Grounding anchors

I recently stumbled upon an Instagram post that said, millennials never went for therapy but they had LinkinPark. I remember listening to LP for the first time in my twenties. “In the end it doesn’t even matter” was perfectly suiting my state of mind then, as “I was comfortably numb”. If I look back, music was always there from childhood, grounding me whenever needed without even me knowing it. How MS Subbalekshmi’s classical notes used to clear the mind with her clean sharp notes every morning. How the soft songs played on radio on afternoons calmed our anxious minds subtly. How I used to forget everything when I sit to play veena. The smule days when I really enjoyed hearing myself while assembling the pieces of my self-esteem back together eventually.

Along the way, when cameras came, the photos became my muse. Every pattern that I had been observing while travelling in trains and buses, and the portraits of strangers you see on billboards or by the window panes, or when they are selling at marketplaces or in the traffic blocks, and the landscapes captured by your eyes at the beach, at the historical landmarks, all were now collectibles like your old stamp book. Even if I don’t want to share the photos I took on social media, at times I take some of them just for myself, to enjoy the creation I did, to marvel and pat silently on myself for my ability to notice and frame those with my eyes. A small step to loving myself more.

Every school going nerd lists out reading as their hobby when asked. I was no different. I also enjoyed movies and serials too. Now as media transitioned to Youtube and webseries, I realised its not the medium but the stories that pulled me in. Like the articles on Sunday newspaper supplements, or the Reader’s Digest essays and interviews, or the gossips you eavesdrop on while riding metro or public bus, it were the anecdotes of human beings that revived my curiosity with life. To learn that someone could’ve had worst experience than me or someone could experience a joyful feeling which I haven’t ever. It could also be called the power of humanity I guess.

And as a soil base for all these streams of audio and visual arts, my words flow down to this blog or my personal journal when needed. I water it at times so that my tree of life can flourish with music, pictures and memories.