Songs that make me cry

Lately, I've been feeling the deep emotions inside me connect with some of the older Telugu film songs that I happened to search for and listen to. Don't be mistaken/undermining the fact that I would be writing about some Telugu songs. These are beautifully written, with pure language connotations and not written for praise but songs that automatically draw praise for every line because of their deep rooted meaning.

I've narrowed down the reasons as to why these songs make me cry, to the following: 

• either the song writer's lyrics were meant to evoke those feelings or
• that I see myself echoing those lyrics somewhere or the other in my mind. 
• Ultimately, when you are in your deepest emotions it is your mother tongue that you connect with the most (A theory my brother had which I find to be quite deep and true) 

ALL-WEATHER?

To clarify, it is not the case that every time I listen to these songs my emotions get evoked. Rather I listen to these songs when I'm in a certain state of mind. (the advantages of being the consumer) And again, it is not just Telugu songs that I connect to but almost songs from every language (some which I don't understand as well) where the lyrics have been beautifully written. E.g., Challa, Cham Cham Jaani Ratein, etc. And its not the music (will require another post for that) but the lyrics (and perhaps the tune) that moved me the most. 

Also, to begin with I've heard these songs or have seen them somewhere or the other but never really paid too much attention. I guess the reason for that is the same as why a class 1 student would not be able to appreciate Calculus. You are simply not in that zone, there's a journey you need to undertake and then, as if by a natural intuition, you start learning or tending towards appreciating it. 

Absorbing the songs

Once I'm done with a song: either I've heard it a zillion times or the emotional connect passes away; I find another song. (This brings a great deal of infidelity when applied to relationships, but there we have dynamically changing verses and here it is a static verse). Repeated listening allows us to extract the juice from each song (almost) fully. That, in fact, is the reason why I'd like to write down my emotions, because: 

1. It helps absorb stuff faster than plain listening.
2. And those initial thoughts and feelings of freshness can easily be forgotten later. And it would be hard to express them exactly as you found them to be. (Much like documentation; which is never written while working on a project).

But we cannot absorb any piece of art fully; even if you don't why you would agree with that. I feel its because: 

• a piece of art can extend well beyond what the artist thought it out to be or 
• because of people's perception about the art. 

While separating the perceived emotions from the artist's intentions is in itself difficult, being able to capture all possible interpretations is impossible. (Perhaps it could be fun writing an algorithm: given a piece of art write all possible interpretations: separating the artist's intentions and audience's perceptions and then checking if summing the latter would equal the possibilities). And hence, it is important to revisit any piece of art (in my opinion even projects we work upon) because we can interpret new stuff in new environments with an elevated level of thinking. For example, once you learn Unix programming Matrix (1999) seems all the more comprehensible.

My experiments

So to begin with, I'm in a certain state of mind and I happen to start searching for a song/piece of writing that best expresses this emotion. You gotta take a leap of faith here and believe that I've found the most suitable song for myself at this juncture. Here are the songs and the exact (beautifully written deep-rooted) lyrics that literally make me cry. 

Taraliraada tane vasantham

Setting: Well past midnight, after you've finished your work; this song will give you the hope that your hard work will pay off and more inspiration to work harder. 

taraliraada tane vasantham

tana dariki raani vanalakosam

gaganala daaka ala saagakunte 

meghala raagam ila cherukoda

Thakita Thadimi Thakita Thadimi Thandana

Setting: Again past midnight, after a normal day; this song will tell you the ephemeral nature of life and what it is about. I'm yet to fully figure out the meaning though :( 

Narudi brathuka natana 

Eswaradu talupu ghatana

Aa renti natti naduma 

Neekenduku intha tapana

Telusa manasa neekidi telisi alusa

Telisi teliyani aasala vayasee varasaa

Telusa manasa neekidi telisi alusaa

Telisi teliyani aashala la la laa la laaa

I'm in awe of the brilliant touch of "la la laa la laaa" too! 

Brochevaru Evurara

Setting: I've found two extreme moods for absorbing this song: either when you feel a bit haughty or when you are on the brink of losing hope. It would tell you that there is someone always looking after you and that you needn't ever worry. 

Brochevaru evarura

Ninu vina

Raghuvaraa

Nannu brochevaru evaruraa

I've come up with a blog especially for this purpose http://songthatmakesmecry.tumblr.com/ (should find a way to link multiple blog sites into -- website seems the best way; also I've found Tumblr to be much better for blogging than Blogger!) and will be updating both the full version of the lyrics and their meaning (something that is not readily available on the net unlike Hindi songs).

Thanks for reading until then. 

In the age of bashing and swearing

My friend was surprised and shocked to hear me hurl abuses while in traffic the other day. Verbosity was never my attribute and abuses, many thought, I never used much. But here's an experiment I've been running on myself; why should I be patient seeing people commit a mistake right in front of me. If I can, safely, teach them a lesson then why not.

Perhaps a bit of more calmness is required cause letting the steam off can be detrimental to ourselves; we loose our cool on even the smallest of things. But the key lies here doesn't it:

• We must be able to send out a strong message lest people take us for granted or think that we wouldn't say anything or worse, think we are not capable of standing up against them anyway.
• While at the same time we should not let the anger affect us, we must also be able to teach them a lesson and make them realize. I think it simply boils down to how we like to be dealt with in case we are the ones who commit such a mistake. A little bit of restraint is required we must not lose cool for every small thing and instead work on how to address it.

Well safe driving.

Being Laddu mama

Uday's one of the funniest, wittiest, smartest chaps to hit the planet. 

But behind the fun and wit, and the muscle and mass lies a soft-hearted 

and immensely mature person. 

One who cares, shares, and very rarely flares.

But he would flog me, every time he saw my try-a-rhyme-every-line poem, 

And then he would re-write a masterpiece out of it.

This is just a snippet from my final semester, during my internship, a  coupe of years ago. For the first time I was in the company of guys and gals younger than me and it just happened (or apparently I thought -- doesn't matter) that I turned out to be a little more mature than each of them. And then it struck me I was where Uday was all the time. He was way more mature than the rest of us.. well 80% of the time, the remaining 20% time KC would reign if I knew what I know about him now.

Now Uday always used to be busy:

• running around for lab sheets, 
• attending phone calls,
• finishing another 500-page novel, 
• puffing at the wind, 
• playing football, 
• constructing high-rise buildings of bread and papad (he did Civil engineering by the way -- no pun no pun) 

And yet had the time to throw a verbal punch at anyone passing by the wing.

To cut it short, I used the invisible guidance of Uday baba in all crucial junctures, such as:

• choosing between retrieving a lost Addidas cap on a weekend hike versus hitting the bed. 
• going to a movie versus going to the casino and so on and so forth. 

After a point of time though, I realized I don't really fit that role but can just learn to imbibe his temperament while dealing with people half his maturity. When the childishness wanes, it becomes more clear the role people who are more understanding played in your life and although I haven't seemingly done anything drastic to make my friends write a post about me I sure did pass through without losing my head. 

Remembering those first blog posts

I started blogging in the summer of 2008. That's almost 6 years now! But the interest in publishing each of the posts has always been the same. I cared a lot about the content (a little structure, structure-less though it seems now), the wording, the framing and perhaps the formatting. Not that there's anything wrong with it but its the primary difference between writing and blogging. While in writing you may care about the prose, the poetry, the subtext, etc.; blogging has its own language: you are even allowed to add in a photo here and there -- ain't that cool. But I still went about carefully publishing stuff on this blog, they would remain in a draft state for up to a month until I get into that zone again. And because I could only put up the polished stuff here I took refuge in many a secret blogs across the internet.

Well today I want to say that this blog is going to change a bit, apart from finishing all the clean-up I hinted at in the last post:

• for one thing I'm going to import all the stuff I blurted elsewhere and 
• maybe do a bit more public-city. 

Cheers then if you've not been April-fooled. 

Clean-up

Well when there are over 75 posts, spread over 4-5 years and you look back at some of the stuff, you know a bit of it has to go. I'm both my best and worst critic. So who better to clean up the text and categorize it better and branch out a better.

• So I'm planning to move my movies/music stuff here: http://mast--kalandar.blogspot.in/
• Any serious learning stuff here: http://cognitivemanager.blogspot.in/
• And techie stuff here: http://abstrusetechie.blogspot.in/

And leave this blog open for the general ramblings so that whenever there's introspection, retrospection and any sort of inspection I have a ready place to look for it.

Well as Vineet was once asked
"is the chowkidar the only one person in Pilani not to have 4-5 blogs?" :D 

24

The last year has been entirely what I had imagined it would be,

• me lashing out at things that shouldn't be tolerated, 
• blasting a couple childhood friends who still seem to be stuck in the past, 
• changing impressions and mindsets of people within the many gangs I've been part of  
• trusting my instincts more and just going for it. 
• And then emptying the baggage all through, letting people and feelings pass by..

So I had transitioned from the extremely inward looking, emotionally detached person to something more of an ambivert (the dual thing has got me big time) and becoming more and more dependent on the people closest to me. But I feel I've struck a balance now, maybe that's for a later post.

And the good things: 

• Growth and contribution at work
• Some timeless memories and moments of epiphany
• Self-discovery, discovery of others and overcoming insecurities
• Gaining maturity but not really feeling like 24; still feels like 22 although the number makes me feel grown-up! 

Well here's what I envision for the coming year: to RISE.

The idea is to squeeze in two days worth in a single day,

At the same time maintaining work life balance

More physical & mental exercise and to compete 

Achieving the untapped potential, or the visualized potential
And yes, exploring life outside office :D 
PS. This time I'm not in a hurry, want to relive every moment

Cheers,
14-12-2013

Retrospection and Nostalgia

Retrospection

I've always been a strong believer in retrospection as a teacher. The sort of retrospection where you just look back and start smiling at the many times you've told yourself, "I should just get through this one day". Maybe an exam in a subject you dreaded or making some presentation of stuff you've never understood fully. But why would anyone want to revisit the moments that scared them the most? Two polar possibilities:

1. For some reason, you've had to continue doing the same stuff -- like a sportsperson -- but this time you've have kept it at; finally comprehending what you had missed to earlier. Most of my life I've always been in this category: of getting those late epiphanies and have also had company in a couple of friends who faced similar experiences. Or, 
2. You've landed yourself in yet another similar situation and get that sad, depressed feeling with a sense of deja vu` trying to recollect when you felt that worse. I guess we all have our own vulnerabilities and often find ourselves in such a situation.

I say polar because, in the former situation you end up feeling good about yourself -- looking at the maturity, the learning, on facing your demons, etc. While in the latter, you feel sadder, lose more confidence and just start crumbling and giving up.

There were infinite times when I just ran to a secluded place to think and re-think and gain something out of the exercise.

Nostalgia

Another feeling that traverses a similar path in our mind is a longing for things gone by. A longing for the good times that were, a longing for school days, a longing for a loved one, and the list goes on.

• And when is this triggered? Sights, sounds, and even smells! In fact, all the five senses.
• How does nostalgia effect us?
• Well, if there's not a huge change in your life -- you're living in the same city, with the same set of friends, with the same clothes -- then you'd feel happy and continue living it the same way. Not much to gain out of this. 
• If there's a drastic change to how you've been living life, say for example, you've enrolled in the army leaving aside your profession. When you start living in the most horrifying conditions of war and realizing the fragility of life, etc. you feel happy and sad immersing yourself in nostalgia.

Differences?
The differences are immediately obvious:

1. Nostalgia is more common, more talked about, more shared, more experienced. Whereas retrospection is something more personal -- something you can discuss only with people who know you, or know what you do, well. Retrospection is not something you just sit back, re-watch the moments go by, but you start doing something about it and in the process you learn and become better. 
2. Nostalgic feelings come once in a while, when you meet an old friend, visit your old school or anything with an 'old' prefix.Whereas retrospection could be about something dating a year back or a decision taken in the morning or even a second before.
3. Finally, nostalgia leaves us with both a sense of happiness and sadness, but retrospection affects us at one of the extremes. You feel the happiness of those times and yet feel sad that you are not there in that place anymore. 

Combining the two 

Since they go so closely, how about benefiting by using the two together? In no particular order as such.

Retrospection ending up in nostalgia is an important trap to avoid. We should retrospect without (always) succumbing to nostalgia, because the consequence is that every time you want to figure out what went wrong you'd get stuck like a tape at some point. And there's no real learning from it, you just have some happy-sad feelings.

But Nostalgia with Retrospection is more powerful. Not only do you recollect how things were, and soak in the emotion of it but also come out of it and start re-building yourself. And that is what the superhero thought I had once come up with was about: 

If these things can take you back in time, they can take you ahead as well.