These days I listen to 70s-80s Hindi music in the late evening instead of my go-to 60s-70s-80s English music. I notice it creates a completely different mood, not just in the house but in my mindspace and heartspace. The mood is low-key nostalgic and melancholic or transcendent and hopeful or playful and anticipating. Transports me in one way or another.

I sometimes try to translate some words into English in my head to see what effect they'd produce, like this romantic and playful song. It just falls flat because the rhythm and tonality of words is impossible to capture... at least for me! See below...

Mein shayar

Toh nahin

Magar ae haseen

Jab se dekha

Meine tujhko

Mujhko

Shayrii

Aa gayi

A poet

I am not

But oh beautiful

Ever since

I saw you

I knew how to

Do

Poetry

Looks like the tornado had settled just momentarily and it's not over yet... hehe... While I battle it out, here's a food for thought...

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"As for what motivated me, it is quite simple; I would hope that in the eyes of some people it might be sufficient in itself. It was curiosity – the only kind of curiosity, in any case, that is worth acting upon with a degree of obstinacy: not the curiosity that seeks to assimilate what it is proper for one to know, but that which enables one to get free of oneself. After all, what would be the value of the passion for knowledge if it resulted only in a certain amount of knowledgeableness and not, in one way or another and to the extent possible, in the knower’s straying afield of himself? There are times in life when the question of knowing if one can think differently that one thinks, and perceive differently than one sees, is absolutely necessary if one is to go on looking and reflecting at all. People will say, perhaps, that these games with oneself would better be left backstage; or, at best, that they might properly form part of those preliminary exercises that are forgotten once they have served their purpose. But, then, what is philosophy today – philosophical activity, I mean – if it is not the critical work that thought brings to bear on itself? In what does it consist, if not in the endeavour to know how and to what extent it might be possible to think differently, instead of legitimating what is already known?"

~ Michel Foucault, The Use of Pleasure. Volume 2 of The History of Sexuality, 1990