Funktuation – Funk Katcheri
Some days you spend under a dark cloud you can’t shake off. You can’t think of anything insightful to say. You can’t incite a single thought in your own mind, let alone the minds of others. You just want to call in a sick day to the universe’s HR and watch reruns of the Office or something. If you’ve made it long enough on this ellipsoidal boomerang, you will know it gets better, sometimes soon, sometimes later, but then you’ll also know that it also gets worse, then even better, then even worse. The alternative is somehow even more frightening: a moribund, but thankfully finite, existence spent revolving around our most proximate fusion reactor. Some days that’s all it feels like it’s about: how to keep from falling off a massive, uncaring frisbee.
Now I know that’s just the cloud talking; if you’ve been around long enough, you know that sometimes the cloud talks for you, puts words in your mouth that feel alien to the tongue. When you’re younger you try to fight the cloud, defeat it. But as you grow older, you realise it’s a lot stronger, and you focus on becoming better at coexisting with it, accepting its cicada-like rhythms as a part of life. Acceptance is the hallmark of age, I suppose. Recognising that things don’t always go your way. That things don’t always work out. That even if you put your mind to something and do your best, things may still not work out. I suppose as an adult, you realise that any sort of success is a function of three factors, only one of which is entirely in your control: capability, hard work, and dumb luck.
This, by the way, was my idea of writing about music when I was younger: a piece like this one. Where the music I recommend would serve as a background score to your experience of reading this. Thankfully, I now recognise this isn’t a very useful way to write about music, but what to do, today it’s been the cloud talking. I will say this, I hold the music that keeps me company on days like today very close to my heart. I’ve been listening to Chennai-based Funktuation’s 2019 EP, Funk Katcheri. The songs on the EP are mostly sung by Benny Dayal, known for his work on Rahman-composed songs like Pappu Can’t Dance, Nazrein Milana Nazrein Churana, Rehna Tu, etc. It’s a straightforward Tamil electro-funk EP, with its first two songs, Oora Paaru (transl. check out my town) and Poovey (transl. flower) being the EP’s standouts.
