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I Was Born
I cried out in terror. The world was dazzlingly bright, a dry light struck my eyes, and I felt my body cracking from dryness and cold. The pain faded, but an endless cold remained. The smooth world gave way to infinite forms, sharpness, and an unbearably piercing noise. My mother was a memory of a past paradise. Her scent lingered in layers. When her scent drifted away, I felt bottomless fear, as if I were falling into an abyss without it. My left side longs for my mother; she’s long gone, probably because she lay more on her right side, so I was on her left. The most shameful thing is that I don’t remember the taste of breast milk. I can only abstractly imagine the pleasure I must have felt swallowing my first food. I was probably a glutton. Even now, I love to overeat, but reason holds me back. The scariest place in our house was the corner where the washbasin stood. It was dark, and it always made sounds. A drop would fall from the washbasin, then roll down with a deafening clatter against the metal, and then drip into a bucket with a gurgle. These were different sounds, and after someone washed their hands or face, the randomness of the sounds overwhelmed me—there was no order. The drops went mad, water poured noisily into the bucket for a long time. When the bucket was empty, a drop would try to pierce the bottom with a ferocious sound. It was strangely fascinating to hear the variety of sounds that played out a drama, filling the bottom, calming down from the futility of trying to break through the bucket’s base.
• Everything was covered in woven smoke; the shapes of emerging objects were mesmerizing and unsettling. It felt the same as at dusk before sunset, when shadows transition into night. The process of distinguishing objects didn’t register. How did I pass through that range? Why didn’t I notice?
My father was 32, and my mother was 38 when I was born. My father was 33 when I took my first steps. Nothing makes me suffer more than my inability to recall how I started walking. Who saw it? From that moment, I began to see myself from the outside. A vision overwhelms me—sharp edges of a nightstand and my head aiming to hit that very corner. Why didn’t I bump into the flat part?
I saw myself below, near the frog pond by the cemetery. I was a frog dreaming of flying, and I was one of the birds holding a stick for the frog’s future flight. I was the sky and the greenery that smelled in thick layers. Perhaps my mother told me this famous fairy tale, or maybe she didn’t tell it but thought she would when she had time.
My active creative life coincided with the spiritual revival of the nation. Time was kind to me—my soul’s sounds didn’t clash with it. I naturally entered the sparkling sea of my people’s soul. To my great fortune, I grew up in my native soundscape, hearing my mother’s gentle lullaby whispers, feeling immense love through the sounds directed at me. For some, folklore is a revelation; for me, it was the environment of my existence from birth. My remote forest village, untouched by the atheistic claws of the system, remained pure. Natural life was only marred by falling into nettles or fighting with geese.
I believe adult life is a hyperbolic repetition of childhood. Those unhappy in childhood remain so for life, but the beauty and happiness of my childhood grew into a harmonious perception of the world. Creativity is a divine essence. Shaping sounds to express thought doesn’t come from a composer’s fleeting desire. Sounds and thoughts take shape not from birth but perhaps from the beginning of the world’s existence. In this mortal world, sound connects generations of humanity. The body turns to dust, the soul passes into an unknown substance awaiting the Last Judgment, and only sound weaves humanity into a single resonant thread. Some Tatar composers use folklore indirectly. For heaven’s sake… everyone has their own aesthetic concept, their own task. I don’t use it—I live in it. A hen doesn’t teach a sparrow where, why, or how to fly, or what songs to sing, or whether its wings flap correctly or what color it’s painted. Surah 109, verse 6: “To you your religion, to me mine.” It pains me when a piece of a people’s melody is snatched and barbarically corrupted to suit a three-day Euro-Moscow training. But who has the right to dig into someone else’s mind and search for creative motives? Still, there are unwritten ethical laws for composers. My people have nothing but their beautiful soul—no material wealth. Don’t trample it with unwashed feet.
Portrait of a Musician:
Human language cannot convey everything a person feels. Perhaps there’s something yet to be revealed, allowing people to share their deepest selves. For now, there’s music, which helps people communicate on a higher level than through language or physical interaction. The musician is the intermediary between music and humanity. Musicians are people of extremes—vulnerable, narcissistic, selfish, tormented, ambitious, needing support and patronage, cruel to themselves and others, utterly helpless in the world, unable to stand up for themselves. Without music, musicians are like fish without water, like a person without air. A musician speaking of music is both suffering and infinite happiness. A musician must face no obstacles to self-expression; they must believe they make the world happy—without them, the world would perish. They need adoration. They deserve it, as they give the world their naked essence, offering themselves entirely.
Masguda Shamsutdinova
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