He was a musician since he was five years old and heard his father play Nat King Cole on the radio. He grew to love jazz and when his dad gifted him a saxophone he took it in his hands and was ready to play. He trained under a musician who loved teaching. In time he grew to master it.
He was a happy teenager college, friends and the saxophone filled his life. He would play at most college events. He started finding small gigs to play at. His life was full of music, parties and people.
He grew older and found that he had to struggle with his music. Music wasn’t enough to help him survive. He had to have a regular job. The glamour of playing in clubs and for theatre sometimes started fading with the growing over load of work and keeping his music alive. He had to do both in order to survive.
There was a time when playing the saxophone at a club was cool and was all that he wanted to do. Now it was losing its shine. His soul wanted something deeper.
Playing jazz at a club with about ten people taking their drinks, talking, caring less for the music being played, he played so they would hear the band with a renewed vitality. That day he realized they weren’t there for the music, he couldn’t play anymore and put down his saxophone for the year to come.
He stayed busy with his regular job when someone came to him with a job offer to teach music at Ziro village in Arunachal Pradesh in a small school there.
He stopped to wonder what his life maybe away from the city, the clubs, the jazz. His work life wasn’t bringing him any real happiness. He needed a break from it all.
Very soon he found himself packed bags and his saxophone ready for a purer musical journey.
He said to himself looking at the mountains one day, “There was life in the city but the music stopped having meaning. Here you can hear music coming from the mountains and there’s melody written on the children’s faces. I have found my music again.” The saxophonist who taught jazz in Ziro.
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