Gilded Room of a Mediocre Tenant

A customary applause invited the octogenarian to the center of the room. Two young lads darted from the gathering to help seat his heavy self on the floor, in front of the audience's arch; and tiptoed back to their respective places. The veteran fixed his gaze¹ through the center of the gathering and unto infinity. Impetuously as if plucking an imaginary flower out of thin air, he pinched his fingers and his face grimaced². Reverberating from the depth of his rotund belly, emanated a long sonorous musical note, a profound, meditative hum. Mesmerizing a few fervid listeners, before it propagated to a departure.

A thunderous applause and a few whistles followed in its wake. His hands saw the note off to eternity and then his gaze slowly converged on a round little girl who had seated herself a few places ahead of the crowd, like a dot fallen out of the arch. "Achcha laga?" [liked it?] he questioned rhetorically, smiling. "Hee hee ... achcha laga", [yes liked  it].. she chuckled, her puffy cheeks red with embarrassment. The gesture evoked grins across the gathering, especially from the elated guardians of the tiny tot. Then without any warning, the master burst out into a near to divinity rendition of Raag Bhoopali ever heard by man.

This was it, the coup de grace, waves and waves of ecstatic annihilation, liberating the souls of all lowly mortals. P's soul, which had also volunteered to be delivered, was sent to the moon with a smashing interlude uppercut, never to come back. An elderly patron decided it was way too much for him to handle, and got possessed by the spirit of music. Intertwined his fingers to form a hand air-drill, and began hum-trailing the master, unwarranted. Animatedly, he air-drilled into everything and everybody. Poking into the rib cages of men, finger zapping the ample waist of an 'aunty' exposed through her sarees, to which she erupted into an opera-esque squeal and with bruce-lee like reflexes smacked her 2.5 kg hand into the possessed devil's cheek. The 'hindi-soap-opera-post-vehement-instigation-echoing-in-eternity-slap', knocked the poor fella out of his trance and reeling on the floor.

To which the master retorted cheesily "Gaane ke saath bajaana seekhna ho to Raturi Behen se sikhiye" [If you wish to learn how to beat a drum ... please contact Mrs. Raturi]. Roars of manic laughter erupted from the crowd.

Pure gold, that day was.

---

1: a master oogway like been-everywhere and seen-it-all gaze
2: maybe because he had to pluck the flower, or out of an 'only-I-can-fathom-the depths-of-what-i-do' irony