Eternally Music...
A tribute to Babuji, Dr. Lalmani Misra
Eternally Music... |
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By Dr. Sanjay Tignath |
(Decades back, the author had chanced to learn about a letter written by Dr. Misra to his children stating that now as age hampers, he has come to "see the notes")
Suppose we have a Geiger-Muller counter; it detects a subatomic particle. When a particle enters the counter it produces a sound ‘click’. Professor Penrose, a theoretical physicist and a mathematician of genius from Oxford, says that the particle is a quantum object that follows a deterministic mathematical equation known as Schrodinger’s equation. The sound it produces is however a thing of the classical world or the larger world. Old Professor finds it puzzling as to what actually happens in magnifying a subatomic object of quantum world into a thing of classical world. ‘What is there’, he reflects, ‘that does the trick of this conversion’. There lies the non-deterministic part of the quantum mechanics. He abuts at no clues but consciousness. Says he, that there is a mysterious plane between these two worlds where we may look for consciousness. Of course, the sound of Geiger-Muller counter cannot be called, at any rate, a piece of music.
What is music?
Raise the question and we confront a mess of confusions. A movement, an order, a harmony of sounds! Is that enough?
No, perhaps, it shouldn’t be all about music. If we refuse this and wait and wait till very long, we may be able to sense it. It is a language, a far subtler language in which sounds dance. If we can wait yet another age, we begin to feel that it wasn’t a rhythm of sounds only. It is meaningful; it utters a bit of its secret to us. We strain to hear and understand it, we fall in love; it is a call from afar. It is something personal. Now we are left to wait and cry; we have refused all options of life. And we cry deep and we cry in pain, we cry in hope and in hopelessness too. We are denied to the last of our elements. Our fingers begin to shake on the strings and our posture no longer sustains a trial. And the day the last trace of smoke departs the soul, the Maestro says “Oh, I see them, see them in person, it is so beautiful, it makes the reality worth it”.
All converts into music! Melody and harmony blend. The Song of Silence!
Suggested Reading :
Points to Ponder: Some Do's for Musicians