Mein aur Meri Tanhayee…! [My loneliness and Me]

Series I

I am transfixed by the sentence, ‘Leave me alone’. Heard this sentence from the days of school and had even wondered what it meant, until I grew up and started confronting with my parents for all the things they asked me to do and I royally reflected back saying, “Leave me, alone…”

These ‘Leave me, alone…’ sessions were so huge that they brought in many activities that later became a latent talent inside this poor soul. These sessions were filled with soul turning music, books of all kinds, geography, history of places, writing poems, short stories, having fun and frolic, chatting with friends, pal friends, and what not. Eventually as I grew, I grew tried of many things and some basic qualities I guess, I possessed stayed back, like writing, reading and music.

Then, it used to be bliss to be alone…listening to good music lying on the bed with the lights off and surrounded by darkness, swinging to the music and enjoying the aura around you. Shutting the words of the parents too early then they start and increase the volume of the song to decibels beyond normal hearing….

Sometimes it was the Sony Walkman or the Sony CD player that used to be companion for long hours and the music used to play for hours together without any intervention when not surrounded by friends.

My grandma, if she did not find me hanging around with the player earplugs on my ears, she used to ask me sarcastically, “Yenge unnoda sevutu, machine? [Where’s your hearing aid?]”
I used to just give her long gawk and then reply angrily, “Ithu onnum sevutu machine, illa. [It isn’t my hearing aid.]”

It used to bring peace within and the surrounding…whenever it played. I used to look forward to such sessions and had great fun listening to music this way rather than play it in a big stereo system. I felt the words were clear and I found the singer close to my ears singing.

Slowly, I was addicted to music and kept listening to different genres of music. I could not be separated from music and whenever I heard a song or music, my ears would be tuned automatically to the sound and randomly scan my brain for the details of the music that is being played. My mind started to acquire data and store them at a rapid pace.

The small talent of mine, [Yes, I call it that way] got into an asset and do not know when people started asking me about the various music genres and the various songs!

I listened to a wide variety of music, chose some of my favorites among the genres, and stuck to them as mud would to water, until today. I became familiarized with not only Indian Music genres but also with International Music; I started with our very own film music. The days of Vivida Bharathi, Chaya Geeth and the Fauji Pasand were some favorite programs that brought the North Indian Film music to my ears.

Being in Tamilnadu, at an age when I could comprehend things beyond the surroundings, and myself. I was exposed to a lot of Tamil film music too. I heard and being an ardent fan of Illayaraja’s Music, listened to his music more! I belong to the period of his towering fame in Tamil film industry where eight movies out of ten that released had music scored by him.
I went on to learn more about music, but stopped after a point, as I could not understand the ragas and their usage. Nevertheless, later when more knowledge poured in I understood them! I had never been crazy about carnatic music and never bothered to listen to music from a raga’s point. I love film music and had been happy grown up listening to it. I slowly listened to ghazals, pop, reggae, disco, rock, soft, love ballads, fast love songs, love songs and listened to them all in my loneliness and they became a companion.

I was motivated to learn music one day that I joined a class of ‘Classical Hindustani’. I was baffled by it and wanted to master it. Alas, it was I, who had to travel from one place to another, this time it was my master who got transferred as her husband was supposed to join his another branch office. There went my taunt at music along with her. I was good at it and even practicsed every day at home, what she taught me. She was surprised and told me, ‘It is amazing at the pitch you are learning things.’ There I guess, the eye of warth fell on it and my venture on music remains unchanged!

Whatever said and done about the roots of the main stream music, such as Hindustani, Hindustani Classical, Carnatic, Western Classical, Western…these all fall sort some way, when it comes to Film Music of our Indian Subcontinent. Indian Film Music has almost all the elements of these various classifications in a right mix and composition!

Film music has played a varied role in our lives and still is we have seen our parents melt at the songs of their period and we at our era and the younger generation at the music of their era.

It seems to enthrall us all….be whatever the period, irrespective of it, was it SD Burman, RD Burman, Bappi Lahari, Anu Malik, Louis Banks, AR Rehaman, Harris Jayaraj, or Illayaraja. We have surrendered our hearts to all the wonderful singers of whatever the era and still feel happy to listen to them and surrender to their voice! We sometimes try to imitate them in their singing attire that we lose our own identity.

We become mad of the lyrics, the music, the voice, the joy in the song and are happy as if it was for us and only us the song sung! Our parents say their era had wonderful soul whirling music and consider their age a golden age, agreed but if I sit back and listen to our era, I feel it is not behind that distinct mark.

Yeah, now, the music is taking a significant change and have gone into more western music and western sounds, but people have changed so is the music, what say?!

Anyways, the golden era and the silver era isn’t behind and we even find many music directors who are trying to recreate the music of these eras for the young people with a dash of western sounds to it!