Jab Ram ho sake hai neela, aur Shivshankar ho sake hai kaala We will cross our hurdles and walk the victorious path. Thadai agattri, vetri nadai nadappom! Nadappom! We say the possibilities of our potential are endless! We say we can do anything we put our minds to! Yet they say, “don’t do this”, “don’t do that”. They say I am the only thing standing in the way of my success. They say I can do anything I put my mind to. For you, we hope that Manam may revitalize old ideas… or spark new ones. We’re beyond grateful to have had this experience, and hope that both our learning and unlearning never stop. The journey of creating this music, collaborating with incredible artists and friends, and continuing to educate ourselves has been more enriching that we can describe. Then began the 1-year long laborious process of arranging, Zoom rehearsals, and home-recording. Within weeks, the poetry was finished, and a few weeks after that, the songs were composed.
As cliché as it sounds, we could only process and express through the language we speak most comfortably: music. Each of these events triggered us, as they did millions around the world. The next day, Jeyaraj and Bennicks were killed. Covid had brought me to my parents’ house, where we would finally be able to write together. Less than three weeks later, I was waiting at the San Francisco International Airport baggage claim. I started writing in English in the hopes that my mom and I could work together from across the country to rewrite it in Tamizh. We wanted to go deeper to write more about each of these topics. I was in Boston and they were in San Jose. My parents and I talked about her poetry on the phone for maybe two hours. When we are born, who decides our color, caste, and religion? Pirakkumbodhu niram, jaadhi, madham thervu seivadhaar? Breonna Taylor had been killed less than three months before. The recent murder of George Floyd had been weighing on her that week. On June 3, 2020, I got a call from my mom.
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