Contemplation

I spent the greatest night in Bahrain, so far, last Friday at the Jazz Night event organized by Elham. I had tried to practice playing a few numbers, but unfortunately I’ve not managed to play anything reasonably well enough. I guess I’ve always been too hard on my playing, however, this changed after having attended these jazz sessions.

I’m faced with a great difficulty now. I already find it hard translating my thoughts into words, and to attempt translating music into words is well beyond my ability. Let alone jazz music. Let alone great jazz music. So, I will be selfish and won’t share the eventful night, and instead, I will share my thoughts about how it transformed me.

At the end of it, everybody had already left, and the event host was already cleaning up. I stuck around for a while, along with a young and brilliantly pleasant piano player whom I had the opportunity to be a fan of (even for only one night). He was at the corner of the main hall, lightly stroking the keys. Slowly walking towards him, not wanting to distract him from playing, he noticed me and invited me to play something with him.

Now, the first and only time I’ve touched a piano was a few years back, at university, sitting next to someone I dearly admire. She taught me a few chords. This time was my second. The young pianist slid to the side, inviting me to sit down and play “what I felt sounded right”. I told him that I wouldn’t know what to play. He showed me a secret chord and told me to “have at it” and play whatever keys within the scale.

And that was the best I’ve played on a piano in my life, so far at least.

I woke up the next morning, scatting while I got out of bed, skipping down the stairs in alternating intervals, and finally running a tea spoon on differently sized tea cups while making breakfast. I was humming throughout the day. Today, I’m going to get my own music keyboard. I’m swapping the rock and pop CDs with jazz and blues ones. And, like jazz, I won’t be too hard on myself. Like jazz, I’m going to be colorful. Like jazz, I’m going to be quite unpredictable.

Finally, I would like to thank the host for delivering one of the greatest nights I ever had.

Yesterday I attended the Elham event at Albareh Art Gallery and Cafe. Performances of “punk folk” acoustic music, photography, poetry and paintings filled the evening with muse. It is quite difficult for me to describe it in
detail, so you will probably have to go to one to really get what its all about.

But, what really left a great impression on me was Laurence Brown’s segment on digital photography. Laurence teaches at university, and that is exactly why his delivery appealed to me. Whatever subject one is speaking about, it sounds more compelling and engaging when the delivery is entwined with passion and love for the subject.

Even when speaking in technical terms, which most take as boring and confusing at certain times, I felt such immense interest that I thought I will end up buying a camera first thing in the morning the
very next day.

The love for colors and light showed in his stories; the trouble that one needs to go through to reflect the right amount of light, provide the right amount of saturation, and achieve the all so sweet depth in
the final print. This light, this saturation and this depth, is also what I search for in text.

I can barely remember the last time I had so much passion for what I do.

Modern photography, prose, poetry, and beautiful music; the venue substituted tables for chairs as the increasing crowd settled down for the event to start. Friends and family showed, a multicultural bunch followed, and closer friends thereafter.

Elham introduced the guests, who took to the floor one after the other. Arthur D’Souza discussed his unique techniques of combining positive film and colored paper to create beautifully framed layers that speak beyond the images created.

The dazzling, South-African writer, Melissa van Maasdyk then managed to lose her essay papers, however, short to be found and read to the audience. Personally, this lost-and-found theme gave new meaning to her short essay. Perhaps, this theme will extend its meaning to her “never-ending story”.

The venue was also honored by having the mesmerizing Bahraini poet, Hameed Al Qaed, recite some of his Arabic and English poems alongside the beautiful Oud music, played by Hasan Al Hujairi, who stole the end of the show with a Japanese-Arabic fusioned piece.

Elham, that is muse, and mused I was. What was once an unappealing, and then lost, identity that I associated with Bahrain, is now replaced with a newly discovered culture. I found a new home within an abandoned one.

Coming back to Bahrain a little bit more than a year ago, I found myself becoming increasingly misplaced; disappointed by the lost hope, the mechanical routine, that most people subscribed to. While I was then surrounded by saddened, despaired and despondent people, I now found those with a passion, a glowing core, and a bright future. These artists, my heroes, they found and realized what others took for dreams.

More to what I hope, is for such culture to be bolstered anew within a re-invented brand of Bahrain; to invite designers, artists, film makers, writers and musicians, to this island; to establish a hub of galleries and “culture cafés”.