Music for your soul?

Some Hindi/urdu songs are sheer poetry. Not the new ones though, gah.

Gulzar and Javed Akhtar have come up with some of the best lines through the ages, and so have the guys in the period before the horror that was the nineties. The magic of good old hindi songs – the music, the singers. Sigh.

Some songs I love (my main source of old Hindi songs is Ma, and my knowledge is nowhere as vast as hers):

1. Abhi na jao chod kar (Hum Dono) – My favourite. Always makes me smile. Love the playfulness of the lyrics, and the wistful longing behind them. Mohammed Rafi (aka God, always sounds like he is smiling as he sings) and Geeta Dutt, what a pair.
2. Dil dhoondta hai (Mausam) - pure nostalgia
3. Is mod se jaate hai; Tere bina zindagi se koi (Aandhi)
4. Mera kuch saaman (Ijaazat) – not big on this one’s musical arrangement, but the lyrics – what imagery.
5. Tere mere Milan ki yeh (Abhimaan)
6. Huzoor is Kadhar, Do naina aur ek Kahani (Masoom)
7. Tum itna jo (Arth)
8. Ehsaan tera hoga (Junglee)
9. Katra Katra (Ijaazat)
10. O sajna Barkha Bahar aayi (Parakh)
11. Kahin Door jab Din dhal jaye (Anand)
“Mere khayalon ke aangan mein koi sapno ke deep jalaye”

I could go on. These are some of my favourites though.

Among the newer songs, some really good ones:

1. Chod aaye hum woh galiyan (Maachis)
2. All songs from 1942 A Love Story, Khamoshi
3. Piya tora abhimaan, Mathura Nagarpati (Raincoat)
4. Bawra mann (Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi)
5. Gali mein aaj chand nikla (Zakhm)
6. Tose naina laage, Maula mere maula (Anwar)
7. Mehfuz (Euphoria)
8. In dino (Life..in a Metro)
9. Mori Araj Suno (Tina Sani, Coke Studio)
10. Chal Diye (Zeb and Haniya, Coke Studio)
11. Bhaage re Mann (Chameli)

What say?

Silence and Noise

How do you put a feeling into words? A sense of what should be? Imagine a silent valley. A house, a veranda. You recline on a comfortable chair. Dusk. Silence. The suspension of reality and that in between world where memories, ones you never even knew you had, stroll in to accompany you for the evening.

Memories, are we not made up of them? Do we not make more memories every day? They are more than pictures or videos. They capture that part of life that was ordinary, mundane. They transport you back to those sights, sounds, smells of long ago, or yesterday, or an hour ago, to everything you felt and did not feel.

Your father reading the newspaper, his glasses at the tip of his nose; your mother waking you up. A dear friend’s laughter. The face of a stranger who held your gaze for a second longer than necessary. The sound of trains. That BEST bus bell. Conversations. Your reflection in the mirror. Laughter. Thunder and rain. The hypnotising wave of the wiper on the windshield of the car, tiny rivulets running down windows.

Silent summer afternoons. So silent that the birds huddle in trees that are still, no wind to bring relief. Evenings. The television plays, and the strains of an old hindi song tiptoes out from the kitchen, bringing memories of its own.

Diwali. The crack of fireworks, the twinkle of fairy lights on every window you see. Silent lamps standing guard at every doorstep. The day after Holi, slightly pink people on the streets. Ganesh Utsav, ten days of bells, drums, incense and chanting.

Silence and noise. They seem to mark out moments more than anything else sometimes.

Thoughts of a person pretending to be working on her dissertation

A few things that crossed my mind in these past few months:

1: Electronic life: Has anyone else noticed that life today is starting to resemble life depicted in futuristic movies made in the 90s and early 2000s? Tiny USB sticks, tiny computers, touch screen gadgets (remember that fancy computer thing in Minority Report?), voice recognition programmes, electronic.....everything! I find it unnerving sometimes.

The worst - e-books: I tried e-versions of books that I already own in their real format – you know, paper – and I must say, it has none of the charm of reading the actual paper book (describing a book this way is starting to depress me); and worse still has to be those e-book readers that I see everyone carrying on the tube and on buses. I was told that the e-book reader is very convenient – it does store thousands of books and takes up no physical space, just virtual; and the experience can even be real: you can turn pages ‘manually’. Sorry. I think turning e-pages, which are essentially in that format to enhance your experience of using the contraption, and hence are imaginary, is just stupid.

For me, and I agree that this need not be the case for everyone, but for me, the pleasure of reading is the whole experience of it – the act of stepping out of my house to go to a bookstore on a lazy afternoon, browsing, the smell of new books. Going home with the reassuring weight of the new tome in my bag, curling up in an armchair in a corner, and then being oblivious to the world around till someone screams for you to eat something. Funny, witty, pretty, exotic bookmarks holding back a story already read, pointing you to the new world waiting to be discovered. Shutting a finished book with a sigh of satisfaction, and looking down at what now looks like a book that has been read, tiny cracks on the spine, a very faint dog eared appearance. And most importantly: shelving it with other loved and well read volumes, all living together in a space that promises still more undiscovered delights and known comfort. Somehow, I don’t see such an experience being offered by the e-book readers and e-books themselves. Imagine curling up under a blanket with a self lit book that is unyielding in ones hands, and needs to be turned off. Jeez.
Of course, it has its pros, but I still refuse to support it.

2: Obsession with food: While in Bombay, I was and I will be indifferent about food – give me coffee and apples and I will be out of your way for an entire day. However, here in university, where no one makes food that I can eat if and when I feel like it, food has come to occupy a very important place in my life. Days are planned around food. Eating is just the final outcome of a very long and elaborate process - planning a week’s menu, preparing grocery lists, at least two hours of shopping, followed by cooking. What makes everything more interesting is the fact that I am surrounded by friends and flatmates who love food equally – so when we are not eating, we are planning to eat, swapping recipes and trying to get each other to eat. Any visitor or random flatmate entering our kitchen is offered food; a friend who was offered snacks by three different flatmates of mine one evening asked, “why is everyone in this flat trying to feed me?!” We even plan elaborate flat dinners at least once a month; any reason to organise a feast, which lasts for at least a minimum of four hours, with starters, mains and dessert, followed by several rounds of very enthusiastic and sometimes violent UNO. My Facebook account is filled with pictures of food, and then of people eating said food. Happy fattys.

3. Social networking sites: I use Facebook because it allows me to be in touch with 300 people simultaneously, and regularly – no need to write painfully long emails when you can post a hello anytime you fancy. However, when people (no, assassins) offer you weapons in mafia wars, and a friend you swear is an accountant invites you to farm, or when random people send you “gifts” that you don’t get (as that hilarious facebook song goes) you can be justifiably annoyed.

And when one reads newspaper articles, starting with something along the lines of ‘serious charges of corruption were laid against the minister of state’, followed by ‘the minister, however, vehemently denied being involved in the affair when he tweeted....’, one can risk spraining one's neck due to incredulous double takes. Tweet?! Images of a tiny yellow canary with speech impediments flash before my eyes.
This new networking phenomenon has led to people discarding tact and discretion: ‘Just had lunch, yummm’, ‘had a shower’, massive hangover’ and ‘scratched my butt’ are things we really don’t need to know, you know?

Rant ends.

Randomness Again and a very ‘I, me, myself’ post

Why do they call it 2 minute noodles? It NEVER cooks in two minutes.

I love the smell of Jeera tadka, haldi, the sound dried red chillies make when you run your hand through them, and the taste of ginger.

I also love the smell of Brut, apples, paint, old books.

Remember as kids when we scraped our knees/elbows in school, we would be fine till we saw Dettol coming out of the first aid kit, and start crying before the dettol soaked cotton touched the scrape?

Does anyone else remember the sheer terror a visit to the dentist evoked? (After paying away half of my father’s savings to my dentist, I am totally over the fear – Earlier, my questions started with “Will it hurt?” Now, knowing that the answer will ALWAYS be YES, my first statement to my dentist is “inject the local anaesthesia and THEN excavate/drill.”

I don’t have any fond memories of Doordarshan programmes. I don’t remember any. I remember Zee TV and Sony. Zee horror show, Aahat, Woh (Lilliput was the clown under the bed, scaring the hell out of people), Hip Hip Hurray, Family No. 1, Dekh Bhai Dekh. I dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, Different strokes were fun, till they got dubbed and became annoying.

Does anyone else love the way their parents smell when they come back from work? And when you tell them, they shoo you away, tell you they are sweaty, and need to shower?

As a child, I liked Chunky Pandey. (WHY?)

I think crows are annoying. Pigeons are a waste of space. Sparrows are the only cute birds you find in Bombay.

I can procrastinate like hell. My best (?) work is the done at the last minute. I am procrastinating this very minute, by the way.

I have officially fallen in love. With Paris. The city, not Hilton. I also love you Bombay, but Paris..... sigh. Can I retire and move there? NOW?

I am the nerd who quotes ‘Friends’ every two days.

The only class I looked forward to in school was English. I would finish reading the textbook before school started. Maths has given me psychological problems that refuse to go away.

I have newfound interest and respect for Mohammed Ali Jinnah. I think he was a fascinating leader.

I love my flatmates in London. They are a very diverse, interesting, intelligent group of girls and we have together taken the term ‘love for food/gluttony’ to new
heights.

I get high on coffee. Then I become a fun (and slightly scary) person.

I store utterly useless trivia in my head. Wikipedia will be the cause of my downfall.

I love bright socks with cartoon characters on them. Bright pinks, orange, stripes, stars, giraffes, sparkles. Bring it on! Funky pyjamas > even better. Think Winnie the Pooh, funky bunny, mickey mouse.

I once applied Tiger Balm on my nose. I also once washed my hair out with Rin. I applied kohl all over my babysitter’s face while she slept soundly. I squirted perfume into my eyes. I was also very young when I did all of this.

I can sleep like I have no care in the world. Once, the watchman had to climb down the terrace, in through the window to our 3rd floor flat and open the door for my frantic father who then yelled me out of my slumber while the entire building looked on. I woke up, walked to the other room and went back to sleep.

I had no favourite colours as a child. I have not seen the Lion King movie, never flown a kite, eaten ‘golas’ or climbed trees. They are on my to do list. And yes, I did grow up in Bombay. :P

I think summer is the most glorious thing in the world.

I think it is time to end this self obsessed post. Any suggestions for the next one, considering the serious lack of updates on here?

* Picture: Ashwati/Mej.

A Short Story?

Mist descends on the valley, and settles itself for the night. The valley takes on an inkish hue at twilight, the air of a day at its end - ploughs resting, machines silent, the cattle fed and watered. Her cottage submerges into the fog swirling around it. Silence. She sits on her cane rocking chair, rocking gently. She had dozed off in the afternoon, and had woken up to find the sunlight bleeding away from the folds of her clothes, journeying back across the veranda, receding into the yard, and then slowly fading away. She could now see the darkness before her lit by little pinpricks. Fireflies. She had always loved them.

She remembers other such evenings, when she was a little girl, back from school, sitting on this same veranda, reciting multiplication tables by rote, the chirping of crickets keeping beat with her recital. Her ear would be straining for the sound of her father bicycle coming down the lane, for the bell that he would ring, knowing she was waiting for it. She can still remember her mother, humming as she cooked in the kitchen. The sizzle of vegetables cooking, the sharp fragrance of spices enveloping her. If she peeks back, she might still see the sparkle of her mother's silver toe-rings, her sari swishing around her feet as she moves across the kitchen. Might hear the clinking of her bright green bangles.

The boatman sings a lonely song, his voice carried by the loving wind across the river to echo around in the valley.

Another night passed me by

Inspired by Nick Drake's 'One of these things first', among others.

I could have been a writer, inky fingers, high on coffee, surrounded by books and papers, unaware of time passing by.
I could have been an archeologist, brushing earth off another world.
I could have been an adventurer, riding horses in the Kazakhi steppes, climbing Mount Everest; or diving into the depths of the Pacific.
Could have been a travelling musician, strumming my guitar; a fiddler or a flautist.
Could have been a dancer, a graceful figure across a wooden floor.
Could have been a potter, sticky muddy fingers, wet earth.
Could have been a sailor, under open skies, tasting salty air.
Could have been a painter, my world a canvas of many hues.
Could have been an actor, reveling in dramatics.
Could have been a singer, music reverberating through my soul.
Could have been a farmer, coaxing new life through the ever giving earth.
Could have been an architect, raising a city from scratch.
Could have been a trader, of dreams, of stories, of words.
Could have been a kite, floating off into the sky.
Could have been a steam engine, chugging my way through mountain passes.
Could have been a bell, chiming my delight.
Could have been the breeze, gently blowing through cracks and corners of windows and doors, through narrow alleyways and over open fields.
Could have been the rain, pattering down on roofs and leaves.
Could have been a tree, waving my branches just because I felt like it.
Could have been a star, twinkling down at night.
Could have been the Sun, smiling cheerfully at the world below me.


Here I am, just a student, blinking away the night.

Home!

Its 1.30 am and thanks to the nice cup of black coffee i had earlier today, here I am, bright eyed and bushy tailed, updating my poor ignored blog :D

As most of you know, I am in London, studying (At least supposed to be) at SOAS :) Second week here and it feels great - I have met so many interesting people, from such varied backgrounds and seen...actually not much. Yes, will get down to that soon.

SO anyway, this post is another list of sorts, of things I miss -

Family - Chattering with mom or remote claiming competitions/grocery shopping with dad. My ultra cool grandparents.

Friends!!!!

Dumb Charades, Uno :D

Pani Puri! Pav Bhaji!!

Drums classes, the picnics, the very recent and unfortunately short jam sessions. The long chats with everyone there.

Singing aloud, completely off key > Thin walls here, I freak out every time my alarm clock rings, thinking that my other flat mates will wake up as well! So singing is out of the question.

Btw, news - I have almost completely stopped swearing. Just noticed it yesterday.

Dancing to music playing on the computer > No, no one sees this, its me dancing when I get bored at home. Completely insane :) Unfortunately, if I dance in my room here, I will probably crash into my bed or study table, or knock down a lamp

Normal drinking water!!! Hard water here :(

Kurtas > Need I say more on this?

Vt - Colaba -Fort > Call it whatever you want, that is one hell of a place to wander about in. Asiatic Library.

The Dhobhi :D :D :D Seriously. Ironing my own clothes = not fun.

Sunlight!!!! Marathi! Hindi films, songs, Hindustan Times, Mumbai Mirror (I know, I know), my books, Federer pics.

Diwali > the cleaning, sweets, lights, though they do celebrate it here..

So clearly, I do miss Bombay. And my crazy family and friends... See you in a year!