I have always thought that every religion chooses its praying musical instruments according to the emotion it celebrates.
Generally, I don’t believe in practicing any religion in a group. In fact, I feel faith to be something very personal. So, last Sunday morning, as I nonchalantly walked into the St. Paul’s cathedral premises, I had nothing but photography on the agenda. Also was in a little hurry, as I had a theater show scheduled in 15 minutes.
I took some quick snaps of the cathedral, admired the light and shade effects, the grounds and suddenly was aware of the unusually large no. of cars in front of the cathedral. Well, to be honest, I’m not sure what the usual no. should be, but that’s just something I felt.
So, being a typical Bengali, I deduced something must be going on inside, which was probably none of my business, and promptly ventured to find out what was it all about.
Just as I made the turn towards the main entrance of the cathedral, the tune hit me.
I have heard carol before in films. But the real deal seemed a whole new form of sensation.
Not the tune or the sound. It was the spirit. And I believe, you cannot truly have the feeling I had if you listen to the carol from the beginning. You want to walk inside the church as the organ has already started playing. Its like a hum, getting louder, louder, louder and gradually it engulfs you. You feel you’re walking through the gongs, you can touch the hymn, and feel the chants throbbing just beside you.
I’m not sure whether it helps if you’re not Christian. I felt it did for me. I didn’t expect it to take me to the god. I didn’t expect it to cleanse me. I didn’t expect it to answer any prayers. I didn’t know what to expect. It was like meeting a long lost friend when you were half expecting to meet him.
You know the feeling, but you don’t remember what its called. You know whether you’re happy or sad, but cannot decide why. At that moment, nothing else is important. In a way, I felt that being in the carol was like bathing in sea. The relentless waves, the incessant rumble and all you can think of is…….. remaining afloat.
I must say, a lot of thought went behind the architecture of churches. Not the outside, the inside I mean. You would see the interiors of temples and mosques built in a whole lot of varieties, but not churches. Whatever the structure of the building is, Gothic, Greco-Roman, or anything else, one thing is always the same. You open the huge door and look up and the first thing you see – is always the altar. And as you walk along the straight corridor, no matter how many rows of podiums and people are beside you, you feel you are alone with the holy cross, the altar and the tears of the man who attempted the biggest of all impossible – he wanted to love everyone. You feel hypnotized by it. You cannot help but look straight ahead.
And when the gong and the organ accompanied me through that journey, I felt a cloud of sorrow condense and gradually drift upwards with me. The glass painting on the windows, the decoration on the ceiling is wrapped by the gongs, I could hear the bishop chanting the holy communion in another world and as he raises the goblet filled with Jesus’s blood, I longed for the courage to cry, to suffer, to bleed for others.
I believe Christians have not paid attention to the sermon for a long, long time now. If everyone of them stopped worried about keeping up and just listened to the music one Sunday morning, I believe religion would never have got the chance to become everything else other than to bring people together with mutual consent.
There was this strange uneasiness that I’m incomplete without loving the person, whom I have no reason to love. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but the organ notes seemed to do so unerringly.
No matter how far we drift from each other, music will always speak the language that religion was meant to be, if at all.
I have always thought that every religion chooses its praying musical instruments according to the emotion it celebrates.
Generally, I don’t believe in practicing any religion in a group. In fact, I feel faith to be something very personal. So, last Sunday morning, as I nonchalantly walked into the St. Paul’s cathedral premises, I had nothing but photography on the agenda. Also was in a little hurry, as I had a theater show scheduled in 15 minutes.
So, being a typical Bengali, I deduced something must be going on inside, which was probably none of my business, and promptly ventured to find out what was it all about.
Just as I made the turn towards the main entrance of the cathedral, the tune hit me.
I have heard carol before in films. But the real deal seemed a whole new form of sensation.
Not the tune or the sound. It was the spirit. And I believe, you cannot truly have the feeling I had if you listen to the carol from the beginning. You want to walk inside the church as the organ has already started playing. Its like a hum, getting louder, louder, louder and gradually it engulfs you. You feel you’re walking through the gongs, you can touch the hymn, and feel the chants throbbing just beside you.
I’m not sure whether it helps if you’re not Christian. I felt it did for me. I didn’t expect it to take me to the god. I didn’t expect it to cleanse me. I didn’t expect it to answer any prayers. I didn’t know what to expect. It was like meeting a long lost friend when you were half expecting to meet him.
You know the feeling, but you don’t remember what its called. You know whether you’re happy or sad, but cannot decide why. At that moment, nothing else is important. In a way, I felt that being in the carol was like bathing in sea. The relentless waves, the incessant rumble and all you can think of is…….. remaining afloat.
I must say, a lot of thought went behind the architecture of churches. Not the outside, the inside I mean. You would see the interiors of temples and mosques built in a whole lot of varieties, but not churches. Whatever the structure of the building is, Gothic, Greco-Roman, or anything else, one thing is always the same. You open the huge door and look up and the first thing you see – is always the altar. And as you walk along the straight corridor, no matter how many rows of podiums and people are beside you, you feel you are alone with the holy cross, the altar and the tears of the man who attempted the biggest of all impossible – he wanted to love everyone. You feel hypnotized by it. You cannot help but look straight ahead.
And when the gong and the organ accompanied me through that journey, I felt a cloud of sorrow condense and gradually drift upwards with me. The glass painting on the windows, the decoration on the ceiling is wrapped by the gongs, I could hear the bishop chanting the holy communion in another world and as he raises the goblet filled with Jesus’s blood, I longed for the courage to cry, to suffer, to bleed for others.
I believe Christians have not paid attention to the sermon for a long, long time now. If everyone of them stopped worried about keeping up and just listened to the music one Sunday morning, I believe religion would never have got the chance to become everything else other than to bring people together with mutual consent.
There was this strange uneasiness that I’m incomplete without loving the person, whom I have no reason to love. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but the organ notes seemed to do so unerringly.
No matter how far we drift from each other, music will always speak the language that religion was meant to be, if at all.
I have always thought that every religion chooses its praying musical instruments according to the emotion it celebrates.
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