What's your song?

Human mind is marvelous at associative memories. I was going through my old iPod playlist recently, there were songs that left me awash with memories of people, places, and moments shared and lived like eons ago. 

Let me give you a sample of how back in time some of these songs go. I can still remember sitting in the junior school playground steps under the winter sun and the tall pine trees and listening to a schoolmate sing BoyZone song ‘Isn’t it a wonder..’ There was another schoolmate who would belt Kishore Kumar songs in a slight nasal tone and another who would sing the Hindi song ‘Chura Liya Hai Tumne Jo Dil Ko Nazar Nahin Churaana Sanam’ with all the feels that a 8th grader could emote.

Going even further back in time (when I have no real memory), I am told that my song was Kishore Kumar’s ‘Chingari koi bhadke..’ It was the song playing on the radio station when the doctor announced my birth. My uncle suggested naming me ‘Chingari’, thankfully, my parents did not oblige but I am a short-tempered ‘Chingari’ in some ways!

We have a song that we performed in school/college; it was ‘the IT song’ of that era.
We have a song that we prepared for our siblings wedding; it’s ‘our’ song.
I have a 1.5 yr old niece who does not speak but she dances enthusiastically to ‘bala bala’ song anytime it is on TV or her mom play for her. It’s ‘her’ song.
My 1-year-old son does the actions of a nursery song when he wants us to sing for him or better still play the song on the iPad. ‘Skidamarink a dink a dink’ is his song..

It is truly fascinating to see the associations that we start to build up with music and songs even as small babies, perhaps one of the first ways that we learn to communicate. The first musical experience always comes from family, the force is strong is some cases-Billie Eilish strong or else you will find your musical destiny in the outside world eventually.

I can clearly see my musical inheritance in my parents neatly stacked cassette tape. All the devotional songs stacked together, Hindi movie songs (Kishore & Hemant Kumar/Mukesh/Rafi/Lata Mangeshkar & Asha Bhosle) and a separate stack of eclectic ghazals . Slowly my sister and I added our collection of mixed tapes- swapping and recording cassette tapes from friends and neighbors. This trading went all the way to college with upgrades to CDs and then flash drives. Hello Bryan Adams, Atif Aslam I guess we never reconnected after college but you were part of the ‘best days of my life’!

Our music choices are partly temporal driven by popularity and availability at a certain point of time but they are also very personal- a reflection of our state of mind. There is a personal and social component to music discovery and appreciation. Some artists/music you appreciate of your own volition, other are like an acquired taste, an osmosis process. Technology has further aided the process of music discovery, I was a heavy Pandora user at a certain point of time, listening to different stations and discovering similar artists. Then trying to find free downloads of the song, for some reason I like to own my music in my iPod (I completely understand the hypocrisy of the statement). When it comes to books, I keep away from piracy as much as I can; I either pick up library books, get a personal physical copy or kindle e-book. However, when it comes to music I am a complete parasite.

After meandering a lot, I guess I should talk about the song that triggered this chain of thoughts. Last Sunday when bubs was sleeping, I turned on the speaker in the kitchen and after ages listened to ‘Aaj jaane ki zid na karo.’.-Farida Khanum. I stood still for a while just soaking in the song, as a parent you come to realize that time is truly fleeting. I guess what struck a chord somewhere deep down was the celebration of the moment, the now, the present. Especially now with the whole corona-virus fear gripping us, it was a good reminder to slow down and appreciate the ‘work from home’ time..

“Wakt kee kaid me jindagee hai magar
chand ghadiya yahee hain jo aajaad hain
inako khokar mere jaaneja, umrr bhar naa tarasate raho
aaj jaane kee jid naa karo..”