A Mood for the Song

This one was a strange experience for me. Given the strangeness of every aspect of my state of being these days, I am both surprised as well as not too surprised. Surprised, at the range of emotions this one has brought in me, when the mood for this is song is very binary. There are no two ways about the mood for this song: it is devotion, surrender, hope, sadness, and a kind of prayer. And I am not too surprised that these kinds of things are happening to me because I have become so vulnerable; I guess everyone has been conditioned so, with the experience we are going through now.

Anyways, it is 'Sun raha hai na tu' sung by Shreya Ghoshal.

The most likely event of occurrence arising out of listening to it in loop whenever circumstances permitted me to, would be to be engulfed in the mood of the song. Despite knowing the consequences, I went about listening to it like a desolated lover in search of her lost love. And this went on for a number of days. For quite a while, I was obsessed, beyond reason, by the voice, that apart from a few other obviously apparent highlights of the song, I could not realize and appreciate the finer aspects of the song, which I would usually be able to do for other songs that are ingrained in my life. So much that I have slept off listening to it, and have awakened realizing some silence, because it faded off when it was finishing and getting ready to play the next time in loop.

And then, when the space and time came about for me to write about it, like some spirit's handiwork, it all disappeared. I sit to write and the feeling that swept me off my feet is no longer hitting me. It wasn't like I felt indifferent to it or something, but that longing feeling was no longer there. It was like I followed it like a religion, and now, I suddenly became an atheist. The strangeness and weirdness is because an atheist usually has a reason or at least an indifference when he turns away from his beliefs. A religious fanatic turned into an atheist. Just like that.

Yet, I am still in love and completely awestruck by the voice and the emotion that it evokes. It was like I was possessed and now liberated. Like a constricted pipe that was released. Not that I was suffering earlier and now relieved... But, somehow, it felt strange to have gone through this thing, and now to have a feeling that the entire experience felt meaningless. Was I supposed to infer anything out of it? I do not know. But then, it was some un-named kind of feeling.

Now, I can listen to the song with a familiarity of having known someone long enough, without having the urge, impulse, and eagerness of wanting to know more. No longing, no desperation. Just bliss. A feeling of satiety, and no hunger.

I am holding the song like an unworried child

perched on its mother's hips

clutching her robe for its comfort

Like a playful lover gripping the wrist

of his departing lover

For its part, the song too reciprocates

like there is assurance for the barren

The grip is effortless, and

there’s no desperation to hold her back

Neither is there a display of resistance

There's no questioning on the intent

and there's no illegitimacy in the act

There is neither contempt nor weariness

of having known it well enough