“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” ― Aldous Huxley
Music is for the heart, the soul, and in Krea, to fill the gaping holes of silence that living in a place like Sri City creates. This is how I wanted to start this article. I usually spend hours trying to find the right sentence to start with because I want to grab your attention, but writing this one felt so wrong because music is universal, and while Krea has a very unique set of gaping holes of silence needed to be filled, I’ve found that life has never missed an opportunity to provide me with astonishingly loud silences.
A friend and I were rotting in my room the other day, and I started playing an old playlist filled with 2016 songs with The Chainsmokers, Alan Walker, and Imagine Dragons, and all things that took us back to our 13-year-old selves. When Bad Liar played, I was suddenly transported to my room four houses ago, staring at the ceiling from my bunk bed, listening to all possible Imagine Dragons songs my Walkman could handle. I was studying (or rather, in true Siya fashion, procrastinating studying- I’m really setting a trend here) for my board exams, and in my breaks between studying, I would binge-listen to Imagine Dragons. My whole family would be fast asleep, and I’d be staring at the wall, the Kindle on my bed waiting for me, listening to the same songs again and again. Until at least the next phase started, which, if my memory serves right, was Lauv.
I can tell you such moments in my life from my earliest memories – with my mom and dad dancing around to Kishore Kumar and Elvis while preparing for dinner parties, my friends and I walking back from school, refusing the comfort of our buses simply so we could scream songs on the way back. We’d share links to the latest music videos and spend hours discussing every small detail for hours on end, and a lot of Walkmans and MP3s have gotten worn out because of overuse. Yes, music has brought us together, but it has also given us company on the loneliest days. If Spotify existed in India back in my eighth grade, I’m sure my Spotify Wrapped would’ve been extremely concerned over the number of times I listened to Flicker by Niall Horan back then. Music has always filled the loudest silences with warmth and comfort. It’s also astonishing how music has impacted some of us in uncannily similar ways, too. A friend and I were talking about our trajectories from shifting to popular music to curating our own personal tastes. I suddenly found myself among the million followers of the artists I thought were niche back then. I think finding your own music taste is a necessary part of finding yourself, because music is your companion on days no human can be.
And everyone has that one song that will always reach their truest selves (Hey Jude by The Beatles, in my case) and give you the hope and faith needed to make you feel human. At the risk of sounding like a lost cause, I’ll try to drive the point across more concretely. Music has and will always be there for you on days you can’t be there for yourself. But that’s something you all know. Music also has the power to shape who you are and how you feel. I can’t explain the stark contrast between starting my day with Don’t Worry Be Happy by Bob Marley versus starting it with Linger by The Cranberries. On days I need to cry, there’s nothing like the most diabolically gloomy songs that will get me there. But on days I need to feel better, the last song I should be listening to is The Night We Met, but I am my worst enemy.
Music drives my emotions to depths I cannot quite explain or understand, and the dependence we have on sounds is insane. I promise I’m finally coming to my point – we hate silence. Human beings cannot stand or tolerate silence. But we hate noise. Music (God bless whoever played the first few notes of music) is that balance. We thrive on the ability to shut our brains and be ourselves, while keeping away from silence. So we created our songs and notes and tunes, to drive across words and thoughts and emotions that cannot be said or thinked (intentional) and felt. We created magic to battle the gaping holes of silences – Krea or not – and somehow made these notes and tunes and songs a way to live. I started this article with a quote, and I want to end it with one, from one of my favorite artists –
“The best music is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.” – Bruce Springsteen
So grab your speakers, your earphones, headphones, Spotifys, and Apple Musics, and take on the world with something that simply cannot leave you alone with the silence.