Hamsadhvani-- my ecstasy pill

Scene 1:
Its one mild late july afternoon and I am about to lose my funding in ECE dept because of some new stupidly weird rule (by the way, I had got the funding in the first place because of another weird reason). The mind is agitated. Should I bring in fund-reinforcements from home? Should I swipe credit cards? Should I try for funding elsewhere?

What do I do? I do the only thing that I can do at this time. I rush to the library, take out my $5 headphones--which I still preserve (Someone I know has a set of $300 worth Bose headphones), and start listening to Hamsadhvani. Instantly, harmones of ecstasy get released in the brain, and it forgets everything and floats away in some some other world of elation, and by the time I come to BMK's 'GAyathi vanamAli', I am swooning with contentment and peace in me..a new strength hitherto unknown... a feeling that all this is but mAya.

Scene 2:
Returning from Wal-mart in the car, I am extremely hungry, with yet another attack of hyper-metabolism, and hands and legs start shaking and body starts sweating. Lucky me that precisely at this moment, The King's "InAde yEdo aiyyindi" is on. What happened for the next 4 minutes or so might be characterised as OOB (Out Of Body experience).

Hamsadhvani, not surprisingly, was one of the first ragas that revealed themselves to me, perhaps it was the first, followed closely by Yaman. It is verily a dear raga, more than a raga to me. It has a personality of itself and I hold converse . Even now, at this hour, as I listen to Hamsadhvani (Pt.Shiv Kumar Sharma's, this time), the mind offers smilar reactions, once again reminding me of those times, when Hamsadhvani was my only friend, philospher, guide, and of course stress counsellor.

Who needs the ecstasy pill anyway when you can have the mother-of-all-ecstasies ?