“Many are the days that pass in mirth, in the quiet calm of a fresh engagement with life after eons of apathy. Many are the nights that yield passion if only driblets of what the all-encompassing ocean that it once was. Many a moment when I actually smell this world, when I truly see the colors in it, taste the simple joys of a meal in the moon light, walk down an unknown road in yet another alien land, dream a new dream for the years to come, read a line without thinking of what you would make of it, even look at life in the face for an undaunted minute or two. And then all it takes is a tear drop in the eyes of a child sitting in front of me in a bus, for this yearning to come back. As if it never did go away. As if all these years without you are but dreams. “
This is what I wrote after listening to this rather obscure telugu song, (God, was it really) ten years ago! Those were days of dreams and the shattering of dreams seemed rather romantic and inspirational for an aspiring writer.
telusaa manasaa idi ae naati anubandhamo
telusaa manasaa idi ae janma sambandhamo
tarimina aaru kaalaalu edu lokaalu cheraleni odilo
virahapu jaadalenaadu vedi kannesi choodaleni jatalo
Shata janmaala bandhaala bangaaru kshanamidi
prati kshanam naa kallallo niliche nee roopam
bratukulo adugdduguna nadipe nee sneham
oopire neevugaa praanamee needigaa
padi kaalaalu vuntaanu nee prema sakshigaa
ennadu teeriponi runamugaa vundipo
chelimito teegasaage mallega alluko
lokame maarinaa kaalame aagina
mana eegaadha migalaali tudileni charitagaa
Today, when I listen to this, I can only think of how fragile and beautiful the relationship portrayed in this song is. I feel ridiculously protective about the woman in this song (I don’t remember much of the movie but for the fact that she dies immediately after this song, utterly tollywoodisque).
For some reason, I had an urgent urge to transliterate this song last night. Have you ever felt this way about things as you age? What you take for granted in your formative years seems fragile when you are older. You don’t even feel anymore that death and old age cannot touch you anymore. Is it this feeling of being mortal or actually the lack of it in your younger years that make one yearn to be youthful forever? Is this why first love, college, friends of early years and the home you grow up in always yield nostalgic pleasure because whatever happens in your later years will never match up for the sheer abandon and total lack-of-inhibitions of the years of the yore? Telusa, manasa*?
From whence this proclivity, would you know, my mind?
Of which lifetime past is this bond, would you know my mind?
In an alcove of myriad lifetimes of togetherness lies this golden moment
Which neither the six seasons, the seven worlds nor the tempests of separation dare touch.
Your image it is that rests in my eyes every moment,
Your friendship it is that walks by my side in every step of my life,
It is verily you: this very breath of mine, this very life of mine.
And it is your love that will witness my love for you through the cycles of time.
Be thou the debt that can never be repaid
Be thou the jasmine creeper in the fragrance of accord
If times change, and with it, the ways of the world,
let this story of ours remain endless and unchanged.
* Manasu is loosely translated as mind/heart but is more fittingly described as an intension or a desire and not a visceral organ (as in neither brain nor heart). I left it as mind for obvious lack of creativity.
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