Friday, February 26, 2010

Songs, a time machine

Songs have a unique quality. To different people, a song can bring about memories of different times or places or events. Here are some from my list...

Papa Kehte Hain from Qayamat se Qayamat Tak. When the movie released, this song was a rage. I was quite young at the time (seriously! I was young, once upon a time :-)) and the first time I heard this song was my cousin humming it. The tune was catchy and for a long time, I couldn't really figure that Aamir said "Really, I mean it".

Aashiqui's songs are still hummable. The first time I heard it was in our school van. I was part of the school band (used to play the bugle). We'd just won the first place in the district level competition and qualified for the state competition. We were returning from the Kanteerava stadium when our Band Master and PT teachers treated us to some goodies on the way. Our van driver treated us to Aashiqui's songs all the way back to school.

Jaadoo Teri Nazar had totally blown away another cousin of mine. Whether it was the 'cos of song, or the person who featured in it can be questioned :-) Nonetheless, it used to be top of the charts for weeks on end on a music show on TV that played every Sunday. It so happened that we missed the start of a movie 'cos this cousin of mine wouldn't budge till he watched the song on the programme.

Anytime I hear Aane waala pal or Hamen tumse pyaar kitna, the scene is of our first year in engineering with the rickety National Panasonic player I'd described elsewhere. We had all of 4-5 tapes of which the Hits of Kishore Kumar and Hits of Mohd Rafi would inevitably play at least once every day.

My buddy Hari used to have a unique taste in music -- the Bappi Lahiri types. He'd never miss an album of the Mithunda-Bappi-Usha Uthup generation. To this day Mumbai Sheher Handson ka Sheher hai rings back 3rd year engineering memories (not that it plays all that much either).

My friend Promodh was a Delhi return. Delhi, in the mid-90s boasted of Times FM. Promodh never let go of a chance to show off his "Western" music knowledge. One of the best albums he'd bought in Mysore was "Now, thats what I call Music" or somesuch. It had awesome tracks like Wet, Wet, Wet, 25 minutes, etc. At the time, MLTR was to me, the greatest band in the world :-)

Another significant album at the time was one that Promodh got as a gift from a family friend. Funnily enough, it was called "RB Tone Sangeet Mala", 'cos it was a compilation a drug company made to gift doctors. It had some of the evergreen songs of the 50s and 60s, including Beqarar karke hamen, Dil ka bhawar karen pukar, and even a KL Saigal number, that, Promodh and Hari decided was my favourite song of all time!

Whenever songs of Main Hoon Na or Veer Zaara play, the scenery is of the freeways of New England. Those were the only two CDs that my rented car could play.

What are yours?

5 Comments:

Blogger Sripathi Kodi said...

Well, I thought the only non-ghazal songs you like were the ones made before you were born. So you do have some liking to songs from 80s and 90s as well!

4:14 PM  
Blogger Ananth Narayan said...

@Sripathi

I have good ways to surprise you, still :-)

1:00 PM  
Blogger Nupur Srivastava said...

Oh there are people who heard RB TONE SANGEET MALA....we at Uttar Pradesh too heard it :D it was a delightful compilation :) glad to read about it in your blog

7:46 PM  
Blogger Ananth Narayan said...

@Nupur
Thanks for dropping by! Music transcends 'borders', truly, and this is a good example. Come to think of it, I should see if I can hijack that tape from that friend of mine :-)

10:01 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...


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8:59 PM  

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