In Continuum.

A Tribute To A Broken Violinist



He's got a broken voice and a twisted smile,
Guess he's been that way for quite awhile,
Got blood on his shoes and mud on his brim,
Did he do it to himself or was it done to him?

Driving in the indigo-colored Volvo, I remember pressing my face to the glass and waving my hands at the passing drivers. That was me, when I was about seven and ignorant to the rest of the world. I remember those times when the first car model appeared with CD compartments at the back of the car. That meant that we could play the music that we wanted, instead of having our traveling music being dictated by the radio stations. My mother's favorite singer back then was Celine Dion, and she used to play her album repeatedly in the car. As much as I hate to admit it, she was my first taste of pop music, and she also sang the first song that I fell in love with. I didn't really know the lyrics, but I'd sing as loud as I can whenever the chorus of "Because You Loved Me" comes on. Those are the only four words I knew of the song, despite it being my first and favorite back then.

Those were the earlier times spent in Singapore, when we were still getting used to the life here. Two years into my stay here, and we were still getting used to the workings of life and the local cultures. After all, it is not supposed to be an overnight thing when it comes to adaptation, and it certainly wasn't easy to adapt to this country, with the people speaking in Singlish which sounded more like a language entirely different from the basic ones I learned, or the way it is always too hot for comfort outdoors. The family tried our very best to fit in, and one of the ways to do so - at least for my mother - was to learn violin.

As an avid fan of music and the instrument itself, my mother wanted to learn a musical instrument back then, at least something to enrich herself with - though the chief purpose really was to kill time. Violin isn't the easiest instrument to play to be honest, since I know a little bit of that myself. With the frets being unmarked and a little thicker than half the thickness of your fingers, getting around a piece of music can be quite a chore on the fingers as well as your brain. But my mother's interest in the instrument never faltered, and eventually found a young man a little younger than herself, to be her violin teacher.

People think he don't look well,
But all he needs from what I can tell,
Is someone to help wash away all the paint,
From his purple hands before it gets too late.

I remember the lessons that my mother would bring me to frequently when I was younger. Being the rascal of the family, my mother was never truly satisfied with the childish promise of "I won't touch the stove I swear!". So she brought me along with her whenever she goes for her lessons at his place, like an extra baggage of sorts that talkes and whines when the lesson drags. Mr. Tung was her teacher back then, and I remember the way the terrace houses where he stayed pulled up at the end of the driveway. It looked rundown and a million years old - though that is how everything seemed as a child - and the stairwells smelled of rotten wood and moth balls. They were always drenched in darkness, and the light outside was never allowed to touch the shady interior of the estate, giving it a sense of age and mystery perhaps. That is where Mr. Tung stayed with his mother and pet dog, whose name slipped my mind.

Mr. Tung was a short and stout young man, probably in his late twenties back then or in his early thirties. Dressed in his over-sized t-shirt and shorts, it is hard to believe that this is the same man that belongs to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, and the person who owns a ten-thousand dollar violin somewhere in that aged house of his. But it was the truth, and despite knowing little to nothing about music, it wasn't difficult to tell the difference between his playing and my mother's, as I sit outside in his living room to play my GameBoy or his dog, a pug. My mother's playing - at the beginning - always sounded like a car screeching to a halt at a traffic light, or perhaps the sound of a dog being ran over by a van. Then her playing proceeded to being a girl being stepped on her toes by an fat man, and slowly it became less unbearable and more in-tune with the songs that they played. In contrast, Mr. Tung's playing was as good as Mozart's, always weaving beautiful melodies from inside the room, notes dancing in the air and forming a sudden contrast to the interior of the house.

It was always dark at his house, and his mother seldom appears in front of his students, or the children of his students for that matter. But the pug was a friendly dog, always welcoming and always happy to see me. The way it shook its dough-nut like tail and the way its pink tongue would hang out of his folded face was absolutely adorable. Above it all, however, it was always the notes that Mr. Tung played that attracted my attention to the room where they practiced. I used to sneak into the room at times, and I would sit in the corner of the room to admire their playing silently. To have a child of my age quieten down like that has got to mean something, and Mr. Tung was the man who did it for me, the first man to give me a taste of what a piece of wood can do to the magical world of music. Almost like a time machine of sorts, it can take you to places where no modern machines can take you. Into the realm of music, the three of us were transported on those weekend afternoons filled with Vivaldi and Mozart.

Since then, I've been a fan of music, a passion to listen and to play them at the same time. I've come a very long way since then, moving away from Celine Dion and Whitney Houston, to those Backstreet Boys days in primary school. Then it came the Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit days in secondary school, with a bit of rap and hip-hop added to the horrendous flavor now that I think about it. After that, rock was the in thing for me, and I eventually developed my eclectic taste of music from there until now. In terms of one's musical journey, I think I've come quite a distance from where I was, in terms of the kind of music that I've learned to appreciate and love. Even for my mother, she moved from normal pop music to the realm of classical music, and is now a fan of whatever that I listen to as well(She likes Cat Power, how kickass is that?). But we never forgot our roots, which reaches deep into classical music throughout our lives.

Like any other parent, my mother wanted me to have a skill at hand as well. For her, violin just felt like the perfect choice. 1) It is a gentleman's instrument, she said. 2) She already has a teacher to teach me too. 3) Why not? So there I was, being forced to learn violin with my sister on weekends as well, carrying our little violin cases up those dark steps again with my mother, the Violin Trio. Come to think about it, it must have been quite an interesting sight to behold, though I don't remember myself enjoying the lessons all that much. I enjoyed the music that was played, but not exactly the pain in my shoulder and chin as my violin was too small for any available shoulder pads on the market at that time. I had bruises all over my shoulder, and my mother thought it was better for me to stop then, and I was reluctant to do so as well, despite everything. I wasn't too good at violin, but at least I was good at drawing giant lollipops at the back of my score sheets, and I enjoyed the times when I used to squat in front of the television to draw the musical notes, like little tadpoles in the school pond.

Two years ago, on the car back to camp. My mother and I were discussing about possible vocational choices, and that was more than ten years after I picked up and dropped out of violin. By that time, my love was in guitar - a distant cousin to violins in a way - and I'm not even sure where my violin disappeared to. My mother has 'graduated' from her violin lessons, earning herself a grade 8 certificate and a place in a quartet performance once, and also a violinist in the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. We've both come a long way, though our separated ways, since then. But we can both safely say that we have the same person to thank, a violinist that sparked off our love and passion for music. But there was one thing I didn't know of, until my mother told me about on the car back to camp two years ago. Something that stayed with me for a long time, and still affects me until today.

I saw him stand alone under a broke street light,
So sincere, singing silent night,
But the trees were full and the grass was green,
It was the sweetest thing I had ever seen.

The news was brought to me in the most unexpected way. Still clouded by the thought of going back to camp, my mind wasn't exactly ready for such an information. But there we were, traveling at 80 kilometers an hour on an expressway with my mother being the bearer of the bad news. We were on the topic of future vocations in the army, and I was telling her about the possibilities of myself getting into the Music and Drama company in the army itself. With the mentioning of that, my mother brought up Mr. Tung's name, and mentioned that he too was in that vocation when he was in the army, due to his back problem and the fact that he was a brilliant violinist. So as part of a conversation, I asked what happened to him after I left his lessons and she performed for the last time with him at the Kallang Theaters. "He's paralyzed from the neck down." she said, and caught a glimpse of my dumbfounded face at that very moment. "Oh," she said. "I thought you knew."

But I didn't know, and it was my first time hearing such a thing from her. It wasn't easy to take it all in at that moment, and it took me a while to ask what really happened to him. It seems like a stunt during a holiday trip went too far, when he was trying to impress his wife with a somersault off the plank at a swimming pool. It must have been due to a bad flip or a slippery board, for the back of his neck smashed into the board during the fall and he became paralyzed from the neck down soon afterwards.

I asked little about his condition then, fearing the worse. But the certainty was the fact that he wasn't going to be playing the violin for the orchestra anytime soon. The members of the orchestra played charity shows and tried to raise money for him, because the price to pay to keep a paralyzed patient alive is extremely high, and especially so for a family like his. His life was totally devoted to the art of music and the instrument itself, and never really had time for anything else. You could see it in the way he decorated his room, and the way everything looked so old and untended except for his violin case and the pictures with him playing beside local legends. The way his tuxedo shined in that picture on his dresser, and the way his eyes focused on the neck of the violin is still vividly clear in my mind. But that is the only place he shall remain now, the only place where he can still stand tall and proud with a violin in his hands. Because right now, he is probably lying in his bed somewhere, with somebody taking care of him twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week. The kind of life you can only imagine somebody else to have, but not somebody with such talents and such passion for music.

You start to think about the ironies in life, the kind of practical jokes that life can pull on you. This is not the kind of case whereby you can brush it off and say "Oh, that's life". Because life shouldn't be unfair like that, life shouldn't be the person to give you something beautiful, then take it all away when you are just about to make it somewhere. If that is life, then what is the purpose of it all, really? When we constantly tell ourselves to achieve a goal, to accomplish a task, to make a dream come true, to have the end result robbed from us like the way the board smashed into the back of Mr. Tung's neck. What is the point of it all, you start to wonder and ask yourself. Life - as they say - works in mysterious ways, and the religious people might say that God has his plans when it comes to such things. But on Mr. Tung, you can hardly see or imagine any plans other than the life that he is going to lead on his bed, rid of his violin and love. In his eyes, you see no such hope or faith, but rather the life that he had that is now trapped within the violin casing underneath his bed, gathering dust and forgotten.

Ever since then, I've heard little news about him. In fact, I'm not even sure if he is still alive now, or if he succumbed to his injuries and passed away. I often picture him though, lying on his back one afternoon with the sheets draw up to his chin, and the player at the end of the room playing a song that he performed with his orchestra friends in the past. His mind would picture his fingers moving to the notes, and his eyes would close to the beauty of the music that streamed through the speakers and into his ears. His violin would float out of the casing, and for a moment he'd sit up in his bed and start playing along with the tune. No more dust covering the violin, or the purple veins crawling along his leg like spider webs. He'd be the same as the picture on his dresser, handsome and proud all over again.

Then of course, his eyes would open and he'd be staring at the blank piece of ceiling, without his violin but with the music still playing in the background. The audience would applause at the end, for a violinist that is not him. All that he is now, is a broken violinist, one that remains in bed and dreams of the days that could have been, but never came. It is a rather morbid thought I must admit, a life you wouldn't want to imagine such a person to lead. But it is too hard, to tell that person in the face that everything is going to be alright, everything is going to be fine. Because things aren't, and you just start to wonder if a miracle is ever going to happen to a brilliant person such as he is. To release him from the trap that bounds him to his bed and fate. Perhaps a miracle, or even death to take him away from his pain. Because really, no matter how much hope or faith you have, it is still a sad and depressing thing to know, that the person that affected you the most in your life, is now lying in bed paralyzed and unable to speak at all.

So the music lives on in my life, but not his. I am still playing music in my own time, though not on my violin anymore. My mother's been too busy to touch her violin, and she has forgotten most of the stuff that was taught to her. However, we remain avid fans of classical music, and would turn up the volume of any classical pieces in the car, especially during any violin solos. Perhaps in our hearts - at least for me - we will hear his music transcended through the notes once more, a miracle that is only in our minds but not in reality. But I guess, such a fool's hope, is really all that we can hope for in a man like himself. His life, his passion, and his love, shall live on in the music that we both got to like and love in the days to come. As if all music appreciated is a tribute to him, I hope for the very best in your life - even if that life is going to be imaginary and remains only in the confinement of your mind.

He may move slow,
But that don't mean he's going nowhere,
He may be moving slow,
But that don't mean he's going nowhere.