The Street Violinist

Central (Hong Kong) is like a gorgeous woman. She always dresses smart as per the occasion. She is sophisticated during the day and sensual at night.

During the day, she dressed in black/grey, looks busy managing the load of human traffic hurrying up while as the day falls, she rides in luxury cars like a Duchess in a lit up gown casting her spell on each and every one in her jurisdiction.

If I leave office post 8 pm, I see Central being draped in a different attire –somewhat sensual yet elegant. A sight that makes me take out my ear phones and appreciate the view.

It is all lit up at every corner in the evening with people- meeting for drinks, strolling towards Lan Kwai Fong merrily, looking for everything that distracts them from the hard day they had.

You'll also see several youngsters at Peddar Street with violins, mouth organs, playing beautiful music and singing while passers-by put some coins in their hats. The cutest part is when white guys sing Cantonese songs to impress beautiful Chinese girls. (You'll see further extensions of all kinds of artists- sketchers, painters if you move towards Central Piers)

Lately I have been noticing ‎an old man at Stanley Street. He stands close to the stairs where street-light can’t reach him. He has no followers (because there is nothing glamorous about him?). He plays such music that touches your deepest emotions. 

I don't know for how long I stood hiding behind the pillars listening to what he played. I also noticed a lot of other smokers, hawkers and pamphlet-distributors doing the same.

He played a sad tone. I don't know the a-b-c of music but I could still fathom what he was playing as he kept on expressing his pain and the irony of life that his life was meddling in to which all the audience could distinctively relate to.

Perhaps music unites. All of us have deepest desires, hidden pain, silent repentance and faded yet still alive hopes that we keep living upon without realizing; and music probably nibbles on that romantically.

I don't say that I get lost when I hear that man playing, but I feel that all of us listening to him felt inter-connected which we rarely do. As if we were all a part of the same mass…as if we were all the toys of the same clay in the same furnace.

We all, after all, are smitten by the same amorist called –Life.