So, there’s some kind of stressful/disturbing news that my family just got which could turn out to be nothing, or to be something kind of difficult for the next few years.  I won’t get into it, but sending good thoughts our way would be nice!  And to that end (and also because it is overcast and rainy here again, and my office has no window), I wanted to put up some videos that always make me feel, I don’t know, like there is good in the world?

I can’t remember what post this was a comment on or how it happened, but I know at some point I mentioned in a comment how I have different kinds of “soothing” songs.  One is the kind of silly happy sunshine kind of song, like, oh, anything by Pritam.

 

The other is the kind that just makes me feel like the world is a good happy place.  Like anything with small children and/or Anil Kapoor in it.

 

But when I am really really down, I need something that is just beautiful.  The kind of pain in your gut beauty that makes you believe in a higher power.  What some (most?) people get from nature or classical music or poetry.  And because of some quirk of my brain, I get it from visual images.

 

Guru Dutt, when he was a small child, used to use the lantern in their room late at night to create amazing shadows and shapes on the wall.  His sister remembered it decades later as something so magical she couldn’t look away.  Years later, as an adult, he created those same light and shadow images on film in a way that makes me cry to look at.

 

Something about the way the voice goes up on “Roj-A!” in the chorus here kind of makes my heart hurt.

 

I know most people like the “Chaiyya Chaiyya” song best, but for me, the title song is much better in every way.  The vision of fearless love against war, Shahrukh standing up in his arms outstretched love pose as a landmine explodes behind him, kind of, I don’t know, makes me think that I can get through anything if I just focus on the good in the world.

 

Rang De Basanti is my all time favorite Rahman soundtrack.  And one of the most perfect films I have seen.  I could include all the songs on this post, but for the most beautiful, it has to be “Roobaroo”.

 

And then my big go-to, and honestly I don’t even know why I react this way to this song, is “Ajnabi Shehar” from Jaan-E-Mann.  The whole movie is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, crazy mixed up plot and dwarfs and doppelgangers included, but this one particular song always makes me cry and kind of shiver when I see it.  Starting that first time I saw it in theaters, the same weekend Don came out, and I couldn’t sleep the whole night because it was just about the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.