I am
currently reading Ruskin Bond’s delightful autobiography ‘Lone Fox dancing’. In
it, Bond’s relationship with nature is clearly visible. He has taken
inspiration from nature for many of his stories, which he clearly mentions in
the memoirs. His heart is with nature. Even though there were enough chances
for him to be lost in the hum drum of daily life, thus losing his tryst with
nature, he took risky decisions and stayed back where his heart lay. In the
process he has produced some memorable stories.
In a
way he was lucky to have spent his childhood life in the scenic town of
Dehradun and its adjoining areas like Mussoorie and kasauli. In comparison I spent my life in Maths,
Physics and Chemistry, along with a family. This post is neither about Ruskin
Bond or my childhood but rather how some things cling to us like a magnet to
magnet and become attached to certain memories. The relationship or rather the
correlation is permanent. These things remind us always of something from our past.
Ruskin Bond’s relationship with nature is something of this sort.
This
post is about songs. My father had bought cable TV into our homes pretty early.
And what would small children do of cable television: watch serials, movies and
songs. Some songs capture our fancy. I remember the first song I got attached
to. It goes ‘Hawa hawa ae hawa khushbu loota de’ (It recently got remixed in a movie). The music was catchy and it was a dance tune
in those days. I and my brother danced on it in our colony. Members of the
colony were enthralled with it, both with the song and our dance.
To
be clear, what I am suggesting is that certain songs, when you hear them make
you nostalgic. Not because there is something in the song but because it
reminds of one the special times when you would have heard it. It has a
relationship with you, and it’s a special relationship. I don’t know if it
happens to others but definitely to me.
Whenever
I listen to ‘Ek Pal ka Jeena’ from ‘Kaho na pyar hai’, it reminds me of the
terrible trouble we took to buy the tickets of the movie after our board exams.
In Bokaro, which was in Bihar then, goons had their own ingenious ways of
getting tickets. We were few friends,
fresh from appearing from the last exam, excited to watch the latest heartthrob
Hrithik Roshan’s dance. I was in the queue for the tickets. The ticket counter
was a little enclosure with a tiny hole for our hands to pay the money and get
the tickets. All the shows were running houseful so I was worried if the show
we were targeting would be houseful before our turn comes. Suddenly, I felt a
force on my head. A man was crawling on our heads to reach the counter. Next
turn was mine. He had almost reached it. When I put my hands into the little
hole and shouted ‘5 balcony ki tickets
dena’, he inserted his hand as well and said ‘Ae, 2 ticket de’. There was a man’s neck on my head and anger in my
heart. Yet we are timid people in Bihar, the so called good ones. And so we do
not protest due to the fear of getting thrashed. My hand was squeezed and it
was paining. Yet he persisted and got his tickets first, then crawled back
smiling to his friend. I too got the tickets but finally watched the movie
sitting on a stool with four more people inside the cinema hall. The song
always reminds me of this pain.
I
used to listen to a lot of Hindi songs in my undergraduate days in college,
just like everybody else. One particular song reminds me of the times I felt
patriotic and wished to do something for my country. It is ‘Yeh jo desh hai
tera’ from the movie Swades. Recently I watched Swades again and got reminded
of the feeling. A tinge of shame erupted in my body of my inability to do
anything of the feelings I had felt.
Then
there are the songs of AC/DC which reminds one of the party times. There are
songs of romance. There are songs of fear, songs which remind one of the
writing times and there are songs of ecstasy. Sometimes one feels lucky to have
heard a particular song in a particular time. I am not going to bore you
anymore though and let you listen to a song that reminds you of something.
2 comments:
I hate "brazil brazil" song, this was most played songs in kota marriges, always put me in that under-pressure mode. Can't remember same for Devdas songs, again same exam time feeling.
Mast padh ke maja aaya Sid!
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