Her Name Was Lola

55 The Vessel Only

June 1998. Lola now has a permit to carry a sarod. She’d been lusting for one of her own, and after the first month of lessons Indira is willing to sell her an instrument. Before owning it Lola had thought of names for it: maybe.357 or Clint or Callisto. Now that she holds it in her hands another name comes to mind: Polaris. The star that is the fixed and unchanging North, unlost.

Indira has said that in addition to the lessons she will need to practise for eight to ten hours every day in order to reach the desired level of musicianship. Lola puts in the hours and makes good progress. Hariprasad has given Noah a nakkara, a clay drum with a skin head; and Noah, with a surprisingly good sense of rhythm, does his best to help his mother.

In the daily lessons Indira listens critically. ‘You have advanced faster than any shisyia I’ve ever had,’ she says. ‘Already you are using Kan, Meend, Andolan, Murki, and Gamak. You have musical intelligence, but still the hands are ahead of the heart and the ear is not hearing all that it should. I shall play you a raga of my own composition. It is called “Smriti”, which means “Memory”. This music came to me, I was only the vessel. It came through me but not from me. Do you understand the difference?’

‘Yes,’ says Lola.

‘Listen,’ says Indira. She begins to play and sing. The music calls up in Lola the memory of her time with Max. The astonishment of love and the joy of it. The bitterness of his betrayal. The wonder of Noah. The times that have been and the times that might have been. As Lola listens she loses all track of time. She has no awareness of how long the music has been going on. The music is now and the times remembered are now. She weeps, adding her voice to the voices of Indira and the sarod. The music and the singing stop. When Lola is able to speak she says, ‘Yes, that’s how it is.’

‘Whatever you heard,’ says Indira, ‘was in the music. I did not create the music. I am the vessel only. The music came through me and I did not interfere with it. I think you will understand this with your head but will your heart understand it? Will your hands understand it?’

‘Yes,’ says Lola. ‘I will learn to be the vessel only.’