Sunday, February 1, 2009

The Kandisa Syndrome

I'm not a particularly huge fan of Indian Ocean's music, but I do like their tunes to a large extent. My first encounter with their music happened about fourteen years ago, when I was very good friends with a classmate of mine who was into classical dance, dramatics, lounge music... that sort of thing. I spent a weekend at her place once. She had recently laid her hands on an audio cassette of Kandisa. And she'd heard it a couple of times and really liked it. Now this came at a time when I had not yet developed a taste for that sort of music. My liking was mostly bestowed on commercial, mainstream Hindi music. Now she had that cassette playing for about seventeen hours. That's a lot, you know, even for music that I like. If I'd been listening to Rangeela for that long, I'd probably have been sick of that too.

After that episode, I never ventured into anything by Indian Ocean. Maybe a track or two from Black Friday appealed to me, but not much else. That was until the rafting trip last April. After a few rounds of Bharam Bhaap Ke, Ma Rewa, Hille Re and others in the bus, I began to develop that taste which had actually never been given a chance to develop. After that trip, I caught hold of all their albums and listened to all their music at leisure. A lot of that happened when I made little visits to Ashish's cabin and he was playing some of that stuff. There was this one morning when he had heard Torrent in his car and continued to play that track in a loop. That morning, I somehow found that track really relaxing and soothing, and put it on my iRiver, which is where I keep all the songs that help me relax and fall asleep. After Mar Jaawan, Kahin To... and Teri Yaadein, Torrent has been my fourth most often used song to counter insomnia.

These days, I go through these phases when I don't like any sort of music at all, or I get bored stiff of everything I like and begin to feel a restlessness that would ordinarily be cured by my favourite music. Then I take a day or two off from my regular music, and listen to Kandisa for a day or two. Just Kandisa. On repeat. Maybe all of it, maybe just a track or two. It magically relaxes me, refreshes my mind, helps me work better, and restores the normal balance of things.

2 comments:

actinium said...

may i recommend Leaving Home...not really anti-insomnia, but definitely anti-depression :-)

Bhavya said...

Have heard that one a whole bunch of times, and I do like it, but I haven't heard it from Alok yet. Not sure how much I'll like it after that