Lyrical stories

Aradhika Sharma

This is a sparkling book! As vibrant as Mudgal’s voice, she tells her stories with as effortless an ease as she displays in her singing. Most stories are completely tongue-in-cheek about various types of singers and their quirks and idiosyncrasies. But underlying her light-hearted manner is her thorough knowledge and experience of musicians and the world of music, many facets of which are a revelation to the reader. 

Her compilation consisting of seven stories have covered a large spectrum of the music industry and the nitty gritty of the music scene. The book encompasses sagas of classical musicians, of reality shows, concerts, national awards etc. Some hard, not-so-pleasant facts peek out behind the light-hearted narration serving as a reality check for the readers and the lovers of music. 

The remarkable thing about her narration — and she’s a natural story teller — is that there’s a hard reality or a harsh eye opener or something unexpected and not so pleasant in most of the stories. You could even call it a hint of pessimism. In the very first story, Aman Bol, she talks about a peace concert between India and Pakistan and all the hoopla that surrounds it. It has an event manager at the centre of it all. The concert features two artists with massive egos and their ‘managers’. Even with everything in place, the concert is inevitably headed for a crash. 

Foreign Returned tells the sad saga of Asavari Apte, a Pune-based classical singer — simple, timid, but who aspires to perform in concerts abroad. She finally does land in the US with the Pune-based tabla player, Upendra Oke, who had organised a tour for her, and must face several unexpected situations. Similarly, the story of a charlatan, who used the classical music teacher from Meerut, Saxena Sir, to gather money for a talent hunt titled Taan Kaptaan. That Ramesh Gupta was going to pull the rug from under poor Saxena ji’s feet is a given. The only question is, how soon? The story, A Farewell to Music, is about how a talented, passionate young musician, Mrigo, eschews music to settle for a more secure career as a marketing head of a company that manufactures shoes and gear. The themes, thus range “from the difficulties of Indian musicians touring the world, to copyright infringements, short-changing classical musicians, and the state of reality shows”.

Mudgal has a penchant for detail which represents itself in her description of dress, disposition and accents of her characters. Most of her characters are fully fleshed out, making it seem that they have been taken from real life. The situations seem to be slice-of-life episodes as well and give the readers a glimpse of the lesser-known lives of musicians in different cities of India. Some are famous and rich, who have been able to cash-on on their talent while others lead simpler lives that are completely devoted to the pursuit of music. Very often these lesser-known musicians can find that they’ve been led into a troublesome situation by people much more worldly wise than they are. Mudgal’s sympathies are quite evidently with the latter lot of musicians. 

The endings of all her stories are surprising — she doesn’t stick to the convention of the happy ending. Most stories end on a note that is often bittersweet and poignant.