Just Swirl!
Whenever I give up hope about transforming Indian agriculture for the betterment of farmers, I surrender to music and Kabir.
The biggest perk of my life has been to live the hyphenated life of a musician while playing the working life of an agritech analyst. Over the past nine years, I have been accompanying Vipul Rikhi in his Kabir musical storytelling concerts and the experience has been deeply transformative.
I don't know when I fell in love with Kabir's music and began accompanying Kabir singers with percussion whenever I could.
In my life, whenever I get in touch with wrenching emptiness, it is his music that acts as a balm on my soul. If I excavate my earliest memories of feeling serene listening to emptiness, it goes back to the first time I listened to Kumar Gandharva
What silly arrogance to think that I could understand this universe of agriculture and the magic that unfolds when a seed germinates and if that were not enough, hold delusional ideas of changing the world of agriculture for the betterment of farmers. Who am I to do all this?
Kabir says,
"Peedaan nu main seene laavaan
Te main hasdi jaavaan
Dhuppaan de naal lad-lad ke main
Labiyaan apniyaan chhaavaan
Dukh vi apne, sukh vi apne
Main te bas eh jaana
Sab nu samajh ke ki karna ae
Dil nu ae samjhaavaan”
“I am laughing while embracing all the pain,
I find my shade by fighting with the glaring sun light.
All the happiness is mine and so is the sadness.
I only know this,
I realize ‘Why do I need to understand everything”
I tell this to my heart,
Just swirl..” (Translation Credits: Shaikh Areeb)
In one of the beautiful lines, Kabir says,
“I am content with myself.
I am much more than my presumed worth.
This world is not my concern,”