I was listening to the song Tu Mere Saamne sung by Rafi in the movie Suhaagan (1964, MD: Madan Mohan). The music was so soothing I was in a state of ecstasy. Initially I did not remember the movie the song was from or who the MD was. So I looked up my database.
And then it happened. When I searched for Tu Mere Saamne in my database a song of the same name from Darr (1993, MD: Shiv Hari) came up probably on account of Darr being alphabetically before Suhaagan.
And then I mentally played the SRK song's tune from Darr. It really gave me a rather unpleasant sensation.
Two songs starting with the same words - but the similarity ended there. I wish I could find a formula to rate music that I like. I am not yet there. I do not know how to codify music. As I remember, the song from the Sh..Sh..Shah Rukh Khan's movie was quite popular when it was released. But when I hear the same Darr song right after listening to the Madan Mohan song it feels like having visited a whore.
There are two other songs that make an interesting comparison. Both sung by Lata and belong to the same period. The first is Dil Ka Khilona Haaye Toot Gaya from Goonj Uthi Shehnaai (1959, MD: Vasant Desai). I like this song very much.
The second one is Dil Ka Diya Jala Ke Gaya sung by Lata once again in the movie Aakaashdeep (1965, MD: Chiragupta). This tune in the second song is one that is out of this world - so much so that it makes the first song, Dil Ka Khilona, inferior in comparison.
Again I do not know why I consistently rate the Diya song higher than the Khilona song. Both are slow songs. I am fairly sure it's not because the word Diya sounds more poignant than Khilona. What then is the reason?
It is strange, fascinating, that the same song creates the same sensation in me, whenever I listen to it. It is almost as though there is a mapping inside me which says "if it's this music, this will be your sensation". Meaning the liking or disliking of something, in this case a tune, is preset or wired within us?
I thought this was a good place to end the post. Someone thought not.
A friend replied that people have told her that their liking of a song depended on their mood. Extrapolating (liberally), their liking of other things also could depend on their mood. When a husband wonders why he is suddenly disliked by his wife, or vice versa, we may have an answer. It's mood, aka hormones. And if someone asks you what your favorite movie or novel or author or restaurant is... You got it, it could depend on the mood. It is known that women prefer alpha males when they are ovulating and beta, gama, delta etc males when they are not.
There are two other songs that make an interesting comparison. Both sung by Lata and belong to the same period. The first is Dil Ka Khilona Haaye Toot Gaya from Goonj Uthi Shehnaai (1959, MD: Vasant Desai). I like this song very much.
The second one is Dil Ka Diya Jala Ke Gaya sung by Lata once again in the movie Aakaashdeep (1965, MD: Chiragupta). This tune in the second song is one that is out of this world - so much so that it makes the first song, Dil Ka Khilona, inferior in comparison.
Again I do not know why I consistently rate the Diya song higher than the Khilona song. Both are slow songs. I am fairly sure it's not because the word Diya sounds more poignant than Khilona. What then is the reason?
It is strange, fascinating, that the same song creates the same sensation in me, whenever I listen to it. It is almost as though there is a mapping inside me which says "if it's this music, this will be your sensation". Meaning the liking or disliking of something, in this case a tune, is preset or wired within us?
I thought this was a good place to end the post. Someone thought not.
A friend replied that people have told her that their liking of a song depended on their mood. Extrapolating (liberally), their liking of other things also could depend on their mood. When a husband wonders why he is suddenly disliked by his wife, or vice versa, we may have an answer. It's mood, aka hormones. And if someone asks you what your favorite movie or novel or author or restaurant is... You got it, it could depend on the mood. It is known that women prefer alpha males when they are ovulating and beta, gama, delta etc males when they are not.
Is truth a virtue? What is 2+2? It depends on the mood. How difficult it must be when the teacher explains that 2+2 is 4 and always 4 and the answer does not and cannot depend on your mood. No wonder so many people hate Maths. It conflicts with their belief that things are not always so. As a friend tells me often "Har cheez har jagah laagu nahi hoti" (everything is not universally applicable).
Who said truth is invariant? For some people it is quite variant and truth has many dimensions. If there is a person like me whose liking for a song is kinda invariant, there is another person over there shaking his head and saying it depends on their mood.
Just like you may not like deep fried stuff when you are very sick but may love fried stuff when you are fine. When we are sick we are acutely aware of things not being OK and the food we normally crave for doesn't tempt us.
Now imagine if you are acutely aware of your feelings every moment of the day, then what / who / how / why / where you like may vary with time or mood. Even this model, while understandable, is not complex enough. I am tending to think that even the data sensed from the environment (the what) is stored along with one's personal feelings or justifications (the why). Data and feelings aren't stored separately in the brain. Hence the ability of people to accurately recount data (only the what) is jeopardized. Because the data is modified by the feelings associated with it while the data was sensed and before it was stored. As Daniel Kahnemann saya human judgments are notoriously inconsistent.
If you are a person with a sharp nose and I felt negatively about you, then I might store the information about you and your nose as "something negative" and if someone were to ask me about your nose I recollect from memory as "not sharp".
The question is: do I understand what a sharp nose is. Yes I do. I can distinguish a sharp nose from a snub one. It's my feelings that caused the data to be stored incorrectly. It's like seeing the world with wrong prescription glasses. You see things not as they really are but as how you felt about them. You can see this lovely video: https://ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory?utm_source=whatsapp&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=tedspread--b
Jesus, many of us usually take what people say at face value. Maybe Google can develop an Android app one day which will tell us in real time how much the person, we are with, is feeling and hence not to be taken literally.
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