From the Editor’s Mac – Ananya Grover

Rolling out our fourth issue, I’d like to take a moment to thank each and every one of you for the support and encouragement you have given to this magazine. Whether you’re a first time reader or have kept up with every new edition, I’m truly glad to have you here and I hope you enjoy our content.

The primary mission of Reflections has always been to provide an open platform– for creative self-expression, critical thought, and an opportunity combined with a challenge to speak on things that matter to you. By you, I refer to a teenager in High School, who wants to find their voice, define their identity, and do something purposeful. In truth, they– we, actually–have no idea what we’re doing.

The people running Reflections are young adults just like you. We aren’t teachers. We aren’t people who’d want to be called Sir or Ma’am. In fact, we’d despise that.

What we do want is to create a space where all of us can share our ideas, display our creative work, and take on topics–some that are important to society and others that important to us. Beyond simply being a magazine, we’re an interactive community– one that I’d like you to be part of.

To listen to me communicate this endeavour and the vision behind it fully, I suggest you watch this talk I recorded for my school’s TED Ed Club: ‘Valuing Young Voices.’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ-wNWoRf4s

What have we been up to?

Each successive issue, we try to do something different and exciting. While for the December edition on Mental Health, you witnessed snowdrops floating down your screen, this time we’ve curated a playlist to set the ambience while you view the website. We’ve also been engaging with you though other activities through our social media pages, such as a contest for the previous issue’s theme and a poll to decide this one’s. Reaping advantage of our virtual medium, we’ve diversified our content past the boundaries of print publications to include GIFs, audio and videos. We are now armed with a bigger, better, and more efficient team with new members on board. But perhaps most importantly, each time we get to hear from more of you!

Much to our delight, we are now expanding beyond the school we started with (Amity International School, Noida) and are open to students of other schools of Delhi NCR. In the current issue itself, students from three separate schools have contributed: Amity International School, Noida; Delhi Public School, Noida; and The Heritage Xperiential Learning School, Gurgaon. We look forward to featuring more fresh names and novel content in the coming months!

In Reflections’ February edition MUSIC, you can listen to the work of emerging artistes; appreciate heartfelt poetry and prose; enjoy an eyeful of graphics, drawings, and comics; and read articles that analyse the varied uses of music in films, take you on a journey through the musical genius of Hamilton, or guide you in streaming music.

Or you could ponder why beer exists.

We’re here to cater to all sorts of different readers and their tastes.

Which brings me to something I really want to say.

People are often extraordinarily dismissive of others’ tastes in music. I’ve seen people scoffing at the old Hindi songs their parents relish, crinkling their noses at the kinds of numbers primary school kids belt in the school bus (I stick to cringing solely at their horrible tunelessness), and refusing to listen to any radio channel besides the English music-playing Radio One. Once, while sharing earphones with a friend during my morning bus ride, I was shocked when she asked me, ‘Do you mind listening to Hindi music?’

‘Of course not, why?’

‘No, I was just asking to make sure you’re okay with it.’

It was apparent from her words that she’d met people who weren’t. How utterly pretentious have we become if we consider it ‘lowly’ or ‘tasteless’ to listen to music in the language most of us call our mother tongue?

The truth is that the songs our parents love are timeless classics and have some of the most melodious tunes and voices.

When I watch fifth-graders play antaakshri, a small part of me is jealous of how they can shamelessly sing in their loud, tone-deaf voices without a care in the world. Only a miniscule portion though, the rest of me would really like them to stop.

Arijit Singh. You might have heard of him. He has a good mic.

And songs on the radio, although repetitive, manage to grow on you and not all of them are bad. The same Punjabi songs– with more than their fair share of senseless lyrics– that you’re sick of hearing on radio channels are the most fun to dance to at weddings.

Bollywood songs are too kitschy, mainstream songs are all vapid, EDM isn’t real music, classical music is so boring– we’ve all heard it all. It’s time to take a step back and reconsider our heavily opinionated viewpoints.

All music is not made equal. But I may not want to listen to meaningful lyrics all the time. Neither do I want to listen to head-jerking rock, nor rapid rap, nor soulful Indian classical all the time. Exceedingly sentimental, saccharine lyrics make me feel nice sometimes– a lot of the time, in fact. And I’ll be completely honest here, looking for ‘real’, ‘good’, ‘underrated’ music often just seems like too much effort to me; I’d rather just listen to the same stuff I’ve heard before and that I know I like. I also know there are many more like me out there, who just pretend to know or enjoy all the fresh new musicians and bands and albums to seem cool.

Thing is, my favourite band may be Twenty One Pilots, but that doesn’t mean I can’t like the work of Jasmine Sandlas.

My music preferences may be plebeian compared to your ‘refined’ ones, but I don’t need you telling me what ‘real music’ is when you ‘ironically’ listened to Omprakash Mishra. Or even if you didn’t.

Let’s all grow up and leave judging people so harshly based on their taste in music.

I wish all you, and myself, the best for our Boards!

Cheers,

Ananya