Chapter 1.1

On the excellent advice of my darling wife I am inserting more chapters in before chapter 2 in order to reduce reader-shock.

It was said by some that Alyami came from the womb singing an ode to childbirth and his mother. Others said that this is ridiculous, no child could know how to sing a song before he had been born. No, they said, Alyami's cries were simply so beautifully toned that the birds wept and flowers bloomed and the sun came out. Whatever the truth of the matter it is certain that from the earliest of ages Alyami was beautiful music.

A dark eyed, olive skinned child, born to doting parents (a miller and his wife) Alyami grew up in the sometime dusty, sometimes lush, sometimes muddy village of Dalheenya at the base of the foothills of the Roof of the World. In the summer the sky would be an infinitely distant, shimmering cyan bowl, blasting the parched land with heat. As a toddler Alyami would wander away from his mother resting in the cool of her hut, across the baked dust of the street into the shade of the huge banyan tree and warble intricate melodies that weaved like the many trunks of the tree. He would run his chubby little hands in the dust and clap them together, delighting in the clouds of dust, his laughter like a thousand chimes in a rustling breeze. When his mother found him each time she would prepare herself to scold him for getting himself so filthy, but he would call, "Mama" with such evident delight that her heart melted and she held him to her heart with utter joy.

When the first rains came, showers and brief storms seemingly out of nothing, the trees and bushes would awake from their torment, reaching towards the offering from the sky. Alyami would cry aloud in triumph and joy for his beloved banyan tree. Each brief pattering of raindrops greeted with its own song. Alyami's mother would carry him at her hip as she went out into the forest for firewood (it was a great sin to cut a living tree down for firewood) or for fruit. The birds and monkeys high up in the trees would call their greetings to Alyami, and he would answer in kind, causing them to scuttle down the branches to see who this fine new fellow might be. Alyami would clap his little chubby hands together and give his tinkling laugh at the sights of the silly creatures, with their heads tilted sideways in curiosity.

When the monsoon came Alyami would sit on the verandah just out of reach of the splashes from the monstrous drops. He would collect a pot, a stool, and perhaps a spoon, and play a percussive symphony to the thrumming, drumming rain, the plink, thwup of the dripping roof, and cascading glory of the thunder. After a while his family just heard everything as music, and the sounds soothed them in their lethargy as they waited the long, lovely, beautifully wasted weeks of the monsoon.

Alyami grew to be a handsome boy, quick witted, with a sly smile and a dreamy air. He was always slightly plump, a rarity in the village and probably because the mothers all couldn't seem to stop themselves from giving him little treats. Oh, but he was a lazy boy, prone to forgetting his chores by staring into the forest, or up into the mountains, his lips moving in silent song, or his hands wandering in the heavy air, pointing out the high points of a melody. Somehow he managed to not get beaten very much for this slackness, for everyone could see that he had been touched by the gods and was not made to toil in the fields.

When he became twelve years old, the time for his childhood to be over and his apprenticeship to begin, the village presented him with a beautifully carved rabab for him to play, and assisted him in the repair of the old hut that stood on the hill just a little above the village that had been used by those who wished to perfect their spirit in meditation towards the end of their days. Here Alyami would rise with the dawn to feel the rush of sunlight and the chorus of the forest, then take a nap. Sometime in the afternoon he would sit on his verandah, plucking the gut strings of his precious rabab and dreaming. Then he would take a nap. As the sun fell into the west he would rise and go into the village to entertain, gossip and flirt.

Alyami would take long, slow walks through the beautiful forest, chattering with his friends in the trees, swimming in the pools, absorbing the intricacies of the droning, humming, buzzing insects. As he became a little older girls of the village would also find themselves on extended walks within the forest, meeting with Alyami as he bathed, but neglecting to mention this to their parents when they returned with blushes and a scant harvest. Mothers started to set off into the forest to catch their mischievous daughters, and also seemed not only to have no success in this at all, but also returned with rosy cheeks and empty hands.

During the next couple of years a round of sweet, dark-eyed babies, with olive skin and musical laughs were born within the village. Some to scandalously unwed maidens who were rapidly married to an available young man of adequate stolidity, but some came surprisingly to the wives of solid, sensible, established farmers. By the age of seventeen the village decided, or at least the council men decided, that it was unfair for their little village to keep this god-given gift of music for just themselves. Alyami was equipped with a fine pair of walking shoes, a solid walking stick, a beautifully embroidered dhoti, and a bag of dried nuts and berries.

With many, many, and again many tearful goodbyes Alyami strapped his beloved rabab to his back, clutched his walking stick and strode up the path up the valley and away from the only place he had ever known.