Tag Archives: music

How To Handle Criticism

Once I sent my drawings to a friend; she liked them and from then on she started asking regularly whether I have made any new art work or not. On the other hand, I am not able to produce artworks on a regular basis, however hard I try. So the next time this girl asked me for any new painting, I didn’t have anything to show. I was also afraid that she would start giving me sermons on the need of a more disciplined life and to be regular in art — all that stuff which I had heard several times from her and others. So in order to escape from rebuke, I searched my hard disk and sent the photograph of a very old painting which I had made long back. She replied, “Wow this is very nice work! I should say your painting skills have improved a lot! Great work!“ This was the first instance of fake appreciation for me. She was trying to tell me that I had made great progress in art but her facts were incorrect. I immediately understood that she was simply passing superficial comments and perfunctory appreciation.

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Why You Should Turn Your Passion Into Profession And What Makes It Difficult

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Once question keeps popping up in my mind every now and then. Let me put it in this way. Everyone of us is educated, enters into some profession and earns a living. The rest of life is spent working hard, earning money which soon transforms into accumulating wealth, and then it all ends when we are old or retired, or both. Whenever someone asks why we undertake so much hardship, our quick answer is — financial security, our family responsibility, and above all, happiness. In a way, all reasons are related to each other and imply the same thing — happiness. My question is, instead of working so hard on something which we do not enjoy in order to earn a living so that we could be happy, why not start with happiness itself, i.e., do things that we enjoy and turn it into profession? That way life indeed would become fun and work would no longer be a labour. In fact, most of the time when we say we are tired, we actually mean that we are bored.

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A Great Singer!

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‘Headphone’ by Amit Misra, Pencil on Paper

A fellow scientist narrated me an incident from his college days. This scientist has a very beautiful deep voice, and sings classical Malayalam songs very nicely, and enjoys it too. When he was in hostel, every morning he used to sing while bathing, getting dressed up and so on.

One day his senior complimented him, “Ajay (name changed)! You have a very beautiful voice, your pronunciation is perfect, and you do understand the ragas very well. Words come out smoothly and it is simple enchanting melody…”.

Ajay was overwhelmed. Perhaps it was the first time that anyone had given him such sincere compliment, that too someone much senior to him. His senior asked who his guru was, whether he had anytime given concerts etc. Ajay told that he was self taught, and that he never thought that he was good enough for giving concerts. On this, the senior gave him a soft rebuke saying that he was wasting his talent, and that he should start learning classical music while he still had time. Though concert would be tough in the beginning, he could at least try giving auditions at the local radio station where they encourage young artists. Ajay grew shy and said that the senior must be joking.

“No, I am not! You can ask anyone in this hostel. Surely you should present your singing at the radio. Promise me that you will.”

The conversation went on for a long time. Finally, Ajay was convinced and promised his senior that he would contact the local radio station at the earliest.

Before leaving, the senior said, “That is good. At least then I would be able to turn the radio off.”

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