Video description: Nithish wrote this song in school after finally being able to spend a significant amount of time with me after six months of not seeing me. It came all at once, sung to him line by line by the inner voice. It was sung to the tune of “Daylight” by David Kushner, and I did the best I could to make it sound like that song when I took the wrapper he wrote it on and put it to my guitar. I was able to consult with him during that process.
Losing a child in circumstances where the child also loses you his parent sets up heartbreak on a level of suffering that is simply hell, for the parent and the kid, because your kid isn’t dead; your daddy isn’t dead. Both are in easy seeing distance but cannot even talk on the phone or message each other, and that is a knife that does not stop stabbing as time goes on. As long as that kid’s a kid, and even after, and as long as that daddy’s a daddy, hope assails you in the same place as despair, and all the bad voices are saying bye, all the good voices are saying hi. Now you can hear the song. He loves his daddy.
Now I can’t be a boy. Now I can’t be a boy. A bitter thing that I’ve gone through. Now I can’t be a boy. Now I can’t be a boy, and the play plays strong in your strong eyes. Bury your head. Now I can’t be a boy.
Verse 1
What I’m goin’ through. I never boy. Years of file I wore my grandfather. Try to overcome the world in some fear. Well I’ll be damned, there’s gotta be another way. Come and hurt me, tearing at the edges of my mind.
Verse 2
Put hands together. Maybe I’m wrong, I’m goin’ where Christ the energy. Call your boss and forgive her, your mother. Even if I restart my family, now I can’t be a boy. Hopefully it will happen this time, gonna knock on doors again, have a beautiful time.
Verse 3
Marco, Polo. She stand him file, his mother. Too over, it’s over. He walks along disaster in English. He was alone. Where my mother put me so sad and alone. It’s gonna take some time I’m not the right person. You gotta figure it out. A 93 It doesn’t take anything. There may be a fall.
Verse 4
I spoke to the cinema. I’ve come up with another way, respect and honor to the people that I love, my grandfather. Yes I’ve opened to you, Yes you love me, yes you do. You mouse, big changes ahead. I will father the way, overcome the world.
Verse 5
His life is basically over, that’s what I’m goin’ through. Real men would not do this to Nithish. Years put everything onto the child. It’s a child made to feel all alone. It’s a child made to dump on. You won’t hear the child. Changed my life. Now I can’t be a boy. Now I can’t be a boy.
I wanna be a boy. Everybody sound impatient. Sunlight I’m gonna be. I’m gonna be a hero.
This is Nitish’s new video for his YouTube Channel
Nitish wrote this song himself, while in school. Sitting in class, the core of the song and its basic melody came to him via the inner voice in the space of several minutes. He heard the lines sung to him on the inside, and he copied them down one by one, a process he’s watch me do since he was very small in the writing of poetry. Then, over the course of the next two weeks, as I put the song to the guitar, both he and I heard lines of the song sung to us on the inside, my muse giving the last 2 lines of the 3rd verse and the last 5 lines of the song, the repeats not included.
You may not grasp the significance of an 11-year-old having this kind of ability and talent, or that of his inner self speaking its truth. Heretofore he’s only written lines of poetry via the inner voice, and this is his first song. And, despite him not being able to carry a tune to save his life, it’s a song so you might listen to him this time, this video, as it seems you only really like music videos.
This minor miracle is a soul rescue. The boy was once again on the verge of tears at school, because he’s unable to keep up academically because of undiagnosed dyslexia, but at least at this school he’s not being beaten for it, as has happened in the past, trauma that surfaces very easily. His soul is not telling him he’s a victim, however. It’s letting him tell how he feels, but, it’s telling him not to run from his challenges. It’s interesting that it’s not telling him to do good in school but to shine in his room, your room in dream and vision a symbol for your own personal room in the house of humanity, your individuality, your personal consciousness, the body included, distinct from others but an integral part of the whole. We need parents, teachers, religions, organizations, big business, and governments to respect the sanctity of our room.
You might understand that the sudden attention to the song and the making of this video concentrated him on a difficult task, not to mention the awesomeness of having your inner self sing you such a song and all the faith in the divine that brings—like God really cares—drawing his attention away from his suffering and his ‘woe is me’ attitude, and it’s also helped him to cope at school, and now he’s doing a little better academically, but he wants me to home school him, something I very much want to do because it’s my job with him to teach him the craft of the poet-seer, my craft, and tell me the Tamil people and the world does not need another poet of that force and stature. Here are some recent lines of his inner poetry:
ஒலைய வெட்றது மட்டும் தான் நம்ப வேல, ஒலைய கட்டுறது கடவுலோடய வேல. [Translation: Don’t believe just the sound. Building a sound is a divine task.]
I wasn’t born to be my parent’s child. I was born to be the universe’s child. You will express trauma.
Sometimes you can bend life.
God’s gift.
He’s wearing a ghost costume and a makeshift burka as a means of protest. It’s an artistic representation of the social position of children. Their voice is not respected or even heard, and they are not looked at as real people but only as someone to indulge, protect, and care for. Adults speak for them and tell them what they should think and how they should feel. They have no right to be an individual. They must obey the adults in their life, and they must go to school. If they protest, they’re threatened with punishment. It’s as though they themself, their personhood, is a ghost because it’s not seen or recognized.
The costume is also a creative symbol of the attitude in society of restricting the images of children in the public sphere of the internet, speaking of images that are not pornographic in nature. It’s as though we’re putting burkas on them in our attitude and, increasingly, in our policies. Specifically, we are protesting YouTube recently taking down a video, “Nitish 9 to 10”, a video that features photos and videos of him around the house and outside. In some of the indoor shots he’s in his underwear. There are no nude shots, no shots to suggest anything sexual. No strike was given for the video. As time goes on, YouTube is restricting content more and more, and what was okay before suddenly isn’t now. We would like YouTube to reinstate the video or at least give it back, as we don’t have a copy of it, and it’s an important record of his childhood.
