The Music Man...

A few weeks ago, a friend called me that I hadn’t heard from for a while and asked, "Did you open a music store?" I was pretty sure I had not, so I said, "Not that I know of." This seemed to satisfy, so he said, "Ok, thought so, talk to you later."

I had dismissed this as just another example of that particular acquaintance’s zany wonkiness, but then the next week, the same topic resurfaced. I met a girl at a party and was valiantly attempting some small talk, when she said, "Oh, you’re the guy who teaches music." This really threw me off. "Ahhh, no, not me." I said, and then stood there waiting for her to elaborate. But apparently, she did not feel any explanation was necessary. And so, like a ship adrift in the horse latitudes desperate for a breeze, I found myself once again mired in the awkward silence of small talk without a segue. "Ok," I said, "Nice talking to you." To which she said, "Yeah, keep up the good work." I really had no idea what the hell that was supposed to mean.

Over the next couple of weeks I would get the odd call asking, for example, if I still worked at TRC now that I had the music store, and my curiosity had reached a peak. Finally, my friend Mekaal from Lahore, who’s a fantastic guitarist, called me and said, "Dude, I’m standing in front of a place called Dave’s School of Music, is that you?" "For Christ’s sake Mekaal," I said, "We talked about music all last night, don’t you think I might have mentioned if I ran a music store?" I tried to get Mekaal to explain where this mysterious store was located, but he’s not too familiar with Karachi, so I only got a vague idea.

Then, the other day, I dropped off a friend at a hair salon in Khadda Market. I was waiting for a car to squeeze by me, in typical small lane Karachi driving fashion, when I happened to glance up and there it was. A small shop with a sign board reading, "Dave School of Music."

I have got to find the time to go in there and check this out. In a way, I feel a little irritated. I feel like saying, "Hey, I hold patent on being Dave of Karachi." And if I go in there and find out that this Instrumental Dave character is white with long hair I just don’t know what I’ll do. But in another sense, I’m thinking this might save me making up reasons for why I moved to Pakistan. "Are you the guy that runs that music store?" "Yes, Yes I am." End of story. Considering the ridiculous stories I’ve made up for why I’m here that people have accepted at face value, I’m sure that the idea of moving across the world to open a tiny music store in the third world will go over gangbusters. After all, I do want to teach the world to sing.