The Great Pianist (standard:fairy tales, 3137 words)
Author: Rattan Mann	Added: Oct 19 2004	Views/Reads: 3917/2460	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
The story of a "great man".

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

leaves and mocking the birds instead.  She started laughing.  It looked 
as if she had never been so happy before because nobody had ever lifted 
her so high up in the air. Within a second she forgot that there was 
something called tears or home. 

When the girl was once more her old happy self, the Gentle Giant brought
her back to the earth as gently as he had taken her up into the sky. 

Of course he would bring her back to her home.  But that also meant
parting company with her.  He didn't know when a child would speak to 
him again.  So to be with her as long as possible he started talking to 
her, asking her silly questions and telling her silly old things which 
made her laugh. 

As evening began to approach and it was time to take her home, he asked
the question he had been saving till the last moment. 

"Sweetheart, What will you give me if I bring you back to your home? And
I won't do it unless you promise to give me all you have got." 

Of course, he did not want anything from the girl.  What can a little
girl give to a great giant?  And she had made him so happy, made him 
laugh for the first time in ages, even if for just a little while, that 
she had already given him more than anybody else. 

The girl became sad again.  She was poor.  She had nothing to give him. 
Even her mom had nothing for a giant.  She badly wanted to invite him 
for dinner, but they hardly had food for themselves.  So in a rather 
sad voice she replied, 

"What can I give you?  Gentle Giant, I don't have much.  But I can teach
you how to play the piano and sing with it.  That is all I know.  That 
is all I have got." 

The Gentle Giant couldn't beleive his ears.  If he could play the piano
and sing, he wouldn't have to be a butcher.  That is what he had wanted 
all his life.  And now the little girl would fulfill his life-dream. 

The Gentle Giant jumped up with joy.  He became as excited as a child
and began shouting, 

"Oh yes, little girl, teach me how to play the piano and sing. Then,
instead of asking something from you, I will give you all I have.  I 
swear.  I promise." 

"I don't want anything from you, Gentle Giant.  Just promise to take me
home and right now I will teach you everything I know." 

And she started running towards the nearest tree. 

But the Gentle Giant saw a problem at once which the little girl did not
- there was no piano. 

"Little girl, we have no piano.  How can you teach me how to play it.?" 

"Silly Giant, you don't need a piano to play the piano.  I don't have a
piano either.  Mom can't afford it.  But I play it all the time." 

"But how?" the Gentle Giant interrupted. 

"My mom told me giants are always very stupid - big in body but little
in brain.  Stupid, just imagine anything, and think that it is a piano, 
and it will become a piano.  It will produce the most beautiful music 
on earth.  It is as simple as that. Just watch me." 

By now the little girl was standing besides a tree.  She started moving
her fingers on the bark as if she was playing the piano. 

"Stupid, do you hear the music now?" 

"No, I don't hear anything."  The Gentle Giant was his old sad self
again.  His dream to change his profession was gone. 

The little girl bent down, picked up a few dead leaves, and threw them
high up in the air. 

"Listen again silly, listen again.  The music is growing louder. It is
reaching out for the sky.  You can't miss it this time." 

And the little girl started moving her fingers on the bark again, as if
she was possessed. 

The Gentle Giant was hearing nothing.  His dream to change his
profession was dissolving fast like a drop of ink in an ocean.  But he 
wouldn't let his dream go.  It was now or never. He tried again.  He 
closed his eyes and tried to listen to the music that was rising with 
the leaves the girl had thrown into the air and filling the Cosmos.  
Still he couldn't hear anything. Then he forgot the tree.  He forgot 
the leaves. With eyes closed he tried to peer into the heart and soul 
of the little girl. He became a little girl himself.  And suddenly it 
was all there. The piano was there.  The music was there.  The song was 
there. 

"Yes, I hear it, little girl.  Yes,I hear it now." he shouted. 

He became as excited as a child again.  But he wouldn't open his eyes. 
He was afraid that everything would vanish into the thin air if he 
opened them. 

But the girl started laughing. 

"Silly Giant, don't be afraid.  Open your eyes.  The piano and the music
would still be there." 

The Gentle Giant opened his eyes.  To his surprise, everything was still
there as before.  Nothing vanished into thin air. 

He rushed to the tree, and started moving his fingers on the bark with
the little girl.  He was playing the piano and hearing the music more 
loudly and clearly than anything he had heard before.  He was in a new 
universe where everything was perfect joy and pure music. 

Then the girl started singing.  And he started singing with her. Then
the girl stopped.  But he kept on singing.  He had learned how to play 
the piano and sing.  He had learned a new profession.  And he would 
never be a butcher again.  He wanted nothing more.  He kept on playing 
the piano and singing long after the girl had stopped. 

The girl stood silent and watched him.  It was now her turn to peer into
his heart and soul and become a Gentle Giant herself.  She wished she 
knew how to do it.  But she did not.  She was just a little girl. 

It was almost night.  But the Gentle Giant did not want to take the
little girl home.  And she too did not care about home anymore. Both 
wanted to play the piano and sing forever.  But the Gentle Giant knew 
that if somebody caught him with a little girl at night they would kill 
him.  So it was time to take her home. 

The little girl could give only a very vague and confused description of
the village she lived in.  But the Gentle Giant knew all the villages 
in the area very well.  So he could guess where she lived.  He took a 
very complicated route through the forest to her village because he 
wanted to avoid been seen with a little girl at all cost.  He knew the 
consequences all too well. 

When they arrived at her village the Gentle Giant remained in the forest
and told the girl to go ahead.  From his hiding behind a tree he 
watched her till she had reached home safely. Then as he turned to go 
back, he suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to ask her name. 

The next day, instead of going to his shop, the Gentle Giant went to the
junkyard in search of a piano.  But all he could find was a smashed 
guitar.  So he picked up the smashed guitar from the rubble and went to 
the street corner and started playing it.  It was a very beautiful and 
sublime music that came out of the smashed guitar. A crowd gathered 
round him.  Even those who hated him and would not go near him hid 
behind shops and houses to listen to his music. Then he started 
singing.  And the guitar and the guitarist, the singer and the song, 
became one. 

When he was finished an amazed crowd asked him, 

"Hangman, where did you learn to play the guitar." 

The Gentle Giant got angry. 

"It is not a guitar.  It is a piano." 

People could not beleive their ears.  They thought he had gone crazy. 
They saw no point in arguing with him or asking anything more. 

From that day the Gentle Giant stopped being a butcher.  He stopped
going to his shop and killing animals.  From morning to evening he 
stood on the street-corner and played the guitar. But he wouldn't let 
anybody call it a guitar.  He would get angry and stone anybody who 
called his broken guitar a broken guitar.  For him it was the most 
beautiful and expensive piano on earth. 

"The little girl told me to touch anything with my fingers, imagine that
it is a piano, and it becomes a piano.  A tree is a piano.  A leaf is a 
piano.  A bird in the sky is a piano. Close your eyes and listen.  It 
is not the music of a guitar. It is the music of a piano." 

Some beleived him.  Others did not.  Some thought he was crazy. Others
that he was possessed.  Some closed their eyes and stll heard a guitar. 
 Others closed their eyes and indeed heard a piano.  But everybody 
agreed it was very sublime music indeed. And so nobody really cared if 
it was guitar music or piano music. Slowly they got used to his strange 
behaviour.  Nobody expected anything better from him.  After all he was 
a strange man. 

And slowly he became famous.  Even people from distant villages came to
hear his music.  And they began to call him a pianist because he 
wouldn't let them call him a guitarist.  Everybody was afraid to call 
him a guitarist but nobody called him a Hangman anymore. 

And after he became famous the head-priest came to him and said, 

"Gentle Giant, come to the church and play the piano.  We will ask our
craftsmen to make the most beautiful and expensive piano on earth for 
you.  All you have to say is yes." 

But the Gentle Giant won't go to the church to play the piano. 

"The little girl said you don't have to have a piano to play the piano. 
You don't have to have a church to pray.  It is all inside you - the 
piano, the church, the music, the prayer and the song.  That is what 
the little girl said." 

And the head-priest went away.  He saw no point in arguing with a
madman. 

One day the Gentle Giant told the crowd, 

"I have played enough piano and sung enough songs.  Now I want to dance
the most beautiful dance on earth." 

So again the head-priest came to him and said, 

" Gentle Giant, just come to the church and play the piano. Then we will
find you the best dancers in the world and they will teach you the best 
dances.  And you can dance all the dances you want for the rest of your 
life.  All you have to say is yes." 

"No, your best dancers are not good enough for me.  The little girl is
the best dancer in the world.  Only she can teach me the best dance.  
Before she left, she told me that next time we meet she will teach me 
how to dance.  She promised.  So all I have to do now is find her." 

Again the head-priest went away.  He hated the Hangman because to the
Hangman the words of a little girl meant more than the words of a 
powerful head-priest. 

And the giant went from village to village in search for the little
girl.  But he never found her.  People loved his music but hated him 
because he was different.  They still feared him because he was so big 
and strong and when they saw him coming they hid their children from 
him.  So he never found the little girl.  And so he never danced 
because he refused to learn dancing from anybody else. 

As the Gentle Giant became older he became more and more eccentric. He
always talked of a little girl who knew everything and could teach 
anybody anything.  By now he had disciples- people who loved his music 
and did not care whether he called his guitar a guitar or a piano.  
They asked him to tell them her name.  Then they would look for her 
everwhere and won't come back till they found her.  But he had 
forgotten to ask her name.  So nobody could find her. 

And one day he even threw away his guitar and stopped singing. He would
pick up a leaf and whisper something to it.  When somebody asked what 
he was doing, he would say he was playing the piano and singing a song. 
 He would look at the sky the whole day and watch the birds flying.  
But again if somebody asked him what he was doing he would say he was 
playing the piano and singing the most beautiful songs. 

People said he had become senile.  Nobody came to hear his music anymore
because there was nothing to hear.  But he was always playing the piano 
and singing songs without caring if others heard anything or not.  And 
when he was tired of playing or singing, he would talk to the little 
girl as if she was sitting beside him.  Some enjoyed his crazy 
behaviour. It offered some diversion from their monotonous life. 

"The little girl said that everything is in the mind. I don't have to do
anything to play the piano or sing a song. That is what the little girl 
said." he would tell anybody who would care to listen to him. But now 
fewer and fewer people were listening to him. 

So the Gentle Giant died at a ripe old age but without ever touching a
piano or learning how to dance.  After his death a great debate arose 
about the inscription on his tomb. He was so many things to so many 
people - a hangman, a camel, a donkey, a guitarist, a singer,  a 
madman, and what not. No two people could agree as to what history 
should call him. After a heated debate they decided to call him what 
they thought he never was but what he himself thought he always was. So 
the epitaph simply read: 

" The Great Pianist" 

The End 

copyright @ Rattan Mann 2004 

Note: First published in www.oraculartree.com in 24 Sept. 04 issue 


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