..all those songs
There are some music that melts all through your life and recaps
an age you did something incredible, sometimes a sad memory and sometimes a
beautiful recollection about someone you loved. I had different tastes for
different episodes of my life but some acquired tastes sustained and I found
beauty in it in every stage of my life, music sometimes brought ‘the old me’
and sometimes gave birth to a ‘new me’, but it was beautiful to get lost in a world
that’s hard to define in words.
‘Dil hum hum kare khabraye’ that’s my oldest memory of
music, I undoubtedly remember my Acha singing it while he was having a trim,
when he came back home after work sipping tea and walking through the main
house backyard to have a chat with Ambyamma and as a kid I used to memorise it
without even knowing the meaning, sometimes I invented my own lyrics that made absolutely
no sense and sang with at most glee. Even today when I’m home first thing in
the morning my Dad would demand is Rudali music. Every man jack in my Acha’s
family for sure has some pre historic link with Hindi songs and of course ‘ dil
hum hum’ is the most sang and most rated song.
Lalchand chetan being my favourite cousin made my childhood exceptional
with his amazing humour sense and bike trips. I remember everything Lalchand
cheta, everything! When I look at your daughter today I remember our rock
performances in ‘your room’ of our ‘haunted house’ (that’s a long story). Amma
often tells me how I used to laugh at your jokes, in fact you were the
only joy we had that time. Do you remember our anxious waiting for ‘chewing
gums’ from Bombay? Haha..Do you remember our ‘manja kunnji kalulla chakki
poochaku’? I sang it all day sitting on his bamboo chair among piles of cassettes and magazines and
pictures he collected and sang in my high pitch voice when he took me on night
rides when there was no power.
‘Brown girl in the ring la la lalala’ lifted me up when I
was down and that was one among the first English songs I listened, of course
from my Acha’s collections. He still has those songs. Can you believe it? I
remember pinning my ears to Boney M before my first stage performance. I have a
faint memory of me and Appu chetan arguing about his ‘I’m a Barbie girl’ school
performance and my love for ‘Brown girl in the ring’. I boasted about listening
to Boney M during my later childhood to my ‘modern friends’ who discovered ‘listening
to only Malayalam songs’ as extremely stupid and back then was senseless enough
to strain my best to impress them.
Omanakuttan maman, my driver maman knows this song really
well, he had remarkable tolerance to listen to ‘ jab se tera naina’ all through
our journeys, I simply loved that song and played it when I got into the car
and it stopped when I got out of it. He would ask even today ‘’ you still have
your red colour CD? ”. Beena used to
get extremely annoyed when she saw ‘my red colour CD’. What fascinated me? I
still don’t know.
‘ Aap ka khat mila’, one day I heard this song when it was
played on TV and I was busy ironing my school uniform, I tried recollecting the
song after few days when I was lost in my senseless thoughts. Have you had this
feeling when you can’t recollect something you recognise really well? Argh! I
just hate it. I couldn’t recollect head or tail of the lyrics, all I could
remember was the tune, and it annoyed me greatly. I discovered it among the
piles of CDs I refused to play after few years from the car drawer. When I
listen to the song, for some strange reason I like to think there’s someone out
there who’ll write me plenty of letters. Okay. That was ‘I’ being romantic.
Never mind. I shall sing it in my high pitch voice if he happen to magically
appear in front of me.
‘Baby doll’, that’s one hell of a memory . That’s
something not revel-able! Plastic covers, dance steps, videography and loud
laughs. (I’m supposed to write the censored version of my true self because of
some crooked populaces.) -Ill-disciplined days of my youth and I bet ages
cannot wither it. Music was the only escape during exam spells but ‘ ae dil hai
mushkil jeena yahan’ splashed into our brains when we couldn’t find solutions
to our questions on the exam paper, that was something mystic about this song!
Anyways I’m glad it irritated all my friends and I’m sure they’ll all remember
Arundhathy for ‘ae dil hai mushkil jeena yahan’
‘ Paarvana paalmazha’, this song has something to do with my
unconscious self I try to supress every time, not that I have a supernatural
friend. The movie captured my attention when I was a little kid, it’s not an
impressive one for kids but I discovered it fascinating. I remember my ‘imaginative
plays’ as a child with Appu chetan, sometimes scaring him to the core acting
like an evil spirit. The movie gave me a beautiful imagination of pranayam (like how Tatteppa calls it). It
captured my idea of love perfectly, I totally fell for Janakikutty and her
dairy milk covers! It’s beautiful –sigh-.
‘ Ni sa ga ma pa..janam janam’, how magical is Yesudas’s
voice? How can I ever be a Malayali without a favourite Yesudas song? I discovered
the song lately and fell in love immediately. There are no words to describe the
feeling you get, lying on your bed with ear earphones plugged in, silence all
around you and there is a magical voice flowing from somewhere, somewhere afar…