The Wrenching Sadness of a Lullaby

Once again, its an article i read somewhere and liked.

There is something magical about a lullaby. It is almost impossible to listen to one without responding to it with an emotion that one never fully understands. Lullabies soothe, comfort and lull the awake into sleep. They help babies feel protected and cocooned as they slip away into the tender arms of sleep.
Mothers envelop their little ones with a musical translation of the overwhelming love they feel. Why then are lullabies almost always so sad? Why do lullabies tremble with some deep indefinable sense of liquid melancholy? Why do they ache with a nameless yearning for things lost and things that cannot be found? Think of any lullaby and you will be struck by the tinge of sweet sadness that accompanies it.
Think of a nanhi kali sone chali, dheere se aaja re ankhiyan mein, mere ghar aayi ek nanhi pari or Shubha Mudgal’s so ja and you will observe this recurring pattern. Often the words, too, like in the case of the all-time favourite “rock-a-bye-baby” are less than soothing. Across cultures, the lullaby carries traces of sorrow.
The purpose of the lullaby is anything but sad. The baby needs soothing and absolute protection from all sources of fear. The lullaby imitates the rocking motion of the cradle with simple repetitive phrases and a basic melody. But unlike the nursery rhyme where the melody produces little emotional effect, the lullaby infuses everyone listening with a powerful sense of longing. Why is this so universally true?
In some ways perhaps, the musical structure of lullabies in their desire to soothe, come close to those of dirges. The slowness and the tenderness of the tune makes it melancholic. In that sense, it could be argued that sadness is not really intrinsic to the lullaby but merely a musical by-product. The words are not important; just as martial tunes evoke parades and religious songs generate a sense of immersive piety, so do lullabies evoke a sense of quietude that overlaps with sadness.
As an explanation, however, this is not satisfying enough. There is something more at work here. Perhaps, the mother uses emotion to make a deeper connection with the baby; sadness deepens the bond between mother and child, and helps communicate her feelings better.
Or perhaps, the lullaby becomes a channel for the mother’s own sense of incompleteness. Often lullabies have words that talk about a husband who is away or of distance between mother and child and sometimes even about death.
The idea that sleep is a form of little death is a common enough one. The lullaby might be our way of playing with the idea of death. There is a sense of separation and the baby’s going away to distant lands that evokes a feeling of deep sadness that is all the more powerful because it is not real. It is a rehearsal of sadness that must eventually be ours. It allows us a foretaste of tragedy even as we celebrate the birth of the newborn.
But perhaps the strongest feeling evoked by lullabies is that of nostalgia. We yearn for something pure, tender and innocent when we listen to a lilting lullaby. We long for reaching a part of us we never can. It is this realization that perhaps is at the heart of a lullaby’s ineffable sadness. For the nostalgia we feel is the nostalgia for the womb. The mother gently pines for that sense of intact completeness when she sings melancholically for her little one.
As listeners, we long to be complete again but know that we cannot. The lullaby is nothing but the song of the baby being cast adrift ever so slowly on the painfully solitary journey called life. As adults when we hear this song, we are reminded of what we have lost in some nameless way. The lullaby tells us that what is most beautiful and what makes us feel the purest emotions is also the most transient. We see the magic of life only as it disappears slowly from our eyes. The lullaby is a gentle chronicle of a life told in reverse.

Traffic Jam

This is the outcome of my boredom over the weekend , so gaali mat dena. :P

He was a rich businessman based in Mumbai. His motto throughout life had been – “Given sufficient money and the brains regarding where to use it, everything is possible.” And he considered himself lucky enough to have a sufficient supply of both. He attributed most of his success to this motto of his.

He had an only son whom he adored very much and he could go to any lengths for his happiness. However, his son didn’t agree to his motto. He believed that luck played a very important part too. Father and son had had many debates regarding this topic but none could bring the other to his point of view.

Now, it so happened that the son fell in love with a girl in his college. It seemed to him that she loved him too but he didn’t dare ask her for fear of rejection. His father knew about the girl and approved of his son’s choice.

After college, the girl was accepted in a renowned US university for higher studies while the son had planned of joining his father in business. The girl, on receiving the acceptance letter, called up the son and told him that she would be going to the US in two days. The son offered to drop her to the airport and she agreed. Later that night, the son told his father, “ If only I could have spent a few more hours with her, I would have professed my love to her and asked her if she loved me in return. But now it doesn’t seem possible. I don’t think that she’ll even remember me after spending 2 years in the US. I offered to take her to the airport just so that I might be able to see her for a few more minutes.”

The flight was at 10:00 a.m. At 08:28, the son asked his father for the car keys since it would take them about one hour to get to the airport. The father spent 2 minutes looking for the car keys before handing them over to his son. Then he went to his office where it was business as usual.

3 hours later, his son called him up. He was in a jubilant mood. He told his father, “She loves me too! We were on our way to the airport but got stuck in a traffic jam. There was some kind of accident just ahead of us and lorry behind us won’t budge an inch so that we might turn and take another route to the airport. Seeing that we were stuck there, I reasoned that God had provided me with this one last opportunity to get my love and I should not let this chance go in vain. So, I told her everything that was in my heart and she accepted that she loved me too! Her flight ticket had to be postponed for a week. That means I get 1 week to spend with my love! I am so happy! I always used to tell you that luck played an important part in our lives but you never agreed. Had we reached at that spot even one minute earlier, we would have been ahead of that crashed van and right now she would have been in a plane bound for California. Now I hope you will agree that I was right. “

The father smiled as he hung up.

A few minutes later, he received another call. The caller said, “Sir, your work was done without any hitches, correct to the minute. The van containing eggs overturned on the highway at exactly 9 o’clock and the lorry with faulty reverse gear was parked behind your car at exactly one minute past nine. You should have seen the mess we made. It was more than 2 hours before any vehicle could pass. I hope you are satisfied with our work. Please remember us the next time you need something of this sort done. Thank you.”

The father smiled again as he hung up.

The Prince's Tale

A couple of thing I wanna clarify:
1> This is for Potter fans only, specifically those who have read the Deathly Hallows - waise baaki junta bhi padh sakti hai - u'll understand the sequences.
2> I have written this as, according to my imagination, Snape would have written in his personal diary, that is, if he ever kept one.

Before he told Lily that she was a witch:
I love her. She is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen. And, she is a witch, although she doesn't know it yet. I have seen her perform magic. We will be going to Hogwarts together. I know Hogwarts will be much better than home. I hope they allow me to stay there during the holidays also. She doesn't know me - I am not sure whether she has even seen me yet, but soon she will know me. I will tell her that she is a witch and that she will be joining Hogwarts,just like me and I'll tell her everything that I know about Hogwarts. Maybe then, she'll like me.

On the day he tells Lily that she is a witch:
It couldn't have been worse. I told her that she was a witch but she didn't believe me. She and that Muggle sister of hers, looked at me as if I was some animal escaped from the zoo. I had been planning of this day for a long time but somehow everything went wrong, as it usually does in my life.She will realize that I was right when the letters from Hogwarts arrive. Then she'll know that I was speaking the truth all along. Maybe then, she'll like me.

On the day before leaving for Hogwarts:
She is angry with me again, and all because of that stupid Muggle sister of hers. Who told her to come sneaking around when I was talking to Lily? These stupid Muggles don't have brains. How was I supposed to react when she made fun of my clothes? I didn't mean to harm her but my anger burst forth and a twig fell on her head from the tree. And now Lily blames me for it and isn't talking to me anymore. However, soon we will be going to Hogwarts and everything will be fine again. I sincerely hope she is in Slytherine because that's where I am going. She MUST be in Slytherine.

Sometime during the 4th year:
That bastard James is showing too much attention towards Lily and maybe Lily likes him too, although she says that she despises him whenever I ask her. I can't hate anyone more than I hate him. Other than that, I am very happy with my life. I have made good friends. This Lord Voldemort seems to be getting powerful everyday - and he needs followers. I find the prospect of joining his ranks very attractive. From early childhood I have learnt that power is everything and we wizards should use our powers to take over the world from the Muggles. Why should we, the more powerful people, live hidden from the Muggles while they are free to do whatever they like? My friends share my feelings,although Lily doesn't understand me. She has lived a secluded and safe life till now,how can she be anything other than philosophical about good and bad. But I am practical and I am sure I'll be able to convince her that my path isn't wrong.

After he calls Lily Mudblood:
What have I done!! I shouldn't be allowed to live. I called Lily "Mudblood". And all because of that Potter and his despicable friends. It was so humiliating - hanging upside-down in mid-air, controlled by Potter. I was blinded by anger and I lost control of my mind. How could I have called her, the person I love, such a foul name!! What will I do now? I went to her later and asked for her forgiveness but I already knew that I had committed an unpardonable offence and any amount of pleading couldn't bring me in her good books again. She doesn't like my friends and nor the path I have chosen in my life. Seems the love of my life is lost forever.

After Lily's death:
HE KILLED HER !! The Dark Lord killed Lily !! My Lily DEAD...why am I still alive? After all I did to save her, I was unable to do so. I have no reason to live now. Even though she married Potter and I had no chance of getting her, I lived with the hope that maybe some day she will be mine, but now even that hope is gone. I have nothing left in life.I did all that I could. I had pleaded with the Dark Lord to spare her life. I told him that I don't care if Potter and his child die but please don't hurt Lily. I had even contacted Dumbledore, at great risk of the Dark Lord's getting to know this. I had told him of the Dark Lord's plans of visiting Godric's Hollow. I had asked him to somehow save Lily's life. I told him that I will do anything in return of his saving Lily's life - even though it means saving Potter and his child too but even the greatest wizard in the world wasn't able to save Lily from the Dark Lord. And my Lily is dead now. But how did the child survive? And what happened to the Dark Lord? Dumbledore says that his power is broken for now but soon he will return to full power - not that I am going to help him anymore, after he killed my Lily. But whenever he returns I will do my best to make sure that he is gone forever. I can't let the killer of Lily live on. Dumbledore says that my aim in life now should be to protect Potter's son. How can I care for the son of that bastard? But then, he is Lily's son too and she died protecting him. I can't let Lily die for a vain cause. Moreover, Dumbledore says that the child has Lily's eyes. I wish I could see them now. But she is gone forever, never to return. And I am left with this onerous burden of protecting the child she died protecting.

Sometime during Harry's first 5 years:
That Potter is just like his father. No regard for rules, insolent, hot-tempered. He seems to hate me as much as I hated his father. I hate him too but still I'll protect his life with mine if it comes to that. All this just because of you, Lily.

After Dumbledore tells him that Harry must die:
Potter Must Die!! Not that I have any kind of affection for him. All this while Dumbledore made me believe that he and I were protecting Potter for Lily's sake. But now I know that Dumbledore was raising him so that he could use him against the Dark Lord. Dumbledore never had any intention of letting Potter live. He just used me to protect Potter until protection was no longer required. I spied for him. I have put my life in danger every single day for the last 2 years just to keep Potter safe and now Dumbledore tells me that Potter must die. Still I'll follow Dumbledore's instructions because they will lead to the fall of the Dark Lord and I can't rest until I punish Lily's killer. Dumbledore himself will die soon, at my hands. I will have to commit this crime to save Draco's soul from damage - as Dumbledore put it. I have a long list of tasks ahead of me that Dumbledore has entrusted me with, will I be able to complete them successfully? Or will my life, that has been a failure till now, end in failure too?

The last entry:
The battle for Hogwarts has started. All that is left for me to do now is to somehow get to Potter and make him listen to everything I have to say. But this is the most difficult task. How will I find him amidst the chaos of the battle? And how will I, whom he considers to be his biggest enemy next only to the Dark Lord, make him believe me? Dumbledore, your instructions demand too much of me. But I will carry them out even if it costs me my life.

My Many Indias

hmmm...this hasn't been written by me. I read it in The Times of India a few days ago.

On the eve of Republic Day a friend gifted Bunny and me a CD containing a haunting, goose-pimpling rendition of Jana Gana Mana as arranged and conducted by A R Rahman and featuring Shiv Kumar Sharma, Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Amjad Ali Khan, Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Pandit Jasraj, Jagjit Singh, Parveen Sultana, Bhupen Hazarika, Balasubrahmanyam, and a galaxy of other stars, from all over the country. I’ve never thought of myself as a particularly patriotic person (in its various manifestations, i cordially dislike the Indian state, as distinct from the India of its people) but that music, played against a backdrop ranging from Ladakh to Kanyakumari, moved me as few things have done: it were as though the country of which i am a part, and which is an inextricable part of me was singing of itself to me. What did i think of when i thought of India? What random impressions conjured my many Indias?
India is vast space; space to accommodate the clamour of giant cities, teeming with the seething energy of millions and the silence of empty solitudes. India is space; space to include the pilgrim and the politician, the poet and the revolutionary, the street urchin and the merchant prince, ahimsa and nuclear might, 3,000 years and the 21st century.
India is the express highway thundering with traffic and the slip road beside it with the sign ‘For camels, elephants and bullock carts’. India is mega dams and factories, call centres and shopping malls, and the voices raised in protest against all these and more.
India is a colour TV, garlanded with marigolds and a picture of Lakshmi on top, playing MTV while grandmother counts the beads of her mala and grandchildren dream of US green cards. India is the roar and tumult of democracy and the forgotten face of a forgotten neta on an election poster stuck on the crumbling mud wall of a village deserted by all but the ghost of hunger.
India is the faceless anonymity of cities where neighbours don’t know the names of neighbours and it is the ‘Ram, Ram’ of timeless greeting exchanged by strangers who pass each other on a lonely path.
India is the smell of incense and ancient stone, of parched earth when the first drops of rain fall, of the dust and sweat of rattletrap buses, of the sweet, milky tea served in an earthen bowl by a ‘chai, chaiwala!’ on the whistle-stop railway stations of night.
India is the crowded bazaar where two dozen languages and half a dozen faiths negotiate the day-to-day transactions of buying and selling, and haggling and cheating, and quarrelling, and, above all, always above all, living together.
India is the cadences of Nehru’s ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech, and India is the minimalist squiggle by the cartoonist Ranga which in a single unbroken line captures the iconic essence of the greatest Indian of modern times, and India is Husain’s portrait of the faceless face of a woman draped in a white, blue-bordered sari.
India is Awara hoon! playing on a scratchy, wind-up gramophone. Dev Anand in a rakishly tilted Jewel Thief cap, the carthorse’s hooves going clip-clop in rhythm with Dilip Kumar singing in Naya Daur, it is Madhubala and Nargis and Waheeda Rehman, and Guru Dutt and Madhuri Dixit and Shah Rukh Khan leading the women’s hockey team to victory and the Big B and the two-storey-high trafficstopping Bollywood poster in Trafalgar Square, London.
India is much more than a million mutinies now; it is a billion-plus narratives of itself, waiting to be told.
Not just once upon a time, but once upon a future ...

No Title

There she was - standing on the other side of the street.
I had known her once, in fact, more than just known her - I had
been friends with her once. I had even fallen in love with her
but before I could decide whether to tell her or not something
had happened that had caused me to compress all my feelings
into a corner of my mind and board them up - never to be
released again.
Now, few years later, I still didn't dare remove
those blockades - afraid of what I might find there. I had made
a decision of not talking to her and I didn't want to repent it.
"Anyhow", I thought," She won't even recognize me."
Lost in my thoughts, I hadn't seen her cross the street and
was startled when I heard her voice. "Hi! How are you? How've
you been? What are you doing in this city? ......" - the
usual barrage of questions people ask when they meet after a
long time.
I told her that I had been working in this city for the
last three years.She had assumed, quite rightly, that I recognized
her and, quite wrongly, that I hadn't known that she too lived
here.
We sat down for a coffee in a nearby cafe intending to
catch up with the last few years of each-other's life.Actually,
it was only she who talked - I was lost somewhere.After some
time when she paused, I asked her casually,"And how is your
boyfriend ?"
She was silent awhile and then she told me that they had
had a quarrel a few days ago and had not talked to each-other
ever since. Before parting she gave me her address(I had already
known her address but obviously I couldn't have told her that)
and asked me to drop in sometimes.
A few weeks later we were as close to each-other as we had
been in college - talking endlessly, going to movies every
weekend, drinking coffee together...... and although no news of
her boyfriend was good news for me, I realised that she seemed
to be getting quieter and more irritable with every passing day.
I knew the reason for it but didn't want to talk about it.
Finally, I couldn't bear to see her like this. I called on
her one evening and told her,"Why don't you talk to him in
stead of waiting for him to call you ? I don't know why the two
of you quarrelled but it is obvious that you miss him.So stop
being childish and call him up."
She looked up and said,"And what about you? Will you be
OK with it or will you again stop talking to me like you did
last time?"
"No," I said," I am absolutely fine with it." And I
boarded up all my emotions more securely than I had ever done
before.

The Tin Shack

Some parts of this story i have blatantly lifted from one i read a few hours ago - the rest is mine.

There was a tin shack on the hill overlooking his village. It had been there as long as he remembered it. Someone had lived there a long time ago but now even the roof had caved in and only a small area in the courtyard was sheltered from the elements. Now,as he looked at it from the other side of the hill, childhood memories seemed to flow down the hillside and drown him. His mind was numbed with emotion. He had been away in the city for quite a few years and now he hoped to be able to return for good. He was returning to where he really belonged. His parents would be waiting for him...and his friends.....and she would be waiting for him too. It was a small village after all,she must know that he was coming.
He had left her with the promise that he would return very soon to take her as his bride and she had promised that she would wait for him however long he took. It was seven years ago. But he still believed that she would be waiting for him, just as he used to wait for her to come to meet him.
As he reached the shack his village came into view and although he couldn't make out anyone from this distance, he found himself trying to look for her. He reached home, greeted his parents, exchanged pleasantries with his fellows and then started waiting for her to arrive. She didn't come that day,nor on the next,nor the one after that.
"What's the matter ?" he thought. "All the people knew that i was coming. She must have known too,then why isn't she coming?"
He turned to his mother for a reply. His mother told him. She had waited long for him but finally she gave way under family pressure and was married off to someone from a nearby village a year ago. However,her husband had died of a disease only two months after marriage and her in-laws refused to accept her saying that she was the ill-omen that had caused the untimely demise of her husband. So now she was living the unenviable life of a young widow with her parents.
He was too shocked to say anything. He simply got up,went to his room and locked himself up for two days. On the third,he went to her house.
She looked just as he remembered her with only a few wrinkles below her eyes telling the story of past years. But she wasn't wearing the salwar-kameez he used to picturise her in and she didn't come laughing with joy when she beheld him - she was wearing a white sari now and she walked with all the dignity of a woman. But her eyes.....her eyes sparkled with joy the moment they rested on him,she didnt look at anything else the whole time he sat there.
He didn't talk in his old funny manner,he talked in a serious one now. And she didn't laugh at his jokes as open-heartedly as she used to earlier, but her smile said it all.They talked as if they were old friends meeting after a long time,but their eyes told a different story. They still loved each-other as madly as they used to - their love had matured , it had passed the test of time and difficulty and now he felt that luck was in his favour at last and he made up his mind to marry her.
He knew that she wouldn't object to that,he had known this all along. But he also knew that the villagers,even their own parents, would not let them do so.Widow-remarriage hadn't made its way to his village yet. He knew that however much he tried to convince people,he would fail. Telling people of his intention to marry her could have proved disastrous, so he decided to tread precautiously.
The next time he went to meet her was a few weeks later. He had made all the necessary preparations. They would go back together to the town where he used to work. He would take up his old job and they would get married and stay together till eternity.
Nothing else mattered to him anymore - his parents could take care of themselves. He had returned for just one person and now that she would go with him,his earlier plans of settling down in the village seemed like a joke.
He told her of his plans. He would wait for her in the tin shack at the top of the hill after sunset and she would make her way to it as soon as she could. Then they would start together on a new life.
The next day was a stormy one. He had prepared everything for their departure and at sunset he was waiting for her in the tin shack. It was very dark by the time she arrived and it was raining very hard. The path downhill was slippery with mud and so they decided to spend the night in the shack and continue on their journey early the next morning.
There was a great deal of lightning that night. No one noticed the bolt of lightning that hit the tin shack on the hill.
The next day, the villagers found their charred bodies in the sheltered area of the tin shack. They were closed in a tight embrace.