Music - my desire, and my release

For many, many years I had fought against anger, and its expression. This peaked in my married years....I held in so much anger that it turned inwards, eating away at my sense of self, and taking a toll on my health. When I finally had the courage to leave, I felt surprised and liberated by the fact that I could actually feel anger. That my sense of indignation was right, and had risen up to protect me when I needed it most. Carolyn Myss, whom I discovered much later, would call this the Warrior archetype, and my inner warrior had finally woken up.

In the initial months after we separated, the anger repressed over the years would rise up and overwhelm me. How could I? How could I have allowed myself to be humiliated like this in the name of saving a marriage? How could I allow anyone to disrespect me? How?!! A lot of the anger was self-directed, but also made me more self-aware.

Many an evening when I drove home from work my car stereo would blare My lovin' (you're never gonna get it) - with all windows lowered. Normally I'm very sensitive to aural stimuli, someone who dislikes loud music. But my anger rose up like a jinn from a bottle - expanding, filling the car, and needing room to fan out.

So fan out it did in the form of music, all over the highways of my city. And sometimes even that wasn't enough. I would sing/shout along, especially when it came to the lines

Maybe next time you'll give your woman a little respect,
So you won't be hearing her say - NO WAY!

When the song was over, I would play it again. And this would continue, over and over, until I reached my daughter's daycare. Obsession? Sure! But it was unbelievably liberating. As if a weight that had sat on my chest was slowly evaporating. Gone were the days when I was afraid - of what is in store for me that evening, of my own anger. Now the anger was my shield.

At someone's recommendation, I joined a group of divorced and divorcing people, and found others like this. The conductor of the group said that anger is very normal, but holding on to it won't help us move on. But I didn't want to move on - heck, it had taken me this many years to find the anger, now why would I let it go? What will protect me from my own nature - of being too nice to all the wrong people?

That was one phase. The phase where I had no energy for relationships. Not that I had anything against men, but didn't believe I could go through a relationship again - or make it work. It seemed to require too much energy, and after expending all that energy all those years on a single point agenda - peace at any price - I had none left.

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Then one day came Sonu Nigam - my musical heart-throb - or should I say musical fling? The first time I heard

aisa pehli baar hua hai satra atrah saalon mein

I was in heaven. Started to sway, to dance....the intense beat of the song had my passions soaring....all of my passions! That's when I regained the desire for a man - my forgotten desire - to hold, to dance, to sway to the rhythm, and to feel the rhythm of his body.

I used to be a singer in college, but had stopped singing during my married years. Now with this song, the music came back. Started slowly in informal gatherings, and then in local Indian karaokes. Then one day, when I picked up the mic to sing

Piya tu.....ab to aa ja

I found myself feeling the passion of the song - sang with all my heart, losing myself completely in it. Felt vindicated when a sixtysomething man came up to me and said I had brought back memories of his college days; the days when he had watched Helen sway to the song in "Caravan". He asked me if I'd sing another Helen kind of number, and I obliged with:

duniya mein...logon ko, dhoka kabhi ho jaata hai

complete with the Burmanesque "tara tara tara". Ahhhh....music!

Today music is one of the passions I share with my man. He plays the guitar, and I sing. I am afraid to hope for much, but I hope to sing

onraa, reNdaa aasaigaL
ellaam sollave, Or naaL pOdhumaa

one of these days. So many desires....