The Flute-Seller at Ason Chok

Beneath the shade of white misty walls reflecting bright the spring sun, I guided my steps on the stone-paved path that trails from Basantapur to Ason Chok. At Ason Chok, where everyone seemed busy and everything appeared in interminable motion, I would meet him. It’s not difficult to find him. He is always at the same corner, behind him is a shop displaying cloth of various colors. Standing about five feet tall and holding a wooden pole stuck fast with as many flutes as it can hold, he looks out on passersby to see if anyone is interested. Sometimes, he plays a tune from old Hindi movies, but on that noisy Ason Chok corner, his tunes go unheard.

I stopped a few yards from him. As soon as he saw me, he smiled; a similar smile was reflected on my face. It was the third time we had met. I first met him a few months ago when I bought some flutes from him. The flutes he sold were of a lower quality and much cheaper than the ones I played. I bought them because I collect a variety of flutes. The second time I met him was a few days back. I had begun to teach the flute to a group of kids and I had come to buy flutes for them. But, to my dismay, I hadn’t had enough money, and he didn’t have the flutes I required. He had them back in his room.

‘Namaskar!’ He greeted me in typical South Indian intonation. He has been living and selling flutes in Kathmandu for more than five years and has learned Nepali quite well. He brings in his flutes from his hometown in India. A bamboo stick waits years before being crafted as a flute and then travels more than a hundred miles; only to get hooked into one of those wooden poles. I don’t find much difference between a flute and us. The holes in a flute symbolize the voids in our lives. Filling the void with notes creates a symphony of life. 

Pointing at the shining flutes in his wooden pole, I asked him if he had the flutes that I had wanted earlier. He suggested that we’d better visit his room so that I could choose the flutes on my own. He led me through one of those Ason gallis, walking steps ahead of me and in that crowd of unknown faces, I had quite a difficult time spotting him to keep up to his pace. His room was on the ground floor of one of those old brick houses in one of the narrowest gallis of Ason. In his room, the familiar smell of oiled bamboo greeted me. Inside it was dark and clammy. He opened the curtain of the only window in the room, but still it was dark. ‘Batti chhaina, ke garnu(there is not light. What do we do)?’ he remarked. 

His son came running into the room. The child seemed surprised to see me – an unusual guest. I was asked to wait outside because it was too dark inside. A few minutes later, he came out with a big bunch of flutes. I tried many of them and had a tough time selecting a few. While I was playing, some of the passersby stopped and listened for a while. A group of kids gathered around. An old lady from the window of one of the nearby houses sneaked frequent looks. It was not an everyday episode, someone playing the flute in one of those gallis where the rooms are dark even in broad daylight.

I asked for discount and he spared five rupees on each flute. I paid him a total of Rs. 500 for ten of those. I could have bargained more but decided not to. With the money in his hand, he seemed happy. I packed the flutes into my bag and stood up to leave the place. After taking a few steps, I turned back. He was still there. That smile hadn’t faded away. With a “Namaskar!” he endorsed my departure and entered his room.

I was back on the same stone-paved path. I walked past the corner where he sold his flutes. The bright cloth colors in the shop there reflected only an insipid image of his absence. When I reached Basantapur, the sun was still shining bright and despite the clamor of crowd there, I could feel the tunes that the birds hummed while resting on the roofs of the temples. But as I moved farther, the sound faded away. I wonder if the tunes from one of these flutes ever reach the flute-seller and make him feel the same way. The symphony does surely fill the voids in our lives.