SONGS OF EXPERIENCE

Sleep used to be my faithful friend. Whenever I wanted, I could reach out and find that person is waiting for me with open arms. But my fickleness, I guess, has had a contagious effect on this friend of mine. She doesn't take me on as eagerly as she did till some time ago.
Last night was one of those when I was desperately looking for sleep and she was eluding me, well desperately.
The television was on and on one music channel they were playing those good old Kishore Kumar songs. Suddenly it was the song from Blackmail, a movie I never got to see nor have missed it, started playing. "Pal pal dil ke paas tum rehti ho."
I suddenly went back a couple of decades and wondered isn't this one that hooked me to Kishore Kumar and opened up the whole vista of popular music? It actually was.
Those were the days of cassette players and I got one Kishore Kumar cassette and this song was the first one on the list. Well, the exact and year and date have been lost in oblivion but I was in school then.

What followed were afternoons and nights of backbreaking work. Writing down the lyrics in English alphabets and learning them by heart. And of course, humming them in hours of loneliness when words started to take tangible shapes. And before I could realise, the voice of the man became my voice. People have told me I am tone deaf and I believe them. I was not born to sing like most people in the world. But how can I deny myself the love for the Kishore Kumar songs.
"Har shyam ankhon par tera anchal lehraaye/ Har raat yadoon ki baraat le aaye"--these simple but beautiful lines, when they took shape in my mind, they formed a world of their own.

And last night all those images born out of those words were revisited. As Rakhi was going through a bunch of letters, I flew far away in time. Those afternoons when I was alone at home listening to songs, writing them down and memorising them. Well these were just a part of initiation. The involvement grew with days, weeks, months and years.
Songs, if they are beautiful, always have an association with pain. And words give shape and body to that pain: Tum yunhi jalaate rehana, aa aa kar khwabo mein"...
The song that followed was : Tere bina zindagi se koi shikwa, to nehi, shikwa nehi...with Sanjeev Kumar and Suchitra Sen walking among the ruins. Ruins of life perhaps.
"Ji mein aata hain tere daamon mein sir chupaake hum/ roote raheein roote raheein"--well, how will sleep be my friend if words like these keep haunting me. It's not my fault that I can't sleep night after night. I have stopped listening to music but what will I do with those that I have already heard. It's not the melodies that keep haunting, keep coming back. It's the words in their shapes that I gave them come visiting me often when its all dark. "Jab mein raaton ko taare geenta hun/ Aur tere kadmoon ki aahat sunta hun/ laage mujhe haar taara, teera darpan..."
Is it possible to unpluck Kishore Kumar from the soul. Even though Macbeth pleaded to the doctor to unpluck the unkindness from his wife's bosom, it wasn't possible. Some things are done for good, irrevocable and inscrutable.
Like Rick will always have Paris!

Mark, my Antony

Suddenly revisited Antony. It was some years ago, or shall I say light years ago, that this character had me in a vice-like grip and caused a lot of emotional damage. I am talking about Mark Antony of ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. I remember Sisir babu's lectures on this play. Well Antony was the quintessential hero, hurtling towards inevitability with a sweet nonchalance.
What is so adorable about Antony? After all these years, sitting in a New Delhi office on a listless Saturday, Antony is the last thing that I should have gone back to.
The world today is mourning MJ, the king of pop. A friend texted me the news yesterday morning. In the evening while talking, he refreshed my memories about how some of us practised the steps of MJ in our garage. A wry smile stretched my lips. I could almost see that friend, in a sleeveless vest, furiously trying to match MJ's steps in pouring rain and we were egging him on. Life was so simple and so full of life. Now even a smile feels like a herculean task.
But Habu isn't like that. He reminded me how the three Ms — Maradona, MJ and Madonna — ruled our lives during those years. When he said, that I started recalling those days. Most of the images have gone hazy though a few are still very bright. Of course, Diego gave us the greatest pleasure but then I wasn't really happy. Because I was a Brazil fan. I remember how horrible I felt when Brazil lost to France that year.
It has always been like this. When the rest of my gang was going for it, I chose to walk some other street. When they were practising moonwalking, I spent sleepless nights because somewhere Lenin's statue was being pulled down. The separation from the surroundings has been too deep-rooted. It started too early.
That's the reason why Antony appealed to me. How easly he could say "Let Rome in Tiber melt and the wide rch of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space.." even though serious state affairs awaited his attention.
Never really he cared for the kingdom or fame. He preferred to stay in his own world, the world of Cleopatra though he was desperate to break free of the Egyptian fetters. Contradiction? Yes. Confusion? No.
Not that he didn't know about Cleopatra's frailties or pretentions. He was aware of them. But he lived with his own understanding of the Egyptian queen and died by it too. No amount of critisim could sway him from his love. He tried to reason even when Cleopatra, furious with the news of his impending depature says,
"Eternity was in our lips and eyes,
Bliss in our brows' bent; none our parts so poor,
But was a race of heaven: they are so still,
Or thou, the greatest soldier of the world,
Art turn'd the greatest liar."
But his honourable love always stood on trial. The Queen was too insatiable to satisfy. Antony tried his best and gave his life. "Unarm Eros, the long days task is done." That too after chasing a lie. Like a bridegroom he ran to death as if going into a lover's bed.
All for a lie or a life full of beautiful lies? Ask Antony, if you can.

Amma among stars

Don't really remember whether it was the first poem of Kheya, but the song deener sheshe ghumer deshe is suddenly making all the way into my realm. Especially those lines, "ghore jara jabar taara kokhon geche ghor paane, paare jara jabar geche paare/ghoreo nahi paareo nahi, jejon aache maajhkhane, sondhebelay ke deke ney taare."
I have been listening to this song since how long I don't really remember. I heard it ma singing. Well she wasn't much of a singer, but she used to sing. Then it was Hemanta. His rendition of the song had a feeling of John Denver's 'Anne's song'--you fill up my senses.
With Hemanta singing the song, its like filling up one's senses. Just as Sam's Time Goes By filled up the senses of two individuals. One forced Sam to play it once more. And another barged out from the other end of the bar with a tremendous sense of rapproach and anger in his voice, "Sam, I thought I told you never to play..." and stops short. He never could finish the sentence and never could ask Sam not to play it again. Never.
These days, the evenings in Delhi are beautifully spread out against the sky. Sky, one may ask?It is the same sky that Tagore wrote "ghomta pora oi chaya". It is the same sky that Elliot spread out for Prufrock. Yes, the sky that Rick looked up and saw the plane towards Lisbon.
One can look up and see the quiet bedspread change colour throughout the day, through the seasons, through the year. Once evening tip toes in, like the sound of dew drops, the sky takes its favourite colour. It stays like that for quite a long while so that all the Ricks in the world can wait for all the 'Kids' to walk into their jin joints or walk into the darkness in search of a beautiful friendship.
Don't really remember when I heard it first. Maybe from my amma. She said when people die, they became stars in the sky. "So when I will die," --and I started crying instantly--she said with her fingers in my hair--"you just look up and you will be able to see me." Well, as life is, she died one day. And I tried looking up and saw just stars. It's too late but I realised she lied to me to keep me happy. Just as Rick lied to send Ilsa away to America. As captain Renault said, "She went, but she knew you were lying."
But when I realised that I will not be able to see amma when I look up, it was too late. Some lies just are forever.