Chakare, Chellam!

Still.

The feet mildly tap the ground.

Carpeted floors and off-loaded shoes maintain the silence.

I am trying to focus on the words that my fingers are being instructed to write. But the high-pitched voice of the female tamil singer and somber, sultry voice of the male singer distract me. The headphones are vibrant with the rhythm and I am annoyed by the continuous distraction this is posing.

This is why perhaps, somewhere during the last decade, I stopped listening to tamil music. I can get through many English songs without missing a beat, while working, but tamil songs have something else and I know what it is.

For some reason, these tamil songs to me seem like they have more depth. In the love songs, in the sad numbers, in the dapankuthu. Some of the Hindi and English songs do have them but I can’t recall many with this kind of intensity.

May be it is also that when I see the Western civilization as a whole, largely their concept of love is very fluid. They get over emotions quickly, they change partners often. If it doesn’t work with one girl/guy there is always another. But I know down in South India, amidst that conservative society, to fall in love is quite a feat! In the movies, the hero has a tragic flaw and it is not always about status and money as it is mostly in the Hindi movies.

May be I am biased. The lyrics, to me, seem much more powerful in tamil than in English or Hindi. Each emotion has a parallel word and sweet nothings sound much sweeter in tamil.