Melancholy - As a word, it may not be too popular in our everyday conversations, but as a feeling, I'm sure all of us have experienced it in some point of time.
According to how I have interpreted it, it resides in that space between feeling normal and feeling sad. Many women might have experienced it in their fourth week of monthly cycle. You don't feel normal, at the same time, you are not too sad either.
Sometimes, it is easy to pinpoint a reason (or many reasons) on why you feel this way. There are also times when there is no reason that your conscious mind could decipher.
When such a feeling occurs,
Sometimes you try to distract your mind by watching TV / scrolling through social media feed / eating an indulgent dish etc.
Sometimes you try to go deeper to understand what triggered this feeling in the first place - a contemplative walk / journalling / talking to a friend etc.
I'd like to bring to your attention those rare times when you just want to sit with that melancholic feeling without distraction or introspection. Just let it be. During those times, I find music to be a perfect companion. Mind you, music isn't intended for distraction here. The genre matters.
When I was a kid, I often used to wonder why my dad used to play his collection of sad songs on the tape recorder.
His two favorite songs in this genre - "Manidhan enbavan dheivam aagalam" and "Mayakkamaa Kalakkamaa"
I now get why we sometimes intentionally seek out sad or melancholic songs.
Last evening, I went through a similar feeling and I started to listen to ARR's Bollywood songs in this genre. Started off with "Agar Tum Saath Ho", "Rihaayi De" and I continued to listen to more such gems from ARR.
I didn't resist the melancholic feeling and let it subside on its own, with the help of ARR's soulful music.
And a new playlist titled "ARR Melancholy" is ready!