Everyone perceives things differently. I am sharing something that I haven’t told anybody yet (the fear of alienation being a strong factor, God knows I’m weird enough already), I see colours in music. I have always been able to. Ragas like Yaman, or Behag are shades of turquoise or aquamarine blue; Nalinakanti has always been a deep, rich magenta; Abheri has the shades of reddish brown we see in bricks; Hamsadhwani is a pale pink; Madhuvanthi a soft, curtain-like olive green; Brindavana Saranga is a flurry of bright saffron − the list goes on. I’m listening to a violin rendition of Sama Gana Lolane by Shri. Lalgudi G. Jayaraman mama as I’m writing this and I can feel the maroon shade of Semman that we use for Kolams clouding the back of my mind like a wash of paint. Until very recently, I never questioned this. In fact, I still have no idea what made me question it this time around. I was sitting in an Ashwath Narayan concert (I know, AGAIN) and I slipped into that state of consciousness again where my mind drifts off from what the artist is singing to what that particular piece of music translates into in my mind, or more specifically, the colour that it takes and the tactile feeling to it. Some ragas give an underwater-like vibe to them, all smooth edges and distant glimmers of lighter tones, while some give the effect of ink spreading on a blank canvas, it’s tendrils curling in the blank dark canvas of our minds.

When I got back home that night, like every millennial out there, I went and asked the all-knowing Hermione of our world, Google. I kid you not, I literally typed in ‘seeing music in colours’. As I waited for the results to load (which wasn’t that long, thank you Hathway), sensations of excitement, nervousness and curiosity filling my bones, I didn’t really know what to expect. The question of ‘are there others like me?’ had been weighing my mind down for a very long time and I was so surprised at the abundance of sub-types of synesthesia and how people were unaware of it for a long time. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not a psychologist and I haven’t diagnosed myself or anything like that, but I feel relieved. Relieved that my brain isn’t fried (not enough, not yet) and also, this could probably be the coolest thing that I can write in my bio, ever.

The next day, after a number of mental rants of “Listen, you’re weird enough. They will write this off as your personality, don’t break your head over this, you’ll be fine. It’s not like they are going to disown you.”, I decided to ask my friends (If you’re reading this, hey!) a simple question to see if they had a similar outlook to this situation.

‘What colour do you think Kalyani looks like?’

‘Red’

‘Yeah! Definitely, red.’

‘Nah, it’s more of a green.’

‘What do you mean? It’s clearly red.’

Needless to say, the next hour was spent on a good debate of how different our thoughts were and how each of us perceived different ragas. We matched in some, but for the most part, our opinions differed. The pieces in discussion portrayed the same emotions in each of us, but the colours that came to our minds were completely different.

Some of you may be clueless as to what I’m talking about but there may also be some of you who can relate to this. Maybe you see shapes and sounds in people, or a particular movement for a particular (completely unrelated) thing, living or non-living. If you do, what do you see? Feel free to comment below.

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