a little big fairytail
Years ago, in a dark little big time in my life, one of the few solaces I had was the piano in the common room.
(Sometimes in the common room. Sometimes in the little guest reception area room, which you hoped was unlocked.)
I didn't know how to play piano. The extent of my knowledge was a simple piece a dear friend had taught me — an original arrangement of a Tamil song titled Thuli Thuli Mazhaiyaai.
(She was my first formal music teacher. When I was 12 and she was 9, she went to live in a town 100km over where piano teachers were a thing. She came back for a visit and taught me how to draw a treble clef, that Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit, and that FACE is in the spaces. I mapped do-re-mi from an infinitely-rewatched The Sound of Music to what she taught me. I would practise these tenets on our family's 61-key keyboard for the next year until I joined my friend in the big town, where I took up classical guitar — the cheapest option — and slotted gratefully and desperately into the realm of people-who-formally-studied-music.)
I would go downstairs in my most lost moments, with a printout of one of the most beautiful pieces I'd ever heard that I knew it was possible for me to learn — the piano rendition of the Fairytail theme song.
(For those who don't know, Fairytail is an anime. I never got into it properly, but the soundtrack has had me enthralled since I first listened.)
Note, by note, based on the four chords my friend had taught me and the six years of guitar knowledge I had gained, I cobbled together an understanding of the piece.
(Keep in mind that the piano was not always in an open room. I had to look for the days when nobody cared to lock it up, when the only music student in the residence wasn't practising, and when I was awake and present enough to see through the fog in my brain.)
In three months, I could play the whole piece. Haltingly, slowly, staccato upbeats to legato melodies. But I could play it.
Since those many years ago, the fog has lifted from inside my mind. I'm in better places, better spaces, and I feel joy in my little big moments once more.
So I delved once more, in adulthood this time, gratefully and desperately into the realm of people-who-formally-studied-music, and engaged a piano teacher.
I've been working on relearning the Fairytail theme song — that piece that gave me purpose in a time without meaning — with her.
Today, I have the 88-key keyboard in the living room. The door is always open. And it all feels like a little big fairytale.