A song is worth a thousand theories

I am listening to Tere Bina Zindagi Se Koyi Shikhwa Nahin from Andhi, sung by the I-can-so-imitate-him-but-he-still-remains-elusively-inimitable Kishore Kumar and Lata. It is so easy to lose myself in this song, in the lyrics, and in all those emotions and memories that take over and transport me someplace else.

This particular song has a curious mix of pathos and elation. The protagonists feel bad about the lost years that they couldn’t be together, but in their glances and gestures they display a love which transcends age and which speaks of a hope about the future. This paradox of emotions is captured in the first 2 lines of the lyrics –

Tere bina zindagi se koyi shikhwa to nahin, shikhwa* nahin…
Tere bina zindagi bhi lekin, zindagi…toh nahin, zindagi nahin, zindagi nahin…

*shikhwa == complaint

I resist the urge to ponder about why I feel so strongly about a song; what it is that results in a rush of blood to the head, a rush of blood to the heart. Literally.

I ponder about listing all those moments when I have felt similarly. Can I figure out some pattern? I am anyway not able to deduce any deterministic theory to explain emotions…..but I do sense a very strong link between music, memory, and emotion. Music moulds memories around dominant thoughts and emotions about current events as I listen to it. The same music is able to recall those memories or emotions about the same events in a jiffy after ages. What baffles me is that simple commands are enough to recall facts, but recalling emotions seems to be much harder. But music and smell have helped me recall emotions. They have made me re-live some of the same emotions now; I am re-living one right now.

5 thoughts on “A song is worth a thousand theories

  1. Very true…

    I too feel its the elusive patterns of brain wave like music, smell that bring back the emotions..

    Sometimes the similar patterns of occurances of fatcs also bring back the same feeling.. like.. “ellO nODida haagideyalla”

  2. Music….
    Lyrics…
    Guitar Strings….
    Romanticism….

    I’d say music is one o the finest and timeless innovations of mankind.

    I get puzzled when music turns me melancholic and I end up falling in love with the melancholy. Is this masochism? Not sure. But there certainly are moments in everyone’s life when reliving pain turns into a pleasure unto itself.

    There are songs that are associated with my life event and they bring out the die hard romantic in me, who is otherwise often beset by the callous pragmatist.

    Tum jo kehdo to aaj ki raat Chand doobega Nahin…

    A meaningless phrase to the pragmatist….An anthem to the irrational poet.

    Vedanti Helidanu…ee Hennu Maye Maye…
    Kaviyobba Kanavarisidanu…oh Ivale Chaluve…

    I want to know what triggers a poet. I’ve managed to write verse on love and women. But I’m afraid I’ve not been a true poet. Much of these verses is written with a profit motive. I’ve many o them angels without even being able to draw a connection in my mind between the angel and the object of my poetry.

    And there are these tunes that cheer ou up, no matter what mood you are in. The tunes energize you and turn you optimist, whithout changing anything in yor material life. But yes, these tunes empower you to change your own life!

    Ecstacy of gold…Nothin’ else matters…Wasted years…Thanuvu Manavu…

  3. Well written.

    Music makes you feel a thought. you can connect yourself with the emotion wrapping your mind around it.

    There are certain sad songs that let you appreciate beauty in sadness, when the music seeps in through you, it plucks your thoughts – it can be felt more than heard.

    ~Smitha Chunduri

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