Have you ever found the right music for the right book? The two or three times I have, it has felt as if the notes crawled into the book and the words stretched out into music. After a while, I cannot think of one without thinking of the other. It's happening nowadays with this book I am reading -- Aatish Taseer's 'Stranger to history'...a journey through Islamic lands. And a journey I am holding hands and going along, thanks to Yamini who decided it was "my kind of book".  And so every night, at 10.00 or so, I put on a combination of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Rahat, Kailash Kher, Fateh Ali Khan (of the Gwalior gharana), Ali Zafar, Ali Azmat and Atif Aslam, slowly, quietly, switch off most of the lights in the home, lean back on my blue cushions and go on this journey. I have stilled all my speed-reader instincts for this one. This is one journey that encompasses humanity, universalism, or the lack of it, empathy or the want of it and places that have swallowed yearning whole. Speeding along will not work here, will it?

Right now, we have crossed over to Iran from Mecca and a "sun-bleached Tehran" fell over me the whole of yesterday night in waves -- racy dreams of winding my way through my imagined streets of Iran (or was that Syria) calling out to my mom who was just, just a few feet in front of me but never was able to hear me.

I will remember these nights.  

P.S: 'Equal Music' went very well with Beethoven symphonies; and snatches of 'A Suitable Boy' merged seamlessly with 'Zubeidaa'. And those are the ones I remember. I would love to hear about others.

 


Comments

Yamini Vijayan
15/04/2009 04:29

I can barely focus on what I'm writing if I listen to music. But apart from that, I could find connections I'd think. I think that's an interesting thing to do in fact. Maybe I shall do it today. Yeah, I have a lot of time on my hands.

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rachna
15/04/2009 04:49

lovely! i have seen the same happening with smells and events. certain smells bring certain pasts back to life. also music and writing. when i listen to lat uljhi, suljha ja balam (thumri by dr soma) and write something from the heart, i get a tingling in my fingers that had just come with my first crush. ;)

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savitha
15/04/2009 06:52

I can't for the life of me read when I am listening to something, so...But, then, I love the gentle music that Amitav Ghosh creates or the quiet contemplation that Orhan Pamhuk draws me into, when I read Istanbul, or Snow... And then, Naguib Mahfouz. So, yeah, there's something musical and magical about Egypt, Turkey...Now, I am rambling

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srinath link
15/04/2009 07:27

Let me think of some mix and match. NGC at high volume while reading white tiger, absolute silence for silence of the lambs, labour ward and its music for midnights children,election news for war and peace ? just kidding. I have not read any of them nor intend to.

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Marianne
15/04/2009 21:00

Lyrically written as always!You have that certain freshness in your writing that leaves one looking for more --- do a book!

Reading a book for me is curling up in some silent corner or under the trees with maybe bird calls interrupting. Nothing else!

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jayanthi
18/04/2009 03:48

I am bad with names of books so will stick to genres...but how about making one as the balm to the other... i would try Kenny G with a thriller...the melodies of Yanni for a grim book...and a downright thought-provoking book with...pussycat dolls...clamour for dinner with a soothing book...
different things, different thoughts, different moods...one mind can take it all?

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