Saiyyan

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How many of you'll have heard the nightingale (bulbul) song. At some point in our lives, I am sure you have heard its singing. The red vented bulbul frequents cities as well and can be spotted on tall flowering trees and shrubbery. 

Nightingales have an astonishingly rich repertoire, able to produce over 1000 different sounds. It is the best singing and most pleasant sounding bird ever, with the impressive range of sounds it can make. For this reason, it is the most celebrated bird in the word of literature and music.

How many of you know the Kailash Kher song, Saiyyan is inspired by the nightingale...a nightingale couple in love?


This wonderful song came through with one of the beautiful incidents that Kailash encountered at his house in Mumbai. Here is his story in his own words:

“There was a nightingale around my house who would often come and sit on one of the trees, in front of my room. I like and adore nightingales a lot, and that’s why I feel, she liked me too. Nightingales are generally shy beings, but I think she liked my company and had become used to me by now, I could feel a bonding between us two. I would often spend time gazing at her from my room."

"She had a lover, whom she used to visit often. This fine day, I observed that the lover had come to meet her. I sat inquisitively near the window to see them. What I saw next is something which inspired me to write this song. I saw the two lovers making love to each other. As they came closer to each other, they finally reached a moment when their beaks locked into one another’s. Their eyes went closed and they became totally silent and still, without any movement, as if time had suddenly stopped for them. It felt as if they had gone into Samadhi. This was perhaps one of the most beautiful encounters I ever had with nature. The time froze for me as well."

"Just as I witnessed this miraculous happening of nature, few lines surfaced up inside me:

 Tu jo choole pyaar se, aaraam se mar jaaun

(Should you touch me, with love, I can die easily, blissfully)

Aaja chandaa baahon mein, tujhmein hi gum ho jaaun main, tere naam mein kho jaaun

(Come O love, in my arms, let me disappear into you, let me get lost in your entirety..)

Saiyyan

(O beloved)”

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