Master

The words are by Kamala Das who was born in southern Malabar in 1934 and is one of India’s most distinguished poets. She has written, “From every city I have lived I have remembered the noons in Malabar with an ache growing inside me, a homesickness”.

This setting, for soprano and piano trio, employs additive rhythm and instrumental doubling to capture something of the suppleness and richness of Indian music. It was first performed by Patrizia Rosario and Chamber Music Company at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival on 14 October 1997.

This is a noon for beggars with whining

Voices, a noon for men who come from hills

With parrots in a cage and fortune cards,

All stained with time, for brown kurava girls

With old eyes, who read palms in light singsong

Voices, for bangle-sellers who spread

On the cool black floor those red and green and blue

Bangles, all covered with the dust of roads,

For all of them, whose feet, devouring rough

Miles, grow cracks on the heels, so that when they

Clambered up our porch, the noise was grating,

Strange....This is a noon for strangers who part