The silence within

So many times negativity engulfs us.  We are caught in a Web of confusion and cynicism with what our surroundings tells us.  We are overshadowed by the evil might of objectivity and opinions of others. There is noise everywhere, anger everywhere, but ultimately truth prevails in silence.  Silence is that undercurrent that runs within our souls. This silence has the most powerful flow and the most profound echoes.  It is infinite.

If we just take time and reflect on the silence within, we will find many answers. What is it that makes us angry? Why are we so easily offended? Why are we imposing ourselves on others? It is insecurity I think.  Insecurity that arises out of our own fallacies, and our own shortcomings.  Noise is usually the result of being out of tune with ourselves. 

Today morning, I was walking through a busy street with my ipod plugged into my ears.  Lalgudi jayaraman sirs purvi kalyani dripped slowly into my ears and then into my soul.  For few moments I was not aware of where I was walking.  I slowly looked up and saw all the vehicles pass by, a few people talking while smoking and laughing about something, a few vendors selling something.  All this commotion seemed to blend into the music I was listening to.  The chaos suddenly felt harmonious and the whole universe seemed to me, like an alaap of Purvi Kalyani. There was a sense of bliss.  I had eliminated the noise outside and connected to the silence within through music. 

All of us have music within, we are just tuned out into noise.  If we learn to eliminate these noises and listen to the silence, the disharmony and chaos of the outside world will transform into alaaps.

Imagine a world that is nothing but music! Conflicts, yearnings and anger, melting into alaap!

That is the world I seek. 

All about the Gamcha

That red thing that hangs on my balcony . .it’s called a “gamcha!”

Gamcha caught my attention in Amitava Ghosh’s  The hungry tide.  It also remains in the frame of many of my favorite movies! There is something that connects me to it in an unknown strange way. Of all the bombay deyings and Home store stuff I can have at home, I use a Gamcha! Sometimes I also wonder why? My recent trip to Kolkata will remain one of my most memorable trips not just because of the mesmerizing Puja Experience but because of these little things that remain etched in me forever.

One major component of my trip was Gamcha!

I saw it swaying to the whispering winds atop the rustic balcony of a few mystic old buildings. It was like it was trying to whisper the secrets of that household to the winds, which is very inquisitive. The fights, the love, the struggles and the drama that defines that home, its culture, fluttering away in a gamcha!

The voluptuous women walk into the terrace with a gamcha in hand, trying to dry their hair! As they sunbathe looking at the empty road as if, waiting for their love to come walking. Some wipe away their tears, their sorrows or the memories of that long lost love!

Gamchas on the cycle rickshaw pullers neck! Sucking his sweat away and giving him that warmth and caress he needs! His companion on a hard day’s work!

Gamchas torn and used to hold the chai container on the road side chai adda! This gamcha, listening to the simmering political argument as it protects its master’s hands from burning . . .

Gamchas on the road side shops, as well as the big shops! Everyone needs them! Class doesn't matter and yes, old ones go and new ones are always purchased! So the market is always there for a gamcha!

Gamcha covering all the vessels in the Durga pendal and a gamcha fan used as an aarti for Puja! The gods also adore this fabric!

It’s not a piece of cloth! It’s a cultural statement. It’s a story and a song.

I have brought back with me a bit of that culture, few stories from the land of Durga and a few moments from that precious trip that will always flutter in my balcony in the form of a Gamcha!

The eternity

This year seems to be very unfortunate for the arts and humanity. So many stalwarts have left us to eternity. There is a sense of vaccum and sense of helplessness when you realise that it is true! Its difficult to imagine that these legends who personified the arts will physically cease to exist hence forth. How to make sense of It? How to understand or accept it?

My formstive years were filled with his music.  Mandolin meant Srinivas for me. His humility, wisdom and simplicity left me in awe of him every time. It is artists like him who are standing proof of rebirth and magic. He could not have been the musician he is from his sadhana in this birth, it is something that has come along from somewhere else! He was born to show the world that the winds hidden in the resonating chamber of this Western instrument, waited to resonate to the music of our carnatic trinity. 

The serene silence, the nuanced gamakas and that emotive intelligent in his rendering were unique to him. An era ends today in the world of music.
 
Today's youngsters are extremely intelligent and creative! The ability to handle any raga, any tala or any rhythmic juggelery comes very easily to them, but the depth? The soul?

Is music about technique? About playing with notes or rhythm or something more than that? Isn't music a yearning of one soul that touches another? Isn't music an expression that takes its listeners to newer meanings?

Sadly today music is losing that virtue and artists like Srinivas leave a bigger void when they leave us.

Their Music stays for eternity... always reminding us what music can and should be! 

Rest in peace maestro....

Beginnings

How often do we reach a dead end? Irrespective of the answer, the reality is that the only dead end can be death and that too for the physical self. Strangely even in that dead end, there is a continuum. The body decays and metamorphosis’s into something else. So, is there an end actually? This is probably the question that gave birth to philosophy and the idea of Nirvana or salvation.

Why does this journey start in the first place? Is it not because we encounter dead ends in life and fear new beginnings? Sometimes ending things gives us closure. New beginnings are too much to go through. But when you choose to end at a dead end and not enter the continuum, you choose to decay. To end and to decay are very different things. Decay is a never ending journey of filth and suffocation.

We know that life has three possibilities now; it will end, continue or decay. Irrespective of which boat you choose to sail in, the journey is inevitable. The real deal is to make the journey worthy and memorable. The journey has to have purpose and sense.

This sense and purpose will unfold before us, only if we stay alert. Alertness is inherent in openness. Openness comes with light and discarding the dark. The light is ignited out of positivity and positivity out of happiness. To find happiness you must choose to stay happy.
And that happiness and finding it is the story of our lives.