The more I listen to music, the more I realise how deeply I am enraptured by it. When I light upon a song that instantly appeals to me, I feel thrilled knowing I have more music in the world for my dopamine. I discovered Sting when his “Desert Rose” played on TV back in 1999. The music video features him recording a dusking landscape on a pocket camcorder while travelling through a desert, dreaming of rain and gardens, before nonchalantly making his way into a sizzling nightclub to duet with an artiste singing fervently in Arabic.

Besides books, my childhood home in Kesargadde, India, was filled with electrical paraphernalia, owing to my father’s flair and fondness for repairing and building electrical devices, one of which was a radio he fashioned from a copper wire mesh. I recall an evening when his unorthodox radio, swinging from the ceiling, caught the enchanting “Desert Rose” from the airwaves. Hearing my favourite song emanate from a source other than myself always leaves me pleasantly bewildered, and awakened—literally, like one Sunday morning, when the loud playing of Shakira’s “Suerte” jolted me awake, spurring me to trace the music to its source, only to realise that it was my father’s clever ploy to encourage me to rise and shine. The evening when “Desert Rose” was cracking through the radio noise, my father mused on its fine fusion of Western and Arabic elements. Having since explored Sting’s discography, I have developed a deep appreciation for his ability to blend a myriad of musical styles.

Some years later, I stumbled upon Sting’s other gems on my desktop computer: “A Thousand Years”, alongside exquisite renditions of “Perfect Love Gone Wrong” and “Fragile”—renditions that I failed to find online for so long, as I only recently discovered their official names. Though I favoured a different genre at the time, his melodies gradually grew on me, earning a permanent place in my music library. So, last year, when I learnt of his upcoming concert, I secured a ticket well in advance.

The concert was set in a large wood in an English village. Contrary to earlier forecasts, the evening was bright, without a cloud in the sky. My lack of common sense—glaring when unaccompanied—was evident as I marched to a distant bar, instead of the nearby, exclusive one designated for my ticket type. Spirits increased neither my courage to face the sparse congregation nor my confidence to navigate the social milieu; they only increased my trips to the (wrong) portaloo. On the luminous evening, I longed for the cover of darkness to cloak my series of missteps. At long last, the man who dreamt of rain and gardens in the desert sand emerged ever so humbly and embellished the evening with his very being. Seamlessly seguing from one song to the next with anecdotes, he transported us to fields of desert roses and gold. 

As the concert drew to a close and he left the stage, a cluster of attendees near me began singing “Roxanne”, seemingly attempting to coax him back for an encore performance of the beloved song, which would have perfectly capped off their (and my) evening. Returning to the stage, he acknowledged the request while admitting he couldn’t quite discern the song in demand, only to serendipitously launch into “Roxanne” after all.

To witness in real life the person behind the songs that were a balsam in one phase and a wistful reminder in another was gratifying an experience, for it added a tangible dimension to my relationship with his music, deepening the connection. Going to Sting’s concert was akin to going on a pilgrimage, and might I say I was stung, to my heart’s content.