After finishing the song, the teacher asked me a question, “What were you thinking about when you were singing?”

  My teacher strongly believes that the song, the words, the notes, the beats are all trying to convey an emotion. We need to recognize that emotion and squeeze the very last drop of it while singing. An incident, a memory, a place, a person, an experience, an imagination…anything that makes your song expressive.

   And then you connect much faster, don’t you? While listening to a song, your mind suddenly time travels and wisps of memory come back to you…like where you were sitting when the song was being played, the person who you were with, the color of the car passing by, or even a joke which when now you think about wasn’t even funny! And then you try to recollect why you had laughed so hard till you couldn’t breathe anymore…

   And then it goes back to the song…

   So… what was I thinking while singing the song? 

   I really hadn’t thought about what I should have been thinking…And this thought didn’t puzzle me as it should have had…The thought just came in my mind when I sang the first note…

  The sound of the waves crashing the beach…Their roar which fills up the night…The crescent moon, with its perfect arc… Thousands of stars twinkling… The sky is cloudless…There are no lights, except a street lamp far away…There are no people…

  I am standing there, barefoot, facing the sea. Looking at the white foam formed as each wave rises. Mesmerized by the night, trying to take it all in…

  I risk closing my eyes, fearing that if I close them everything will be lost forever…A panic runs through my heart, and I open my eyes to make sure that the night’s still with me… and yes, it is… The feeling of calmness has swept over me again, and now I close them without any fear…

  No sound can be heard other than the waves. I sense the warm water tickling my toes, just for a moment, then returning shyly back into the sea… Cool air that strokes my face… It isn’t wind, it’s breeze…

  I inhale the beautiful night and a melody escapes my lips… The same one about which I’d been thinking all this while in the back of my mind…

  I sing with my eyes closed, my mind full of the night, now fearing that if I open them the night may have already escaped and so would the one in my mind, if I opened my eyes…

  As the song progresses, the waves, the moon, the stars, the  sky, the breeze, all respond to it. I see nothing, I feel it…

  Legs now deep in the water…the tingling sensation when the wave tries to reach higher and higher… The breeze playing with my hair…

  I sing till I no longer can sing…I open my eyes now…The night faithfully stayed with me all this time… But it can’t, any longer…

  The sky has a beautiful shade of pink sprayed across it… And at the horizon, the sun can be seen peeking from behind the sea…