Ok I have been totally hooked onto Abba for the last two days.Well our relationship is not limited to the first two dates..it dates back to the days when i was a precocious little girl of 6 and heard them for the first time on those big black circular records that my dad used to keep as his choicest possessions.There were others in that precious collection of his..The ventures,Cliff Richard..our dear Mr. Harry Belafonte with his to die for baritone..madame Joan baez..Simon & Garfunkel and my all time favourites 'The Carpenters'.
Growing up in a typical bengali household rabindrasangeet occupies a major part of your musical knowledge..and then you grow up venture out to high school and college and pick up your 'own kind of music'.Rabindrasangeet was an integral part of my life as well since i was being trained in creative dancing from the time i was four or could just move my two little feet in a coordinated manner.And it will be highly unjustified to say that listening to 'Ore grihobashi' and 'Amar hiyar majhe' or 'amar bela je jai' still doesnt stir up the bengali soul in me just like before. But somehow my father who was regarded as quite a jazzed up lad during his heydays..the ubiquitous elvis sideburns..strumming on the guitar and twisting to Boney M..introduced me quite unknowingly to this whole new world of music.I still remember those winter afternoons when baba(he had lost those sideburns by now..and the guitar's noise was dampened by the chaos of running the family business) would put on one of those records..take me up in his arms and dance to 'honey honey' or 'Matilda' like he had never danced before.Ma could never comprehend this whole passionate routine of ours..dada unfortunately had two left feet..but he used to hang around us dancing fools(i prefer the term 'dancing queen' for myself).As i grew up these afternoons became fewer and fewer partly because the kid in me became the girl who could no longer be carried in her dad's arms and partly because the daily humdrum of school,studies,friends gave me a pretentious sense of independence.Growing up was about Boy bands with their immature vocals..sugary lyrics and aphrodisiac infused videos..high school was more about being different from the crowd.. U2,metallica,the eagles..college was about social awareness,standing for a cause..trying to find a different meaning about everything.. emerging independent rock groups,alternative rock,world music.
Records had been replaced by cds..box players by the sleeker music systems..you could store thousands of songs in one much smaller circular disc...and somehow my winter afternoons were replaced by laser lights..tequila shots and rock shows where people danced away without knowing the music.Inane words..singing out of tune was the new rage..and i somehow learned to enjoy this 'noise' and appreciate the whole out of sync situation. Then i reached 25..took a sabbatical from work..started spending some time at home..rummaged through my old collection of cds..but somehow couldn't find anything that i felt like listening to.However it was a similar idle afternoon that literally saved my soul.. was trying to set a new caller tune for my connection and I bumped across the familiar tunes of 'Gimme Gimme Gimme' by ABBA and i found the key to resurrection.Made a frantic scavenging attempt in mom's piled up old boxes where she likes putting away the 'unwanted' stuff and voila I found a way to relive my past...baba's old records..covers worn away..some bent some broken yet when u put them on the cracked melody reminded you of the days when a successful twist to a 'Jailhouse Rock' elevated you to an instant 'Supertrooper' status. Reminiscing can be a morbid affair at times and it has usually not been a very pleasant experience for me; till that fateful day(Ok I'm being melodramatic but well music is all about an overdose of emotional catharsis).Ironically ,the same technology which i was playing the blame game with, gained absolution..i used google search to download unbroken mp3 streams of ABBA,Elvis,The Beatles and turned them into a glorious record which i plan to treasure as one of my life saving secrets.
Music has songs..songs have lyrics..lyrics are primarily words..yet why is it so difficult to express the feelings you attach to music.I can tell the whole story of my life..my first love..my first heartbreak..my first tear..leaving home..coming back..loving hopelessly..being bitter like never before through songs..yet when i make an attempt at trying to feel the same emotions through my words i am a total failure.I guess in a way its for the best..music transcends all words and all i can do is dedicate (another!) song to those winter afternoons with my dad..It goes like this
So I say
Thank you for the music, the songs Im singing
Thanks for all the joy theyre bringing
Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty
What would life be?
Without a song or a dance what are we?
So I say thank you for the music
For giving it to me
Mother says I was a dancer before I could walk
She says I began to sing long before I could talk
And Ive often wondered, how did it all start?
Who found out that nothing can capture a heart
Like a melody can?
Well, whoever it was, Im a fan
So I say
Thank you for the music, the songs Im singing
Thanks for all the joy theyre bringing
Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty
What would life be?
Without a song or a dance what are we?
So I say thank you for the music
For giving it to me
Ive been so lucky, I am the girl with golden hair
I wanna sing it out to everybody
What a joy, what a life, what a chance!
(ABBA-Final single released in Nov1983..)
'
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
..and Hansel said to Gretel" let us drop these breadcrumbs so that together we find our way home because losing our way would be the most cruel of things". This year I lost my way...and losing your way on the journey is unfortunate but losing the reason for the journey is a fate more cruel.
The journey lasted eight months.Sometimes i traveled alone..sometimes there were others who took the wheel and took my heart.When the destination was reached it wasn't me who arrived..it wasn't me at all.And once you lose yourself you have two choices..find the person you used to be or lose that person completely..because sometimes you have to step outside of the person u have been and remember the person you were meant to be...the person you wanted to be..the person you are.
She sat on the porch trying to think of the year gone by..the dilemmas,the decisions,the triumphs.the disappointments but overall the year that changed how she looked at her own life. Her roomie in the rehab had once told her that human life was chaos.So if human life was chaos then there must be something out there to organize it somehow..but what was it? Her best friend moved town..her boyfriend thought it was best to take some time off..she totally bummed out at the class elections(she had been winning it for the last four years)..her parents were the nazis..the only thing keeping her alive was her music.She had met him at a party..on some random school night when she had managed to sneak out yet again! He seemed to be totally at ease with himself..standing in a corner..there was a curious coordination between the puffs and the sips though his eyes seemed to have wandered off somewhere else..it's tough to remember the exact course of events that followed suit but she remembers one thing..that night was the night of illusion..of hallucinations.The stranger remained a stranger..she never saw him again but he had brought with him the ticket to a world she had vague premonitions about.Night after night she found her resources..the travis CD cover became the base..the queen of hearts found her way from the deck to being the separator..and the white pale powdery substance became her elixir! she found her life sort of organized..her thoughts clearer..people were easy to understand..but when she looked into the mirror it was not her but the image of someone she tried hard to reconstruct out of her memories.Then came another morning..the sun shone bright..the neighbour's car made the awful whirring sound..the toaster popped right at 7.30 (her mom was the prime meridian)..she opened her eyes and the world seemed hazy..no she could see very well without her specs..she had reading glasses for crying out loud..but then what sort of astigmatism gripped her today??
*(This is just a beginning to some wayward thoughts that would be posted every week!..facing a writer's block at this hour..so signing off..any ideas to continue the story would be welcome gnite!)
The journey lasted eight months.Sometimes i traveled alone..sometimes there were others who took the wheel and took my heart.When the destination was reached it wasn't me who arrived..it wasn't me at all.And once you lose yourself you have two choices..find the person you used to be or lose that person completely..because sometimes you have to step outside of the person u have been and remember the person you were meant to be...the person you wanted to be..the person you are.
She sat on the porch trying to think of the year gone by..the dilemmas,the decisions,the triumphs.the disappointments but overall the year that changed how she looked at her own life. Her roomie in the rehab had once told her that human life was chaos.So if human life was chaos then there must be something out there to organize it somehow..but what was it? Her best friend moved town..her boyfriend thought it was best to take some time off..she totally bummed out at the class elections(she had been winning it for the last four years)..her parents were the nazis..the only thing keeping her alive was her music.She had met him at a party..on some random school night when she had managed to sneak out yet again! He seemed to be totally at ease with himself..standing in a corner..there was a curious coordination between the puffs and the sips though his eyes seemed to have wandered off somewhere else..it's tough to remember the exact course of events that followed suit but she remembers one thing..that night was the night of illusion..of hallucinations.The stranger remained a stranger..she never saw him again but he had brought with him the ticket to a world she had vague premonitions about.Night after night she found her resources..the travis CD cover became the base..the queen of hearts found her way from the deck to being the separator..and the white pale powdery substance became her elixir! she found her life sort of organized..her thoughts clearer..people were easy to understand..but when she looked into the mirror it was not her but the image of someone she tried hard to reconstruct out of her memories.Then came another morning..the sun shone bright..the neighbour's car made the awful whirring sound..the toaster popped right at 7.30 (her mom was the prime meridian)..she opened her eyes and the world seemed hazy..no she could see very well without her specs..she had reading glasses for crying out loud..but then what sort of astigmatism gripped her today??
*(This is just a beginning to some wayward thoughts that would be posted every week!..facing a writer's block at this hour..so signing off..any ideas to continue the story would be welcome gnite!)
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Dante once wrote...
Remember tonight for it is the beginning of always, a promise.
The belief in each other in the possibility of love.
A decision to ignore or simply rise above the pain of the past.
A covenant which at once binds two souls and yet severs prior ties.
A celebration of the chance taken and the challenge that lies ahead.
For two will always be stronger than one.
Like a team braced against the tempest of the world.
And love will always be the guiding force in our lives.
For tonight is a mere formality.
Only an announcement to the world of feelings long held made long ago in a sacred space.
revelry,emotions,the uninhibited eye contact across the room,the smile of desire,the immense feeling of security,the promise to spend a lifetime together..don't we all want to be a part of this fervor..the romantic fool,the heartbroken soul,the pining lover,the practical feminist,the impractical seventeen year old. Some of us find love young yet get married old..some find love amidst the very chaos of their existence and life becomes an illusion..some of us believe love is best not expressed but a pain to be experienced..some think love exists in the world of poets and writers and is used as a tool to popularize their creations..but we all think about love at least once in our lifetime.
It has always been the story of two yet the destinies of so many. We promise a lifetime of happiness to somebody and stand as the cause of unhappiness for so many..the ones who wanted to tell us how much we meant to them and their dreams..the ones we never knew existed yet for them loving us was what they lived for..they might have been our greatest love and by some cruel twist of fate or by a gentle nudge of destiny we forsake them for a love which we thought we could never have.We passed them in lonely college corridors in lonelier summer afternoons..we typed unassumingly on the keyboard as they sat across the office cubicle waiting for the perfunctory smile from us..we joked about them as they found their love put away by scorn or indifference..but we never knew them!
What brings greater happiness ..to know that your love is unconditional or to know that you are loved selflessly?What brings greater pain..to know that you can never love someone as much as they love you or to know that they can never comprehend the sheer intensity of your feelings?
I start this blog with random thoughts about a feeling which i could never define for myself..I never knew whether what I had felt for so many years was love or something else..but I know that whatever it was it had helped me in experiencing human emotions in their truest form...this is an ode to those feelings and to the people who had inspired them!
Remember tonight for it is the beginning of always, a promise.
The belief in each other in the possibility of love.
A decision to ignore or simply rise above the pain of the past.
A covenant which at once binds two souls and yet severs prior ties.
A celebration of the chance taken and the challenge that lies ahead.
For two will always be stronger than one.
Like a team braced against the tempest of the world.
And love will always be the guiding force in our lives.
For tonight is a mere formality.
Only an announcement to the world of feelings long held made long ago in a sacred space.
revelry,emotions,the uninhibited eye contact across the room,the smile of desire,the immense feeling of security,the promise to spend a lifetime together..don't we all want to be a part of this fervor..the romantic fool,the heartbroken soul,the pining lover,the practical feminist,the impractical seventeen year old. Some of us find love young yet get married old..some find love amidst the very chaos of their existence and life becomes an illusion..some of us believe love is best not expressed but a pain to be experienced..some think love exists in the world of poets and writers and is used as a tool to popularize their creations..but we all think about love at least once in our lifetime.
It has always been the story of two yet the destinies of so many. We promise a lifetime of happiness to somebody and stand as the cause of unhappiness for so many..the ones who wanted to tell us how much we meant to them and their dreams..the ones we never knew existed yet for them loving us was what they lived for..they might have been our greatest love and by some cruel twist of fate or by a gentle nudge of destiny we forsake them for a love which we thought we could never have.We passed them in lonely college corridors in lonelier summer afternoons..we typed unassumingly on the keyboard as they sat across the office cubicle waiting for the perfunctory smile from us..we joked about them as they found their love put away by scorn or indifference..but we never knew them!
What brings greater happiness ..to know that your love is unconditional or to know that you are loved selflessly?What brings greater pain..to know that you can never love someone as much as they love you or to know that they can never comprehend the sheer intensity of your feelings?
I start this blog with random thoughts about a feeling which i could never define for myself..I never knew whether what I had felt for so many years was love or something else..but I know that whatever it was it had helped me in experiencing human emotions in their truest form...this is an ode to those feelings and to the people who had inspired them!
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