Entha Sakkagunnave…

Once a person told me to always go for the radio and not playlists when you are lost, down in mood or depressed. Because, she said, that way we will find new songs that would lift our mood and somewhere some song which was written by somebody who may not be alive today or lives in some obscure corner of the world can make perfect sense to us and lift our moods. Sometimes answer our questions which we never knew we had.

Needless to say, I didn’t take the advice.

Life happened and I was living a rather uneventful life. Just routines. Get up early in the morning. Write some hundred words in the novel  I am working on, get ready, go to the office and write some more. And the songs in my playlist were more or less the same. Inspirational, as I would like to call it. Soon I got bored of it. I stopped listening to songs altogether.

There is a forward going around about how if people are denied music in their life, they will value the artists. I had to disagree. I went for a long time without songs or any music. I still respect the artists. It is just that I couldn’t differentiate green from brown and smile from a frown. The length of my smile curve diminished little by little till just a head nod with a straight lip line rested. I went on with my work, my routine. There were laughs, there was sarcasm, there was pulling legs.

But there was no joy.

And then something happened.

I am a firm believer of processes. I advocate the importance of putting in efforts on a daily basis, however little it is to see the result. But I was proved wrong. I still believe in the processes. But I have come to know that not everything can be brought in process.

Like a flower bloom, or the sudden drizzle, or the view of a waterfall after an arduous trek, some beautiful things tend to show up out of the blue. And the best thing about beautiful things is, they don’t ask for attention.

Ok I know I am meandering a bit. But yes, something made me listen to songs again and I decided to go for radio stations this time and that is when I stumbled across this song.

The song is about a villager falling in love with a lass in the same village. I love the way he used the things she did for living to appreciate her. He doesn’t say she is an angel or something. The lyrics made so much sense. As I rode the bike, I couldn’t help but smile and nod associating it with my own mood.

For people who don’t know the language, here is what he says. I have not covered the whole song but still

I was digging for peanuts and found you my pot of gold,

You remind me of the moon which was very far, even when I climbed up the tallest tamarind tree. Your beauty though is matchless.

You are as striking as the yellow flowers in a jasmine garland. You are unique.

You are as pure as the yellow thread of the newly married woman. You are so fresh.

Like two drops of rain create endless ripples on the ocean, you have opened up a tide of feelings in me.

Like a mother finding her crying, missing child in a carnival, you are so beautiful.

When you carry the pot of water in your hips, it looks like you are carrying the whole ocean with you.

When you plant the seeds in paddy fields, it is as if you are pouring life in for this doll of a planet.

These lines are seemingly innocent but also has a very deep meaning to it. And most importantly it doesn’t put down other women. There is so much to like about this song.

Expanding the thought of a single line in the song, When the mother carries her child to the carnival, it is the first time the child may be seeing all the colors, happy people, and general good mood. But at the moment the child misses the hold of the mother, all the happiness, colors and happy people go into the background. It doesn’t matter. The child will start crying. What is the beautiful place without the mother? The mother knows that she can get back to the kid. She never really let the child out of her sight. When the crowd clears and she sees her crying child, a smile will creep up on her face amused by the child’s behavior but also with understanding. The child tries to smile through the tears since her mother had come and they can enjoy the carnival together.

Maybe, just maybe, this is what is happening in the microseconds between the WhatsApp blue ticks and a reply. Over and over and over again. And that is what makes the heart pump the blood at a furious pace. And that is what makes one feel alive.

Maybe, just maybe, This is what they call joy.

Until Next,

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