Lajpat Nagar, South New Delhi, India - 12:11pm

The streets were particularly crowded today. He may be blind, but his ears never failed him. The sun blazed strongly from the heavens and the heat felt piercing. To him, what people say about the sun being millions of miles away seemed to be the most ridiculous idea.

He stood there waiting while his spot in this world was being prepared. His son laid down his mat for him like he has been doing since he was 12. The speakers. Check. His guitar. Check. His microphone, well, that was already in his hands, he was grasping it tightly as if someone was on the prowl to get it from him. People would never understand him; he has accepted this fact for a long time.

They don’t know how music has brought him to where he was, they didn’t know that it’s what brought him to his wife, that it’s what brought him to a life of peace, joy and love—things which were once very elusive. They wouldn’t understand now that even though his children were already self-sufficient, he was still singing for coins in this market place. It wasn’t really about the coins; it was more of the jingling of the coins in the can. See, there was a difference. Every note, every beat, everything seemed justified when a coin is dropped. The jingling somehow says that he was appreciated, that he was entertaining, that he was significant, and above all, that he was listened to. He may have been blind with a lot of limitations, but he was seen and heard. Some of those who have the gift of seeing may never ever experience this in their lifetimes.

He’d live like this forever if he could—with or without the can. To him, music was all he ever had. In his sea of blackness, it was a star—the only light he will ever see on this earth.