Music

Been dwelling on the profound effects on life music can have..earlier this day, two of many masterpieces that acharya annamayya has given us were playing in my mind-brahma kadigina paadamu and anni mantramulu inde avahinchenu. It would be stating the obvious that with each keertana of his, annamacharya himself found God and gave us all a way of seeing and believing sahityam/keertana as a way of bhakti, of reverence. Whether it be Srimannarayana or bhavamu lona, I am, to put it simply transported into a world of happiness, happiness not the way it is being defined now-a-days, but happiness mentioned in our Vedic scriptures. The feeling of being united with the whole world and Godliness and at times, God himself. To my atheist friends, this post might not be agreeable. A lot of people keep saying, I am not religious, or I am spiritual but not religious, or I am not ritualistic. Well, I am deeply religious, I love rituals, though I haven't had a chance to perform a lot, andI am spiritual too. I don't have to show it, I don't have to pray as a part of a group or anything, as religion is something that is private. Well, coming back to the pack, back to talking about sahityam, and classic poetry.

I find it really surprising that I hardly get to talk about any of this with anyone outside my immediate family, and may be a cousin or two. You'd think where I come from, there can't be enough time to talk about our literary heritage. Music, as a form of bhakti as I previously said rarely gets discussed, you hear music as a way of life and this is such a clichéd expression, however to many the music they talk about encompasses very little and what passes for lyrics these days..asalu sahityam edandi? I read an article about Sri Veturi and how much thought he put in each of his songs, whatever the emotion it had to express, love, devotion, sorrow, he wasn't someone that was bound by this nonsensical "contemporary" genre of lyric writing. Sirivennela Sitarama Sastry and Sri Veturi I guess are the two that saved our face and wrote better songs in the last decade or two.

When I was in primary and secondary school, we had both music and drawing classes in our curriculum, besides the teacher we went to learn music from outside our school hours. As long as music was a mandatory class was when it was full. Once music and drawing became electives, our music class shrunk, I for one was never good at drawing, I couldn't draw a bread slice to show a mould in my biology class, so you can imagine, but that's not why I opted for music. I was actually interested in music, from where came the ragas, how they are numbered, what notes make a raga, such and such was taught and I was totally captivated. At that time when I was taught kondalalo nelakonna, or lambodara, it was a very satisfying learning experience. Ofcourse, I forgot all about ragas, but I do remember the songs, easy to learn and retain something when there is a tune attached to it, that we all know. As a kid I used to aspire to sing at Ravindra Bharathi in front of an audience, but then growing up our dreams change and the ones that remain are the dreams we have for ourselves as grown ups. Now I just immerse myself, be it in Vishnusahasranamam which Smt Subbulakshmi recites with such great clarity, just the perfect diction, even though it isn't song, I look for that sravyam and vaksuddhi in something if it has to register in our mind, in this case Smt. Subbulakshmi just knocks it out of the park and makes Vishnusahasram soothing and invigorating at the same time. I also love to read the work of great telugu poets, Dhurjati and likes, and I must do it more. As of now, I have only read them as part of my curriculum and also listened to them listened to them from Sri Chaganti Koteswara Rao garu who peels each layer, each emotion, each word for us such that they latch onto your mind. Humor, devotion, love, hardships, guilt, remorse each of these words take on such challenging horizons in the hands of great poets Andhra has produced. Once one starts delving into these, it is a literary heaven you can't help but embrace.

My father and I have been singing great tunes since yesterday, reminiscing great lyrics from the 60s era. That was the time that produced some of the best songs in the film industry. Outside the film industry, I can't honestly comment as I do not follow anything. Keertanas yes, I am a sucker for them, can't get enough. To my kind of audience, there is no need to tell you how sweet the song "marugelara, oh raghava" is. For a while when I lived by myself in Tulsa, not a day passed by without me humming the song. Even social movies had great songs in olden days. "pidikili minchani hrudayam lo, kadalini minchina asalu dachenu, vedikalekkenu vaadamu chesenu, tyagame melani bodhalu chesenu, ayina manishi maraledu, aatani badha teeraledu", what a great way to capture human behavior in two lines!! Trust me, this is probably the tip of the iceberg in terms of how good a song can be..on the contrary think of the song "twisting my body from side to side" by Three 6 Mafia, am sure you'll agree when I say, I wish I did not understand the song that well, atleast it would spare me the heart-ache that ensues seeing music fall into such abysmal depths. Let's just tell ourselves that we need bad songs so we know the value of the good ones, actually when we try to put a value to the good ones is when we realise the innate "invaluable" nature of the same!

Believe it or not

With a heart too heavy

a mind too aware of itself, and yet not

I stand in the middle of nowhere

knowing all too well where to go, but moving not.

Happy and sad at the same time,

caring and not caring at the same time

my feet are tied, my mind wanders even when captive

with a sense of loss, i stand meek and broken,

knowing to let go but let you go, i did not

reasons of which I know not.

overwhelmed i am, aging faster than my already aging body, oblivious of people and surroundings, unaware of dates and names, of time;

a huge tide wraps me in its arms

life comes to a stand still

teasing me it says catch me if you can, but catch it I can not.

Just venting

and yeah i am smarter than a lot of you combined, no, i am not being arrogant, so spare me the part where you give me your opinions unless asked for. I have wanted to say this sometimes, but do not know what stopped me, is it the tone of the sentence? What am I afraid of? That some prick is going to call me rude, that I am arrogant or bad tempered? What is it that makes me not say things to people and endure all the statements people make about me? What is this quality in each one of us that makes us polite, sometimes while suppressing our own opinions and feelings? Are there not enough of us who give kindness its place in society? Yet, why is the society always portrayed as being so uncivil, and mean.. I distinctly remember reading that Delhi is one of the most impolite cities and that to get directions out of a person on the road is impossible, leave alone the countless number of bad elements that make it unsafe for a woman, and am sure I can add man also to that sentence, to walk the streets. Dil missing from Dilli is what I actually read.. Society at large apart, little things in life are really starting to get me, and I sometimes wonder why I have to be nice to people, but for the stress that being unpleasant to someone puts on me. If I yell at someone chances are I am suffering more than the person yelled at, I don't like confrontations, I believe in people,I take whatever they say to be true, something about face value; call me naive, call me foolish, or call me whatever, I like people in my life to own up to what they do or say, I like to impose standards, coz that's what they get from me. If on some occasions they don't and I somehow fail in my duty, one can by and large expect an apology from me. Someone please explain me why I shouldn't expect reciprocity? or for that matter why am I constantly told not to expect anything from relationships within or outside of the family? When did we all start being so lenient that people think they can do anything and get away with it? I wrote about this before and I say it again, this episode in The West Wing put it very well: "more and more we have come to expect less and less of each other". I hope I am quoting it right.

Everyone I know likes to be kind and nice and right most of the times atleast, I even know people that say they are so respectful of these concepts such as individuality, space, privacy, respect, live and let live, etc etc..so when they are so nice and have such high standards in life, why am I not supposed to hold them to a higher standard; and please don't answer this, it's a rhetorical question; oh you know, you are smart too..only I am a little smarter than you, kidding..

Might for the right or Might is right?

Moral Imperatives, that's what I have been thinking about for a long time. Taking the high road. How many of us feel that it's getting tougher each day to be taking the high road? The soul often feels depleted and depressed, and more often than not exhausted due to a constant fight in the mind. The conscience knows what's correct and yet by not implementing it, we begin a cycle of feeling inadequate, and that our philosophy of life in this present day has become self-defeating. Instead of enhancing and enriching our lives experiences and achieving spiritual richness, we are settling for a compromised way of life. It isn't to say to compromise is wrong, but that's a conversation for a later day. I am saying the motto of this society is "everyone is wrong, so no one is guilty"...That's how a writer whom I immensely admired put it and I cannot agree more.

A nation is wronged for ages and there is a limit to how much its people can endure, so it revolts. Thats totally understandable, it is when these movements for freedom, justice (or whatever the cause is) digress and become self-serving, self-righteous, tyrannical and savage, while interpreting religion or any other doctrine in their own twisted way, that's when things go barbaric. Take the naxals, maoists, rebel groups anywhere in the world, they all lose focus, they forget why they started it in the first place. Killing, hurting human and animal life has become a way of life to a lot of people. Sometimes, I want to introduce these people to a certain something called conscience.

We are all capable of much more than this. We were not made to sit and watch, yet we do, reduced to a herd of helpless beings. I wonder where that quality in us has gone, the quality of tolerance. Did the word Humanity not come from the very word that defines us: 'Human'. Then why is it that we lack the most in that area? There is a lesson or two we can and should learn from some animals, they don't hunt unless hungry, unless necessary, and what is necessary is not set by one animal's standards or one particular animal's fancies. It is the norm. It is how the universe designed it. We should all have more respect to the order of the universe than we do now.

An open letter to God

Dear God,

Hi, there is no need for pleasantries here as you must be well already, so no need to ask you how you are..also, there's no need to tell you how I am coz I believe you already know, infact you are the reason I am the way I am. Don't think that I am being rude, I have a lot of faith in you. I like you and for the most part, the world that you created. Let's just say that all the 27years and 10months I have lived was a seminar you held and now is the time for a Q&A session that every speaker allows after he/she is done talking. I am not saying you are done talking, think of this as a series of lectures and this is a session post your lecture number one. First of all let me start by telling you how kind and all encompassing and beautiful, graceful, intelligent, loving you are. I can add hundreds of thousands of adjectives here, i will just be stating the obvious. You and I both know how powerful you are. You are this humongous ball of energy that has been driving this world from the days of a life less planet and then may be water and then single celled animals to todays advanced beings, yet you tirelessly drive this world and I believe you will keep doing so till the times comes...2012 or whenever it may be. Life has come a long way God and you have worked so well, you are definitely a genius. You brought solace to people since time immemorial, no matter what form they saw you in. You made miracles possible. So, dear God, please tell me why the world has to be bad too at the same time.. A little bad I don't mind, I am sure I am bad to some extent too. I can even make peace with the reptiles and other terrible looking creatures you made. If at this moment you are thinking I am ugly too, I totally understand. I reap what I sow. May be a list of questions will make it easy for me to get my thoughts straight. You don't need a list, you are smart. I am not. At times when I was indeed smart or intelligent, I had to work at it, I had to earn it and it was the most wonderful feeling ever.

1. Why did you give cancer? It's just such a terrible way to die, little children, poor, rich, kind, cruel.no body deserves it. Apart from Cancer, why are there ugly and deadly diseases on earth?

2. Why are some people always unlucky, like Karna from the Maha Bharat, or like the South African cricket team?ofcourse the ones i mentioned here atleast won't die of poverty or lack of shelter like some people born into utter, dismal poverty, bad health, loneliness etc.

3.Is it true that one who suffers is just paying for what he/she did in his earlier lives? Will a terrorist or some rich guy that killed poor homeless people with his BMW suffer the same in their next life?Is Hitler that killed 6million jews suffering?

4.Every time I or anyone else have been talking to you, have you listened to and processed every word of ours? How hard is it to listen to the prayers of all the God-believing people on this planet?

5. I read in a spiritual magazine that every thing I do, every act, every inhalation and exhalation, every thought I get, good or bad is driven by you. I was told that I need to surrender to you and I have, I love that feeling of surrendering to true love, Godliness. But then the Geeta says I'll pay for each bad thing I do, if I did that bad thing under your instructions, why did you make me do it in the first place? So my question is: Is my life my doing or yours? To what extent am I responsible for my own fate?

6. You also said in the Geeta that I should only bother about putting my efforts into something and leave the results to you. If I am putting my efforts in something to get a certain result, like for example, I am typing this letter on my computer, and I expect the letters to show up on the monitor..I can't help but expect my effort in typing to translate into letters on screen...so how do I achieve what you said. Also, as long as I have a thinking mind, will I not expect something or the other?

7. Do you really fry bad people in hot oil when they get to hell?

8. Is it possible for people to make amends in this very life or do we have to wait?

9. When asked why she got five husbands, you reminded Draupadi that she asked for it. Do you decide what I get or what I don't or should I ask?

10. Why do the rich become rich, the poor become poor and the middle class left to rut?

11. Why do some people have to work 100times harder for an easy thing that everyone else seems to get in one shot?

12. Why is there drought? Sure, it is man's fault but won't you give some rain?

13. Why do people kill and slay others?

14. I also don't know why I lost my job, and why I feel this much resentment all the while I am trying to be a happy person. But I am not bold enough to hear your answer on that. I dare not know what I have done. I will try be happy to just have this life, family, friends, food and shelter. But let's say I had an accomplice in all I did, will he/she be given the same treatment as me?

15. Will I ever get a job I love?

16. Will you be mad at me for having asked these questions?

Also, I could have written a much better letter, you know...I think writing is one of my strengths, if ever there is a next time, I will try and do a better job in terms of vocab. I shall have a list of things prepared before I start writing, coz this letter is just all over the place.

Lastly, I trust you to have a sense of humor, so you won't mind all this non-sense, do you?

Yours Sincerely,

M

Posts from a few months ago

If someone out there is wondering why I have written so much in one day...The last three posts here are actually what I penned down in Rahul's blog a while ago and just moved them here today.

What is your fav book and why?

Most of us know the feeling we have when we are done with reading a book overnight. I have a list of books I mean to read..for, they are classics..I'll tell you why--This is a line from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.

Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source---Thoughts of Prince Andrew

This is so intense and can stem only from the mind of such a genius like Tolstoy. There are other immensely philosophical lines...soul stirring thoughts..I know now why I am such a sucker for greatness. I feel so small in front of these amazing minds this world has produced. I am in no way capable of such greatness' nevertheless, I can draw inspiration from them. I read these and I want to take it all in, assimilate..this is no different from food..you want to savor the taste and if you are like me and if you do find time..you will not know when to stop. All these days, I thought Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen is my favorite book, amongst many others..but the amount of reading I have done is minuscule. I look forward to finding out what other book I can give that title to.

Knowing thyself!

The title gives away what I am thinking. I am in stage in life where professionally and academically I know what I want to do..I probably say the same about personal life...as far as making friends goes..I am done making them or so I'd like to assume. I have the best friends and I feel blessed. A very complex mixture of wit, intellect, common sense, kindness and most of all an appreciation for me that comes from shared principles about life..this is what they have..they are not many..but the happiness and kindness we share is just so heart warming..
So here's the deal...I wonder if this idea that I know what I want might turn into complacence and make me not open to other experiences in life. Having a concrete idea is also very limiting in nature, coz then you don't like anything else..and if you don't end up getting what you want..you lose it all. I have become reluctant in trying out various things and looking for new horizons and experiences in life. I am not whining..but just evaluating the downside of being so sure of what we want.

From the other blog I contribute to

For over 10years I have thought about being a writer. You know what stopped me from being one?Mediocrity and its various manifestations. I wish I were bold enough to nurture what could probably be my only strength-writing. In theory, we all know what it takes to be successful. Our lives are far far away from theory. I don't want to duck under the cover of life and circumstances. I want to overcome my flaws, I want to make a difference in the society. I want to put into good use all the overwhelming inspiration I draw from the works of geniuses in this world. I hope out of the fear of dying anonymous rises the courage to do something that carries with it the burning flame of a thinking mind. I am floored by the rich literary culture we have seen over the centuries. works of prose and poetry, painting, music that came from mind boggling brains, the people who once the world categorized as lunatics. How popular do you think Van Gogh was during his own time? Not much if you read about him. Have you ever read about the personal life of Lord Byron. You'd be surprised the kind of work that came from extraordinary people who, minus their trademark strengths were as ordinary as you and I are. They cared enough to develop the skills they had, they were full of zeal. I would like to believe that I can eventually achieve the greatness I always dream of. I want to learn to be passionate not just in thoughts but in deeds. A friend of mine once said something that goes like this....to test yourself, to test your limits, that is the beauty of the human mind. I do not know if he quoted it or if he actually wrote it, but this was in 1999 and it has remained in my mind. I will one day, test my limits. I will try to cultivate trust in the idea of a better me. I am penning this down for my own sake. For accountability. Few years down the lane, I want to be able to look into the mirror and see someone that tried to realize the dreams she always had. I want to be able to boldly introspect myself and say with brutal honesty that I dared to free myself from the shackles of mediocrity and of aimlessness. Thank You Mr. King for the phrase " I have a dream".

A simple list

Fog, mist, dew drops, rain, a morning walk..iced caramel macchiato, a good book, a great friend apart from the other BFF I have, shoes, staring out of a window on a rainy/snowy day..long drives taken alone, the job that I had, a certain day of April when I had dinner at Ti Amo, an offer to fly to Europe, an enviable intellect, bringing a smile on a dear one's face, a brave soul, an open mind, taste for the finest things in life, art, the Opera, a broadway play

..................................................................................................................to be continued

Just one wish

For days now I have been wanting some peace and quiet. Not that anyone encroaches my space, but I guess I am afraid to confront my life even within my mind when I am not alone. If I could be granted one wish this moment, may I please run away to some far off place and be left alone.