Kritical Notes
A journey through the soundtrack of my life
How often did I hear my parents lament during my teenage years that Bollywood music was so forgettable? The innumerable remixes of popular film songs from the 70’s and 80’s were catching on like wildfire, and with the preponderance of FM radio and the same playlist of songs across 5 different stations, you had to be deaf not to be subjected to them. Of course, I loved these songs in their new avatars and could never understand when Mom said she could not even tell them apart.
Cut to two decades later and I find myself lamenting about much the same things. As songs from the 90’s and 2000’s are getting recreated now, I cringe from a stoic distance. After all, I know the origin of my recent attitudes. My brain and ear for music have all been filled up with the wonderful music I heard growing up, and my brain simply rejects new material, regardless of how marvelous. Since I have been paying attention to figure out exactly what music my brain deigns to respond to these days, I find myself in wormholes of music from days past. And the trajectory of how my musical tastes have been shaped over my lifetime, with various internal and external influences. Here is a snapshot of that memory reel.
The Primordial Soundscape
My earliest memory of a sound from an audio tape is actually the voice of C.Rajagopalachari in his introduction to the MS Subbulakshmi rendition of Bhaja Govindam. Rajaji sounded a lot like my grandfather; the familiarity of his kindly but wise accent imprinted in my brain. I was vaguely aware of big words, words that I later pieced together were wisdom, bhakti and gyana, strung together in sentences that made no sense to me. But when MSS began her rendition, I am told even as a child I had a tendency to stare into the stereo player as though I was trying to reach her. The meaning of the verses have remained inaccessible as ever, but the tune and Subbulakshmi’s voice bring the chaos of the world to a temporary halt.
From Thalaivar to the Mozart of Madras
If you were thinking my mention of MSS were indications of my lofty taste, you are mistaken. The other big influence in my early childhood was the absolutely trashy, but incredibly foot tapping beats of Illayaraja in the service of Superstar Rajnikanth. Though the lyrics were easier to comprehend in this case (being set in my mother tongue rather than Sanskrit), they contained enough adult words for my mom to ban me from humming these. Topped with cringe inducing nineties dance steps complete with hip thrusts and loud facial expressions, I knew even then these numbers could only be enjoyed as solo guilty pleasures.
This sorry state of affairs changed overnight with the arrival of Rahman and the Roja soundtrack. Here was sophistication, novelty and the sheer brilliance of classical notes meshed with beats I had never heard before. I listened to every song composed by Rahman for the next 5 years on loop, though I harbor a special love for his earliest Tamil songs even today. By this time, we had moved to Chennai and my school was known for its emphasis on extra curricular activities. As a good south Indian girl, I was initiated into Carnatic music and Rahman’s Indira and Gentleman soundtracks were a godsend to perform at school functions. Rahman’s music transcended that decade and his songs often became markers for significant life moments: a decade later, I was introduced to Narumugaye, a Mani Ratnam song that I had somehow missed, by a college senior who would become my first boyfriend. When I moved to Bombay a few years later, Maa Tujhe Salam let me straddle my Tamil and Indian identities with confidence.
Peak Radio Mirchi
Throughout my school years in Bombay, Udit Narayan, Sonu Nigam and Alka Yagnik reigned supreme in Hindi film music, and FM Radio had just entered my life. My favourite place to daydream was on long drives with my family, having the back seat of the car to myself where I would just zone out to the latest chartbusters. During tenth standard, I used to have special classes at the crack of dawn, and Dad and I would sleepily trudge to the car and turn on the FM. I would desperately switch channels until I found a tolerable song. A moment etched in my memory: dad and me singing along to the chorus of Jaage jaage armaan hai (Mere Yaar Ki shaadi hai is an underrated gem of an album). This was also the peak of the popularity of DJ Aqeel and Leslie Lewis remixes, and Dad loved belting out Hai re Hai Tera Ghoonghta (additional emphasis on GhoonghTTa……) on our drives together.
Soul and Sufi
The four years of undergrad were filled with good times and great music. For the first time, I was experimenting with a new identity: that of a singer. I was now a part of my college band, and was attempting to establish my niche in softer, more romantic songs. Of course, our college also had a cooler rock band while we were in the less cool Hindi group, but all of us in our band turned up our noses at the non musical types shrieking their voices out in a futile attempt to out-scream the Metallica vocalist. After all, we had taste, the basic ability to stick to a scale and appeal to a larger audience. One evening after a band performance, I was at a sleepover at a friend’s home and in an attempt to capture the high of that performance, we were playing Maula Mere Maula on loop through the night. I didn’t sleep a wink, and the song’s aching sweetness made me tear up a few times.
The Struggle: Boulevard of broken dreams
The good times of college soon gave way to reality when I found myself jobless for 6 months after graduating, waiting for that elusive call from the company that had made job offers to half my class. Despite the utterly unexciting professional life in store, I could not have been more impatient to get my career started. I would go for innumerable walks around my apartment block with a friend who was also waiting for that same call. To two very academically oriented girls who prided themselves on merit ranks in each exam, waiting around jobless and subjected to half hearted, joking taunts from parents was unfathomable. It was in this environment that I first heard that Green Day classic that is every urban Indian kid’s coming of age song. While our dreams either lay shattered or in waiting (depending on which one of us you asked), this track came to symbolize our everyday struggles of continuing to believe in our futures. This and all the classic Wake up Sid songs themed around young adult life bring to mind all the futile worries of those months.
Happiness and the soaring melodies of Ludovico Einaudi
My hostel windows and the strains of Happy aptly summarize the change of my mental state a couple of years later. Life seemed hopeful again, and I had found a new interest in cover versions of pop songs. I must have watched the cityscapes of Bombay and the new airport (featuring a guy in a cowboy hat!) to the tune of this song a few hundred times as I labored through my Economics assignment. The milieu also lent itself to expanding my musical horizons, and over time, I was introduced to Einaudi’s classics which I loved for all their dramatic possibility. Divenire brought possibility and hope to a fitting climax, and my heart soared every time I played this.
While I choose not to list some of my more recent favourites here, I have to admit that the frequency with which new discoveries become obsessions, have considerably lessened. But as long as I continue to delve into the memories of favorite songs, I will continue to have a soundtrack to my life.