” he said. “Which song?” “Doesn’t matter. I follow you. Teach me.” As he said it, he pulled out a thin blanket-rug and spread it across the floor. He invited me to sit. We both sat cross legged facing each other. The pattern on the carpet looked like Arabic symbols. I was puzzled because the instrument was clearly not a guitar, so I didn’t understand how he expected to learn from me. However, I experimented by starting with a G Major chord. This chord has a ‘happy’ tone to it. Kauser strummed his instrument, which let out a dazzling ring that echoed in the small space. It was not a G chord, but nonetheless, the two guitars sounded harmonious. “Play song,” he repeated. I played some chords that I knew went well together, and he strummed back with his multi-string guitar instrument. He closed his eyes and rocked to the slow beat. I noticed it was dark outside. I closed my eyes as well, and also attempted to feel it. After a while we were both strumming passionately and he began to sing. It was an exotic tune, a piece of the Bengali wind that he carried with him deep in his vocal chords. I could imagine the myriads of different euphonic notes vibrating in his throat as he delivered each one so delicately. It was not a powerful voice, but a voice of humble duende. I found myself playing chords that I knew, yet didn’t knew, because each new sound was a facet of an unraveling creation. Being immersed in these beautiful foreign sounds was a transcendental poem.

Here I was, and there was Kauser sitting on the same rug, two different cultures, two related instruments, and somehow making a new, harmonious sound. The encounter was a lesson that all art speaks the same language. It is the instrument of culture.