Arjun had had enough.
It had been an hour since he was discharged from the Covid ward of the hospital down the road, where for four weeks he had seen nothing but masked apparitions in blue protective gear, often mistaking one for another. He once told his doctor his shared bathroom needed to be cleaned (a common enough mistake in faceless wards) and when the ward boy brought him his lunch one day, he thanked him for his restrung guitar (a brain fog moment Google had warned him to watch out for). The days and nights were similarly indistinguishable, but for the IPL games that erupted every evening in the unlikely setting of floodlit Arabian oases, to the soundtrack of canned laughter. Thankfully, he had learned to ignore the incessant singing from the bed next to his – a wedding emcee consoling himself with excruciating love ballads.
Now, Arjun was back home with a hard-won Covid negative certificate, but the municipality hadn’t yet taken off the forbidding flex banners outside his building and flat, alerting residents and visitors to his condition. Walking into his bare apartment, he peeked inside his refrigerator and let out a cold sigh. A shrivelled orange, some fungus-ridden cheese and a half-empty carton of skimmed milk. Next, he opened a cabinet in the kitchen and found a pack of Maggi buried under a heap of pasta and biscuits, masalas and chocolate powder. Memories of lockdown meals flooded his mind like a choked Mumbai river after a downpour at high tide.
When he finished his insipid Maggi, barely salvaged by a dollop of pickle, a scary thought struck him. How would he know when his sense of taste returned, considering the food he cooked tasted so bland? After the first month of lockdown, when he lost the few music gigs he had bagged on the college circuit, he had to take stock. The lady who came in to cook and clean twice a week had to be let go of almost as soon as she had returned from the pandemic hiatus. He changed his broadband internet plan to a less extravagant one. And finally, he decided to give up the considerable comforts of food apps. Rent was a non-negotiable expense, but every other indulgence, however meagre, had to be reassessed.
Arjun had decided to spend the afternoon cleaning the flat, but that was when he was riding the temporary high between receiving his discharge orders and actually leaving the hospital. His graphic-designer friend, Daniel, had taken a couple of hours off a client call on Zoom to get him out of there and back home, and was frankly happy for the outing. Concrete paver blocks versus Covid risk. It was a no-brainer. Their parting shots were typical. ‘Call me if there’s anything,’ Dan said, hoping he wouldn’t. ‘I’m fine,’ Arjun replied, knowing he wasn’t. A couple of single thirty-six-year-old men, with the emotional vocabulary of a tow truck.
Picking up his Fender Stratocaster, which had, in fact, been restrung just days before his emergency hospital admission, Arjun finally felt like he was home. He had bought it off a second-hand dealer online, putting in all his savings, and got a bargain on an amp at the store he had worked at during his penniless college days. It was his partner and confidante for four years now, a relationship both physical and spiritual. It had seen him through the death of his mother, the alcoholic decline of his father, and the exits of various lovers, whose parting words were always a variation on the same theme: ‘Why won’t you let me in?’ The calluses on his fingers were both the stigmata of a bruised heart and the proud scars of a rock god.
Plugging the cable from guitar to amp, he played the iconic opening riff of Jimi Hendrix’s Voodoo Child (Slight Return) – his standard sound-check. A twist of a knob here, a slide of the wrist there, and he was away. He stormed through the song, releasing all the energy he had stored up while at the hospital in one kinetic surge. But something was wrong. He didn’t feel, well, electric. He was hearing the sound all right – his auditory sense was working just fine, luckily – but it was like the music was striking his body and somehow being repelled. It didn’t quite immerse him the way he was used to, like a sudden and powerful wave.
He tried again. This time, it was Black Sabbath, another reliable portal to safely distant lands. Nothing. He decided to change tack, revisiting all the stations of his youth – the well-trod Clapton-Springsteen-Sting-Bono route. Nope. It was about as soothing as reiki to a Darwinian. He decided to unplug the electric and head over to the trusty old acoustic instead. Out came Paul McCartney and Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen and Mark Knopfler. Far from bringing him consolation or pleasure, the music was alienating. He fiddled around with the amp cable, and the sound went staticky for a moment before humming back to normal. Something about the synthetic twang took him back to the medical instruments beeping in the ICU a bit over a week ago.
The ICU! Arjun almost dropped the guitar in a panic, the repressed trauma of those cold, cruel days catching him unawares. He opened the hospital files and looked for evidence, and there it was, in indelible blue ink, in the additional comments section: ‘Patient found singing Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On constantly.’ His heart sank like the Titanic. This couldn’t be. Arjun’s entire adult life had been constructed on the premise of good taste in music. And now, at arguably the worst time in his life, that had been taken away from him. Covid does worse things than kill people, he thought without a shred of sarcasm.
Sitting on the edge of the landlord’s lumpy armchair, he decided to self-check his symptoms thoroughly. Shutting his eyes, he took a deep breath. It smelled as musty as always, the neighbour’s fish curry wafting in through the poorly ventilated landing. So he could still smell. Next, he placed his guitar down and stretched down to touch his toes. That done, he did some on-the-spot jogging without too much trouble. So fatigue wasn’t an issue. He decided to test his memory by administering a simple test borrowed from email password prompts: What was the name of your first standard class teacher? It came instantly: Patty Noronha.
Breaking into a nervous sweat, he picked up the guitar once more, playing the dreaded Kate-and-Leo theme as a test. The opening strains confirmed his worst fears. He carried on playing, retrieving the words to the calamitous song from a dark cellar of his psyche, a repository of past humiliations and disappointments. Finding himself moved to genuine tears, he submitted to Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You. Mariah Carey soon followed with Hero, morphing into Shania Twain’s Still The One. Power ballads from ‘90s divas. If anyone he knew had witnessed this dramatic fall from grace, they would’ve thought he was pranking them. But here he was, suffering the wicked humour of the music gods. He had lost his sense of taste in a way that hurt him the most, but far from being tormented, he was uplifted.
For the next hour, Arjun scoured the internet for rare Covid symptoms. He got everything from rashes to delirium, but there was nothing in there that matched what he was experiencing. He typed in search phrases like ‘Corona music effects’, ‘Covid musical brain’, ‘Covid song syndrome’, but all he got was Italians conducting operas from their balconies and a legion of lockdown memes. Suddenly, it hit him. That wretched wedding emcee he had shared the hospital room with had somehow infected him with his musical taste! These were the very songs he had been singing out loud for weeks.
He needed to share this unbelievable discovery with someone, but the only name that sprung to his head was Dan’s.
‘Hey, you busy?’ he said, trying to sound breezy over the phone.
‘Yeah, yeah. I’ve just muted myself on Zoom. What’s up? Need to go back?’ he replied.
‘I don’t think so,’ Arjun continued.
‘Whaddyou mean you don’t know? The fever’s back or what?’ Dan replied.
‘No, no fever. Plus, I’ve eaten and all.’
‘So … then? You’re feeling lonely or something? I read that after complete isolation these things happen sometimes. I told you, na, you can use my ex-flatmate’s aunt’s Netflix account.’
‘No, no. It’s not that, baba. Chal, you finish work and call when you’re chill,’ Arjun said.
‘Really, man. Some strange shit people have been reporting. Any crazy symptoms, you just let them know at the hospital. Some long Covid and all also happens, which goes on for months and months…’
‘Speak later. It’s nothing.’
Arjun found it impossible to confess. Not to Dan, his ex-drummer, whom he had once berated for including Elvis in a set list. He ran the risk of losing the one accessible friend he had at this rotten time. Other friends had been in touch, but everyone was dealing with their own issues, from cohabiting with parents after decades to having their partners and/or children around them 24/7. There had to be someone, he thought, who would understand, and hopefully, recommend a cure.
Arjun scrolled down his list of contacts, hoping a name would jump out. All the while, a tune buzzed in his tired head: Aerosmith’s I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing. This he could work with, he thought, and tried to reroute the playlist in his head to Dream On or Sweet Emotion. But the Armageddon ballad just wouldn’t budge, and it was starting to feel like the end of the world.
Mihika. Yes, Mihika! Below the rough exterior, she was always kind and empathetic, the kind of ex-girlfriend he didn’t really deserve. She had often tried to explain away his bad behaviour to their mutual friends saying things like: ‘His socialisation was incomplete.’ Or: ‘He uses silence as a placeholder for truth.’ Whatever these things meant, they made him sound less self-obsessed and more enigmatic. She would understand, he thought, even though they hadn’t spoken in at least two years. If nothing else, she would find the case interesting as an anthropologist.
‘Hey,’ he typed on WhatsApp and noticed she was online.
Three minutes of ‘Mihika is typing …’ later, there was a reply.
‘What do you need?’
This didn’t bode well.
‘Was just checking to see how you were. All good? ☺’
‘You’ve never sent me a smiley in your life. You drunk or something?’
‘Just got back from hospital. Covid caught me.’ He said, trying to win some sympathy without sounding desperate.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry. How are you now?’
‘Mica, something terrible has happened and I don’t know what to do.’
Arjun’s phone, perennially on silent, vibrated in a way he wasn’t used to. A WhatsApp video call.
‘Okay, what’s going on? You’ve got me worried,’ Mihika began.
‘It’s the music. It’s gone. I was singing Celine Dion in the ICU. And it’s not leaving me. Mariah, Whitney, Shania. That’s the music I’m playing at the moment. And it’s all that wedding emcee’s fault. But the worst part is, that crappy music is making me feel … good,’ his voice trailed off here in a mist of self-loathing.
‘Riiight. That’s not even funny, Arjun. I’m in the middle of work. Did you even get Covid or is this some kind of …’
‘I’m not kidding, Mica. It’s like … like … it’s some kind of musical transplant but without surgery – you know what I mean? You read about everything, all those science journals and all, and I’m sure you’ve been keeping up with all this Covid stuff. I went online but couldn’t find anything. But tell me it happens. And most importantly, tell me it goes away.’
For the next thirty seconds, Mihika laughed like she hadn’t laughed in years. At one point, the phone even slipped out of her hand. Composing herself finally, she tried to form words.
‘Arjun … you … this thing … it’s not real. You’re imagining things. It’s a bit sad, but it’s also really funny. Covid is a deadly virus. It has better things to do than …’
‘But it has! There’s no other explanation.’
‘Okay. You said you’ve just returned from the hospital. Why don’t you get some rest and check on this in the morning?’ Mihika continued, reacting to the panic in his voice. He had always been an oddball, but this was irrational. And that wasn’t his style.
‘I hope Ranjan’s doing well … and your son?’
‘You don’t need to make small talk. Go rest. And I’ll send you the number for an excellent counsellor if you like, okay?’ she said.
The next morning, Arjun reached for his guitar even before his first coffee and cigarette. After a cursory attempt at playing the blues, he drifted off into the world of love ballads worthy of a fifteen-year-old at their first prom. The many indignities of the last year – physical, financial and existential – all seemed to sink into a kind of melodic stupor. A romantic Neverland where irony hadn’t been invented and wishful thinking was the greatest life skill. The longer he stayed there, the lighter he felt. He had found an island of bliss while everything around him was burning. He was happy! And he hated that love songs were the reason. His unkempt muse had traded his torn jeans and gravelly drawl for a sequinned gown and velvety voice. But he could not tell a soul about this. He was not about to become the first recorded case of ‘Coronavirus-induced musical deterioration’. There was just no way.
The next few days, he did what he did best: make music. Only this time, inspiration didn’t hit him in the dead of night, via a gnawing existential ache. Instead, it caressed him in the morning light as he made himself a breakfast of tawa toast and egg bhurji, or replied to the pile of messages he had received over the last few weeks. When he sat with his guitar, music poured out of him like juice out of a carton: sickly sweet yet oddly satisfying. He tried hard not to insert the word ‘baby’ into a lyric, but it slipped itself in when his attention wandered for a moment. ‘Oohs’ and ‘aahs’ filled instrumental interludes, until the unabashedly romantic song reached its much-anticipated climax.
This called for serious measures. It was one thing to shed a tear over a Michael Bolton classic, but quite another to write a song in that tradition. He needed to escalate the matter to a higher court, referring it to the man who taught him everything he knew about music. A childhood friend of his mother’s, Gilgamesh had been the single biggest reason for Arjun pursuing the path of a musician. Named by his Bengali parents after the Sumerian epic, Gilly was one of those eccentrics that people found it important to impress. He lived in a modified van on a sprawling farm. He loathed aura-reading hippies as much as he detested corporate automatons. And the only way you could reach him was via email.
Arjun wrote him a long missive, describing his peculiar predicament in vivid detail. He hoped that when Gilly read it, it would be under the influence of hydroponic substances that soothed his famously cantankerous temperament. He also knew that the reply could take a while; Gilly’s conception of time truly belonged in an epic fantasy. So when Arjun checked his email that evening, right after he had put the delicate finishing touches to a song called True To You, he could hardly believe it. There was Gilly, sitting in his inbox, an oracle ready to deliver his message.
You’re lucky to be alive and playing music, Orgy. Be grateful. Xx.
PS Have you ever really, really really ever loved a woman?
The Bryan Adams slur was almost too much to bear. Arjun put himself on a strict diet of The Beatles in the morning, Bob Dylan in the afternoon, Pink Floyd in the evening, and AC/DC in the night. He would work his way back home through the familiar streets of rock classics, exorcising the grinch that had stolen the grunge away from his life. Still, when he picked up his guitar, his hands and heart moved to an altogether different rhythm. It was soft, it was sentimental and it was lifting him up from the abyss.
It had now been six weeks since Arjun’s return. He was strong enough to leave his apartment to get the few supplies that he couldn’t do without, and to see other humans. It had been nine months since he had last visited his local pub, and now he walked past it in the noonday sun, carrying a bunch of veggies. Life had changed in more ways than he could fully process. The surreal quality of the complete lockdown, its enforced isolation and relentless domesticity, were already too much to bear. Incessant virtual interactions – from pixelated Insta lives on the state of indie music to online concerts with an average of three people logging in – had already drained him out before he was hit by the full complement of Covid symptoms. Then came the ignominy of the isolation ward and the torments of ICU fever. And finally, just when he thought he was ready to start over, here was this musical shock.
Taking off his mask, Arjun gave the veggies a good wash. He had no idea what he would do with them, but he refused to have yet another Maggi or omelette pao lunch. He found himself glazing the beans, carrots and peas, and mashing the potatoes he had just boiled with some butter. Then he grilled a chicken leg on a pan, seasoning it with contents of the sachets left over from the last pizza he had ordered. His little table by the window was cluttered as usual, but he cleared away the mess and laid his plate down, along with a glass of iced water. It was the end of December, and the city was plotting some depleted version of merriment. The breathless year had been marked by grief, loneliness and loss, but as Arjun cut himself a piece of chicken, a fresh burst of Air Supply came belting out of the speaker. ‘Out of nothing at all/Making love out of nothing at all’ he joined in with his mouth full and eyes misty. Man, this was cathartic. A dam had burst, a weight lifted, a miracle witnessed.
So what if soppy love ballads were now his thing? He was going to wear his new identity with pride. In private, at least, until people were ready to accept him for who he was.
A few streets away, the wedding emcee sat at his laptop, compiling a playlist for a Zoom wedding party. Once done, he stared at the hard rock selection in disbelief. He was defenceless against this musical invasion, threatening to ruin his career, made up of light banter between love songs. ‘That rotten guitarist. I swear if I ever see him again, I’ll …’
***
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