Tied together

YouTube as everyone knows is a wonderful new (relatively speaking) outlet for people who find creative expression in multimedia art. However one of my favourite videos on YouTube is a rather simple one which I stumbled upon while looking up for John Denver's "I am sorry".

Try searching for "ukulele - I'm Sorry (John Denver)" on the YouTube search, and it'll come up with a simple, bare-to-bones video. The camera focuses on a ukelele and the hands of the player (a guy in Yokohama) singing "I am sorry" and you can see the snow falling in the background through a window. What I am really fascinated by is the number of elements the video brings together with this one single creative exercise.

Consider this: The very much 'country' song seasoned with the bitter-sweet taste of nostalgia is written by a genius raised in the lap of the Colorado Rockies. It is being sung by a person who is cooped up at home during a snowstorm in Japan, and feels in exactly the kind of contemplative mood required to strum this sublime song. As the snow piles on, the delightful instrument that he cranks out his tune on is right out of Hawaii, each pluck endowed with the sunniness and the good cheer of the Pacific islands. To add to the mix, here I am, an Indian working in America, missing my home just a teeny-weeny bit and finding vague comfort in a song which is essentially sad but one that makes me happy simply because it reminds of times past spent listening to it.

It's a brand new year and I still am confounded by the levels of hatred and sadness that brew on our pretty little planet. Here's to the hope that this year, we'll move closer to seeing the common sense in accepting that we are all tied together in the most curious of ways.