song

I'm sitting on a dilapidated chair in a well hidden NGO, listening to a quasi fusion band perform a complicated musical tribute to a Hijra (F)who killed herself over a lover's tiff (so they say) and I'm wondering how I could have possibly ended up here, among the throngs of NGO-type people who can be identified from a mile away by their very looks, or failing that, by their words and tones of voice; NGO-type people who had supposedly assembled there in celebration of F's life, but whose intentions of celebrating are already being undercut by the lugubrious MC, who makes it quite clear that this is a mourning session alright! and no doubts about it. The mike throws the fusion music of the six member team erratically around the hastily reorganized hall in the NGO that dealt exclusively in letting others use their books- I had come for the performance and for the performance only, so I quietly slip out before they start screening a short film about F's life, before the rest of them realize or care that my presence is an accident, and that my presence is quite unnecessary for the grieving process or anything else, for that matter.