Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts

Thursday, May 03, 2007

It's not just a song - It's a thought

Yesterday being a holiday, I was busy doing my 'usual' task of browsing through all the music channels for some good music. A new song, Sadho Re, from a band called Agnee suddenly caught my attention. From the music, I could make out it was a typical 'Indian Ocean' kind-of song. But then, the video was even more convincing..

The video (MediaPlayer streaming link), shot in an Indian pilgrim city(probably Varanasi) shows, a small girl, touring around a mela, grabbing her father's hand. Suddenly, another poor kid grabs her toy and runs away. The girl runs behind her, but is unable to catch hold of her. Now, she raises her head to look at the diverse kind of people present at the mela. She now starts realizing the fact that she is lost in the crowd. In the next frame, a man throws some food on the ground and four poor kids fight on the road to get hold of it. The girl's expression says it all at this moment. She can't understand, why anyone needs to fight for food. Someone knocks off the ice-cream she held, but she is still motionless. She later starts crying and walks in search of her father. The video ends with the members of the band taking her to her father and an ecstatic smile on her face.

But more than the video, the interpretation that I guessed, disturbed me very much. Did the director/band try to portray the universal truth from the innocent eyes of the young girl. Picture this: Every one of us is smiling and care-free in the happier times of our life. The moment we happen to lose any of our closest possessions, we engage in an endless chase for it. If we fail to find it, we retard, tired and helpless. But then, when we look at the world around us, we find so much pain and suffering; that our loss seems to be miniscule. We start realizing, the ordeals, others have to go through, for even a grain of food. We feel that all our possessions are just namesake and are no more than ornamental. And at this dividing line of the world and the self, we find ourselves helpless. But, most of the time, this realization is momentary, only till we return to the material world. The big divide of the whole world no longer makes sense to us, as we embrace our new-found happiness in objects of desire. And this is what the song probably means, when it says, Ye murdon ka gaanv..

Surely, songs like these-though may not be part of popular trend (should I say Himesh!), are very much thought-provoking. Reminds me of the lines from Indian Ocean's Bharam Bhaap Ke - "Jang ka rang sunehra samjha, Lekin baad mein gehra samjha. Janga ka rang toh kaala re..."