They were the first travelling musicians I’d ever met (not counting those in Mumbai local trains, they travel too). But I met them in a café near the Bazarhallen in Oslo, without knowing who they were or what they did. They were a father-daughter duo and we shared a table in a crowded café, me and the daughter, all of 14, communicating through broken English and smiles. The two grabbed a quick bite and while I struggled through my cold sandwich (am very Indian in this. Don’t like a cold lunch), they crossed across to the other pavement and set up their equipment.
What followed was magical.
I still have no idea what exactly was the language in which she sang. I suspect some of the songs were in English but it was so heavily accented (Polish, I later learnt) that it was hard to tell. But the 14 year old had the kind of voice that lifts you out of your surroundings and places you elsewhere. It was the kind of voice that you pray stays with her forever (for she’s 14 and growing); a voice that holds promise, happiness and an unusually mature longing.
The girl kept singing for more than half an hour with the father on the guitar and suddenly I realised there was quite a crowd gathered there. This was a weekday and beyond lunch hour but I think like me, something in her voice kept those people waiting. Coins dropped, she flashed a smile, sometimes at us, sometimes at her dad and carried on.
I went up and spoke to them after the performance. They were on their way to the Molde Jazz Festival, which happens in Norway’s West coast, in a town called (obviously) Molde. Right now, they were coming from Germany, had stopped in Oslo for a couple of days and were singing along the journey to raise money for the trip. The man (who it turned out spoke decent English) said it was one of the best Jazz Festivals in Europe. He had a CD of his music, which he hoped to circulate in the festival and sell along the way. He hoped to bring out a CD of his daughter’s songs too, he told me. He’d written some of it, some were old folk songs. He had any hopes for her, his only remaining daughter. The other stayed with his wife who he calmly said he ‘didn’t like.’ The girl had a new mother now, his girlfriend.
I was dying with curiosity. I wanted to know if Ely (that was her name) went to school, if they had a permanent home, if she enjoyed her life, liked her dad’s girlfriend…
But suddenly it seemed rude and very work-type. (So, Ely, do you enjoy singing? Who’s your idol? What are your future plans?) So I left, asking them when I could hear them sing next. Ely muttered something in her dad’s ear; he gave her head a playful whack and laughed. Twenty minutes and a coffee later, all three of us were walking along to their next destination somewhere near a shopping centre, Ely giggling at a bunch of hot American students walking with a holiday swagger and me cursing the fact that this was the day I chose not to bring a camera.
So that’s it. A memory. The afternoon I spent with the travelling musicians.