Well there aren’t many podcasts that I’m in these days but there are a few that bless my ears…
One of the podcasts that I used to listen to was “Violating community guidelines” by Sarah Schauer and Brittany Broski;
I know weird names but they complimented each other and the funny instances on their podcasts were so hilarious that I often laughed out while working making people think that I’ve gone crazy 🤪..
48 episodes discussing the trends on the social media and what went on during the year 2022 and the end of it,
Started in January of ‘22 ending in December of the same year, Ive found myself to go back to it year after year and boost my mood and give me laugh whenever life pins me down…
These days I’m invested in a podcast called Alan watts daily wisdom and yes they’re sharing the timeless teachings of the philosopher Alan watts through ai in his voice to all the world to listen and view too…
Started a month ago and 24 videos in gathering a whopping 108k followers as we speak (on yt) I’ve found it very helpful and informative by giving me insight to live this life better in ways that are often overlooked…
I’m pretty sure most of the world is suffering with this disease of a very long screen time, hooked on Instagram reels, YouTube shorts and videos, clips on TikTok and many more…
Time seem to pass by so quickly when we are hooked on them that it feels unreal;
You started watching them at 10 at night and suddenly it’s 1:30 before you can see the time on the phone which was there all the time…
There are a lot of things that I use to achieve my goal of reducing screen time a few of them are->
Having a separate phone for doing writing without any distractions so that I can focus when otherwise I would find a way to stop writing and doom-scroll Instagram..
Tracking screen time on both my phones just to keep in touch with how much I used a single app and how much I need to cut back…
Presetting a timer on each app which I use a lot for example I set a timer for an hour on Instagram which is a lot less from 4-5 hours which used to happen without knowing…
Trying to avoid using phones for the first few hours I usually wake up and pen my ideas or any dreams that I had, which makes all of it interesting as it boosts my writing skills and also imaginative skills which help me remember what happened in my dream world…
And at last, I keep my phones a bit away from me like for charging away from me when I have free time so I’d have to walk to it to get it as I’m on my bed, which cuts the interest in getting up and grabbing it a bit more…
Have you ever heard a track and went, I don’t know what they’re saying but, it feels good to listen, so, you end up having a few of them in your playlist, and one day when you’re scrolling your downloads, you find it yet again, and revisit those old memories…?
Travelling west…
That’s how I discovered “Nancy Ajram”, A Lebanese singer, “Jamila El Badaoui”, A Moroccan singer, And, “Nai Barghouti”, a Palestinian singer, composer and singer, with such talent that is nowhere to be found…!
Finding these rare gems…
These discoveries for a person sitting in India, is not possible unless a random one of these come on your recommendations, but, for that you should have heard them in advance or have someone tell you about them but, it never happened to me, it was always finding out on my own, hearing it someplace, like the background of an instagram reel, or, a soft tune playing somewhere, that’s how I found out about the legends “FAIRUZ”, And “ABDEL HALIM HAFEZ”…
Returning to my roots…
But, that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about my culture and the origin of my being, Panjabi folk singers like “Lal Chand Yamla Jatt”, and “Alam Lohar” “Ashiq jutt” “Amar Singh Chamkila” “Asa Singh Mastana” and their female counterparts, “Noor Jehan”, “Surinder Kaur”, “Narinder Biba” and “Amarjot”…
Not forgetting the new Skool singers who are carrying the legacy forward that we got from our ancestors, “Arjan Dhillon”, “Sidhu Moose Wala”(Rip LLSMW🕊️), “Karan Aujla”, and many more who are working hard to bring up the level day by day..
So, you see my genre focuses on my mother tongue, with exposure from around the world..
About Bollywood…
I don’t like Bollywood that much because most of it has become a copy and paste from other cultures, but occasionally, there will be tunes that stay on my mind forever, and they come back to me after a while reminding me to listen to them yet again, and break my stereotype yet again…
Towards the end..
That’s it for the day, hope you guys have a nice weekend, and listen to some nice tunes along the way…
Your Recommendations…
Is there something that you recommend, do let me know in the comments…
I have, and I can’t get enough of it ever, there are times so hard at moments, where I can’t face the world, But, music was, and all I could do was wrap myself around in its comfort…
There are moments, some dreadful, some joyous, that make up the part of my daily schedule, and living through them becomes a pain, but, a music makes the passing of time easier, by shifting the focus of the stresses off of me, by helping me calm down, and with a calm mind i can look at problems differently, from various perspectives and find an optimal solution, just with the help of music…
I listen to music to feel the emotions that I can’t feel, haven’t felt in a long time, like, there are some tunes spark a sense of intense longing or missing a person from the bottom of our heart, but, that too has its benefits, reminding us of our past and mistakes that have been made, to not repeat it ever again…
During some joyous, extremely happy times like marriage of close relatives, or even enjoying night out with my friends, i have found music to be our partner, to enjoy happy moments, and during it, deepened our bond with each other, finding things that we listen to by sharing them with each other…
I am really grateful for music to exist in the same timeline as me, to which I’ve fallen in love with from the bottom of my heart…
Cheers 🥂
Love Waakiye 🤍
A journey that we tread on, finding things that comfort us, on a path that we set, for ourselves to walk on…
In a dimly lit scene, as these words paint a picture vivid, enough to escape the real one, and live in it;
But, the reality often inescapable, forces us to return, cage our being, our essence, by catching us as we flee…
As we use methods to escape, or feel something, sparking a change, sometimes an inspiration to be a better version of self, or to be a better human overall, and, with that, comes a sense of belief, that it was made for us, a gift from gods, a hymn or a verse, that detaches us, cuts our worries short…
You’re not gonna believe that I was curled up in my bed, thinking as the clock stuck 00:00 hours, I should read something before going to sleep, (Trying to induce a habit of reading..) As I picked a book from my collection, it was either Khalil Gibran’s collection, or, it was metamorphosis by Kafka which I bought, the night before i.e. Sunday night from a roadside book seller…
Before I could even focus my eyes on the words written on the first page of metamorphosis, It felt blurry, remembering little, the character turned into bug, there was a description, how he looked at himself, who he was, looking at the picture he hung that he cut out of the magazine…
that’s all I could remember, the first page that to barely, I thought to myself, is this the same mind that read pages upon pages during its prime…?
As I put the book in its place, a wall mounted drawer, and tried to fall asleep, but, I couldn’t, I was using 3 devices simultaneously before, my phone checking the messages, getting updates from a brother who’s fighting an addiction, and doing a splendid job keeping at it, Another one, who just came back from giving a competitive exam, and has had a long day, requiring a full day’s sleep to be in working condition again, another one who opened a new office and is dying from traveling as the commute has added 3 hours which he has to steal from these 24 hours…
My laptop for penning down my thoughts and ideas, in the WordPress app, as a few ideas flew by me, one of which I explored last night, and wrote a prose in a language commonly spoken here, about a girl who is held in boundations, and isn’t welcomed by her maternal home, in a setting that is absolutely heartbreaking….
My wireless sound bar, which played one of the favorite playlists that has songs from Panjabi culture, some Hindi songs and Gazals or a collection of old poetry, which brought me immense joy, and every once in a while, a new song would pop in and I’d have to change it, and remove it from my playlist…
Surrounded by these things, I thought of a life before all of this, these devices, these apps, these screens and, it took me back to a time when we had those buttoned phones and nothing more…
I remember, getting bored of playing snake game and then going out to play with my friends in the colony we grew up in, we used to run after each other, play hide and seek, hopscotch because we had these sandstone blocks outside our home, which would make it way easier to prepare and play around, but, those memories were blemishing, maybe I forgot some of it…
We used to wake up early, watch our grandparents light an incense stick in prayer room, after then watching them read the newspaper on the rocking chair, sipping on their piping hot tea, occasionally taking a bite of biscuit or rusk that was kept right next to their cup and saucer…
I remember rushing to take a bath, after that hurriedly chomping down breakfast, it was something light like poha, or a paratha (Indian flatbread with filling), something that we all loved, after that going to school where we used to enjoy our friendship, meeting those who we liked from the bottom of our hearts, some crushes, some whom we adored, and found cute…
Our parents went to their work, father returning home late around 8 or 9, mother returning home early and preparing evening snacks for us kids, and preparing dinner for the people in the house, and finally getting back to bed, late around 11 pm or 23:00 hours…
Occasionally going out to buy sweets like jalebis, or something, never missing the night walk, staring at the starry sky and the moon, as we used to walk back home, tiredness kicking in as soon as we reached home, and falling asleep under, the rotating fan and occasional cooler blowing cold air which turned into hot after it ran out of water, and then replacing it with new water after cleaning it to remove the foul smell…
The respect that we held for our elders and the stories that we heard from their own mouth, that too very keenly, shaping our beliefs and moral compasses, without many distractions, we were able to focus better; and having a genuine relationship because of face-to-face conversations, and learning about our culture and heritage from the word of mouth, rather than having to search google or YouTube just like these…
A time to remember and cherish it was…
Cheers 🥂
Love Waakiye 🤍
Those were the good days, we keep on telling ourselves, as the generation that grew up playing outside, before the technological advancement that made our lives, Easier yet more chaos filled…
Remembering, crying to our parents to play outside, our eyes feel watery this day too, But, seeing the roads empty, break our heart shattering them into little pieces, a history of fun gone, replaced by technology…
That crying before going to school, and the tiredness that surrounded afterwords, that sleeping after coming home, or those time spent, during exam period, cramming everything into this little brain of ours…
Then pouring it all into these exam papers, but, remembering those times brings nostalgia, that keeps us from forgetting those good times…
Going out with our parents after they returned home from work, grabbing ice cream as they talked to each other, worries about our well-being, our school life, and their personal life too, remembering them talking to each other we used to feel happy, that we were blessed with such caring and worried parents,
There are a few sentences that i live by, they aren’t necessarily quotes, but they’re self-drawn rules that I live by, Well, I think each and every one of us should have some, rules or something that helps you set, what is right or wrong, in a situation…
Quotes are those who are written by a writer and such, and when you are one in the making, what’s better than looking at something that you wrote, to keep yourself in check, during times that you thought would be the end of you…
The said quote(s)…
1)
THE FALL TAUGHT ME TO GET UP AND MOVE FORWARD,
IT DIDN’T TELL ME TO STOP AND SIT DOWN,
IT TOLD ME THE REASON FOR THE FALL,
AND I DIDN’T STOP LEARNING,
NOR I’M STOPPING,
DIDN’T STOP YESTERDAY,
WILL NOT STOP TODAY,
WONT STOP TOMORROW,
BECAUSE,
I DIDN’T STOP LEARNING…
★Didn’t stop learning★
2)
CAN’T CRASH OUT
CAN’T CRASH OUT
CAN’T CRASH OUT
CAN’T CRASH OUT
CAN’T CRASH OUT
CAN’T CRASH OUT
CAN’T CRASH OUT
CAN’T CRASH OUT
CAN’T CRASH OUT
CAN’T CRASH OUT
CAN’T CRASH OUT
CAN’T CRASH OUT
✅CAN THUG MY WAY OUT OF THIS ONE, SO
I WON’T CRASH OUT
These two are the ones I often check out, there are more but those are some other ideas, prompting some other feelings…
For the time being, you can read them, save them, make them your quotes too…
Cheers 🥂
Love Waakiye 🤍
This is exactly how it feels when some prompt like this comes in… (Ai generated image…)
Waakiye 