Brown students call them "weeks from hell"...those blasted 5 days when normalcy fades into the distance and all we see is ginormous mugs of tea/coffee (pick your drug), the monstrosity of pages and pages of un-read books/articles and a blur of ideas, thoughts, essay topics that miraculously (and agonisingly, painstakingly) find themselves transferred to laptop screens and exam booklets. The 5 days when the insides of our eyelids decide that they, under no circumstances, will allow us to see them. At all. It always seems like an eternity. Those measly 5 days. Are finally over. Officially and absolutely.
When I begin to find myself lost and without hope, I turn to the most powerful force known to humankind...Music. The soundtrack of Dil Se... managed to keep this (terrible-example-of-a-) student alive. And kicking. This is how I've always heard the soundtrack:
Chaiyya Chaiyya - this song shall be played at my funeral. i have heard it atleast 600 times, and every time i feel like i'm hearing it for the very first time. magic, is this.
Jiya Jale - my parents love this song. and, therefore, i do too. Gulzar-saab is the 8th wonder of the world.
Aye Ajnabi - so painful. so perfect.
Dil Se Re - no one could have done to this song what Rahman's voice did. also, Mani Ratnam and Santosh Sivan (god I have so much love for this cinematographer...nay, artiste) use the world as their canvas in picturizing the song. there are moments in the video which make it almost too beautiful to bear.
Thayya Thayya - umm ya. the wannabe, kind-of-cool cousin of super-cool Chaiyya.
Satrangi Re - almost as mesmerizing as the obsessive love it speaks of. i cannot say enough about this song and the visuals that accompany it. i've always been a sucker for mountain-moving, shackle-breaking, heart-stirring love. the poetry of passion is given movement in this song. watch it-listen to it-feel it.
I also just realized the film was released in 1998...a decade ago...and I remember it. Wow, might as well get the knitting ready, change into my granny pants and plop myself on my rocking chair - I am embarassingly old.
I cannot wait to detoxify this weekend. Lots of fun things: a housewarming lunch, event planning for our Mahmoud Darwish poetry night, the SASA (South Asian Students' Association) dinner/dance and LOTS of poetry-writing. And yes, there will be poems dedicated to you...and you and you and you (it's a Sound of Music reference. if you don't get it, let us not be friends).
There was much I wanted to share about the cold weather, my new rainboots, fruitflies, phone calls, blue-cheese pasta sauce, pyaar and such...but the insides of my eyelids have finally granted me an appearance. The opportunity is too good to pass. Sleep defeats me.
Ishq par zor nahin, hai yeh vo aatish Ghalib
Jo lagaye na lage aur bujhaye na bane*
- Mirza Ghalib (from Satrangi Re)
- Mirza Ghalib (from Satrangi Re)
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* "Love is that fire, o Ghalib, over which we have no control
It cannot be started on a whim, nor extinguished if you try"
[My personal translation - it does the original no justice, by the way]
It cannot be started on a whim, nor extinguished if you try"
[My personal translation - it does the original no justice, by the way]
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