Sounds of the past

It is just another evening at home. We’re all busy doing our own thing. The song ‘Yeh hai reshmi, zulfo ka andhera na ghabraiyei‘, plays in the background. Every now and then, we sing along. I wonder, how is it that we choose the same lines to sing? Ah, music makes you bond. In that moment, we’re all involved with different chores. We are seemingly disconnected. There is no conversation. But there is that one connecting melody that we are all tuned to. That one common moment in which we all pitch in and sing along. I smile as I think of it. Music is a shared connection.

My phone rings and I turn down the volume. A friend is aghast. She has never heard of the song we are listening to. She asks me why I am listening to such ‘old and boring’ songs?

Well, I have grown up on a staple diet of old Hindi songs. I started listening to English music only during my early teens. My early childhood memories are full of old Hindi melodies. Perhaps, it is the obvious consequence of being born to parents who swoon over Mohammad Rafi and other such legends.

Visiting family and relatives was an integral part of our childhood. The family was spread across the city and it would invariably be night, by the time we would leave from their home. My parents always carried night clothes for the sister and I. Many times we would fall asleep at the said relative’s home. We would then be carried to the car, and carefully laid on the back seat. I have hazy memories of the sister and I, lying bundled in the backseat of our Maruti 800.

It is during these night drives back home, when soft old music would be played. The music always seemed calming. Listening to it over the years, made it seep deep into our young, half asleep and subconscious psyche. Now we love it.

Most of my friends have not heard many of the songs I have grown up with. The sister was telling me the other day that a classmate of hers borrowed her iPod. It had a lot of old Hindi songs.  On seeing her playlist, she made a face and asked her, ‘Is this your mom’s iPod?’. I don’t know what the implication was. If we listen to that music, perhaps we are too uncool. Oh, never mind.