When music is life

There are two types of people...I think. 

One... the kind who needs perfect silence to keep their brains ticking. And then..there's me.. the second category. The kind who needs music blasting at the loudest in their head so they can get some real work done... And then these two categories get married and decide to work from home, under the same roof!!!!!

Music rules me. Everything about me. I work best when there is music around me. I love to have it play while I am cooking, bathing, reading, studying, working, walking, dancing, driving...you name it. I need music. Everytime. All the time. And I am not picky. But I am still stuck in the 90s when it comes to my favorites. Malayalam songs are obviously my first pick. But I am also terribly in love with Ilayaraja SPB combinations. Maybe because I grew up in Tamil Nadu. But my love for Tamil songs is something my husband will never understand or share. AR Rahman kills me with his compositions. I will die for him! Then there are also the occasional Kannada songs that have stuck with me, especially during my Mysore days. Riding the cabs very late at night, where the only consolation is the one random song that comes up. Hindi songs are hit-or-miss for me. Like I said, stuck in the 90s. Love to dance to the new ones but for the mental stimulation, I need to time travel, to the past. Maybe it is the nostalgia. Remembering an era where my biggest passion was just being in that moment. 

I could live without oxygen, maybe, but never without my Bluetooth speaker or my headphones! I couldn't survive a second. I drive my family up the wall. I fight with my kids over the songs I choose to play on long drives. I give in to their occasional Swiftie requests, but then I keep going back to what is mine. Mine and mine only. And that is where my husband swoops in with his Pink Floyd and Metallica, driving me insane again. 

Today, though, I even tested the limits on my mother. She has been a huge help at home, handling all the lunchtime chores while I focus on my 9-5 and my PhD prep. So I guess walking into the room to find me lip syncing to SPB at his loudest and seemingly typing on my laptop, while she has been working to keep my clan and me fed, irritated her. You see, my mom comes from a generation of mothers who firmly believe that resting during the day is a sign of inefficiency. And listening to music during the day is considered 'resting'. I get it. Because I take up after her when it comes to my home-ethics and routines. I promptly jumped into damage control mode. But it does leave me stuck. 

When I have music with me, I am not distracted. I am anchored. The noise around me recedes. The task in front of me sharpens. My thinking moves faster, my patience runs longer, and the quality of what I produce goes up. Not just marginally.. but also meaningfully.

I am not asking anyone to adopt my method. I am not even arguing that music works this way for everyone. I know it does not, and I respect that completely. which is why it is always me and my music, either on my headphones in a closed room, or the speaker, kept at its lowest volume, by the kitchen window.

The science, for what it is worth, is broadly on my side. Research on background music and cognitive performance has shown consistently that moderate-tempo music can improve focus, reduce the perception of effort on complex tasks, and elevate mood in ways that translate directly into sustained productivity. The effect is particularly pronounced for creative and analytical work, the kind of work that fills most of my day.

But honestly? I should not need to cite a study to justify the conditions under which I do my best thinking. We do not ask people to defend their preference for natural light, or their need for a standing desk, or the particular brand of pen that helps them think. We extend the quiet assumption that adults know something about how their own minds work. I would like that assumption extended to me, too.

So maybe I want the music to stay...not as a statement, not as a provocation, and not as something I need a committee to ratify. Simply because it is part of how I show up fully, do my best work, and bring everything I have to the people and problems that deserve it. Or simply because it is what I love most, among a few others!

And if that still needs convincing? I should be more persuasive about it with a good playlist on, I suppose!

When the eyes deceive

This is not rhetorical. This is really my eyes deceiving me.

Growing up, I had personal favourites among my own physical traits - My eyes and my hair! Maybe because they were the ones I was most complimented on. The ones that drew compliments like magnets, even from strangers, often in the same breath as a put-down.

You see, I was heavier as a child. Friends and family, well-meaning or otherwise, had opinions about that. But rarely did a comment about my weight land without a softener attached to it. "Oh goodness, but you have the most beautiful eyes!" or "I love your hair. I wish I had it!" It was the era of the backhanded compliment, dressed up as kindness. And so, almost by accident, I grew up vain about exactly those two things. Not out of arrogance, out of survival, really. They were the parts of me that the world seemed to agree on. So I held onto them. Very dearly!

I used to line my eyes religiously with kohl. I have erased and redrawn until I was completely satisfied with the winged and smoky eyes I wanted. I used to oil and groom my hair with a dedication that, frankly, I have never since applied to anything more productive. These were my rituals, my quiet vanities, my small acts of self-celebration in a world that seemed only partially on my side. Things that I loved to do. During my engineering college out-of-state trip, there was even a picture taken of my hair in a ponytail beside the actual tail of a pony, to put an end to an argument as to who carried the ponytail better.. My hair or the pony.. And I won! Unanimously! (Note to self - Find that picture!!)

Then, as it tends to do, life got in the way. The kohl stayed in the drawer. The oil sat on the shelf. Time ran out, as it always does, and slowly those rituals dissolved into the background noise of adulthood.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday, it became impossible to ignore what my neglect had quietly been doing all along. We were out for dinner at a dimly lit restaurant. As I settled down for the next two hours of being my kids' personal waitress, my hair clip, usually so faithfully taut and dependable, holding up every last strand with authority, gave up. It slid down silently, without so much as a warning, and wedged itself into the cushions of the chair behind me. 

And so there I was. One hand frantically pushing limp, uncooperative strands of hair away from my face, the other holding up a plastic-coated menu at an increasingly ridiculous distance from my eyes, squinting. Hard! The kind of squinting that leaves no room for dignity. The kind that, a few years ago, I would never have associated with myself in a restaurant, at dinner, in public!!

The dim lighting that once felt romantic now felt like a personal attack. The menu that should have taken ten seconds to read, now became a torture. And my hair, that glorious, thick, once-dependable crown I had taken entirely for granted, hung around my face like it, too, had simply stopped trying! It was, in the most unceremonious way possible, my wake-up call. Delivered over a bread basket, in a dimly lit booth, with no witnesses except me and my broken heart. 

My hair, my beloved, dramatic, thick-as-a-forest hair, has been staging a slow protest. Every time over the years that I chopped it off in a moment of frustration, it always came roaring back. Thicker. Longer. Almost smug about it. So when I mercilessly slaughtered my long, beautiful braids nearly a year ago, I expected the same defiant comeback. It has still not come! I am now deep in the rabbit hole of hair growth remedies, concoctions, and desperate research. Castor oil promises. Ancient grandmother recipes, I am willing to try without question. I am waiting, with what little patience I have left, to see if any of it works.

And while I wait...My eyes. The very ones that were always pulled out of a crowd, that people paused to comment on, that I lined and highlighted and was quietly proud of for years. Those eyes now squint at my phone screen. They strain over the pages of books I have loved all my life. They are, in the most poetic betrayal imaginable, beginning to ask for glasses.

My two favourites. The ones that carried me through the years when the rest of me felt like too much. The ones I stopped paying attention to, assuming they would simply always be there, unchanged and loyal. They are also finally giving up on me. Turns out, even your favourites notice when you stop showing up for them. 

Maybe this is where I finally fade into oblivion. Into the background. And make invisibility my identity. No longer seen/no longer able to see. I will admit, there is a strange grief in that, one I wasn't prepared for. Or maybe, this is just me. Being me again. A little over the top, obsessing over the irrelevant!

And Ps- if it matters, to get me out of this rut and for some self-consolation, I have cancelled the previous trip itinerary for a lake holiday and am actually driving down to get me some island life and the much-needed Vitamin SEA!!!! I need to heal and let my inner child free again!