Simply not just music....

When all the elements mix up in the perfect proportion one gets the magical essence of what we can call heaven. For me, this effect is ringing in my ears with Rafi, S.D Burman and Majrooh Sultanpuri. And this takes me on a whirlwind ride where I am lost admist the notes and I feel elated with the euphoric feeling his voice evokes.

I was wondering about the stark contrast in terms of the musical eras, the sixties and the seventies were definitely for the die hard romantics, subtle yet articulate. There are so many songs that speak the exact words that one would feel from time to time. The hopeless lover serenading his lover and she can’t help but be coy and sheepishly smile, that’s the image I get. The seventies were more for the ones who looked at other aspects than love, the roti kapda makaan logic. The male was more of a chauvinist, a stark contrast to the blind in love man of the yesteryears who was the more expressive one. Songs were not about wooing the woman in focus and if it was it was demanding in nature, as if it was his right. Not quite like Rafi who would be humble. The 80’s and 90’s I believe was the hopeless era not just for the romantics of my kind but also music (obviously exceptions are always counted out). To put it crudely…it sucked! And most of the current lot continues this legacy. In terms of music and lyrics though, the songs are more about the “we” than the “I”. Nothing wrong in that ideology, except when I listen to a “Aise tho na dekho..” and a “khuda jaane kyo”…I smile at the former and I feel like stretching my arms and dancing at latter, in other words….the feeling is communicated and transpired much better by the former….”Tum hume roko phir bhi hum na ruke…Tum kaho kafir…fir bhi ese jhuken…kadme nazuuke ek sajda ada ho jaye…:)”

My hangover because of the extra shots of songs sung by Rafi is quite evident. There is a song for every mood. Not quite like the usual sentence that we furnish these days, “Words can’t express what I want to communicate to you” doesn’t hold water here. The lyrics were brilliant and music was in tandem, and when you have singers like Mohd. Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Manna Dey, Lata Mangeshkar, Geeta dutt etc etc, you can put the soul in music. To me, listening to Rafi is like my hopeless romantic singing to me- “Mere Mehboob mujhe meri mohabbat ki kasam…”, “jeeya oo..jeeya kuch boldo”, “Ehsan tera hoga mujhpar..”, “dil ka bhawar kare pukar…” (gosh there are too many!), listening to him is like reiterating what I feel “Aaj mausam bada beiman hai…”, “yeh dil na hota bechara…”, “Pukarta chala hun mein…”. The wonderful part is it’s not just his voice; it’s the ambience that all the elements of the song create, make belief but so real. Nothing, no era beats it!....I am in love…:)

It's a funny funny world...

You sip your morning coffee at your desk
You think of working a lot, while at rest
You get paid for a job undone
While the other slogs his ass with no fun

You feel you are wasted so you work your mind
And the places you see, you can’t say “its mine”
The real in contradiction, mocks at you
And the unreal moments diminish to a few

You start saying “anyway”, to all things you talk
But living it in your mind, it helps you walk
The two minutes of work, make you feel great
And before you realize you hate it, it’s too late

Flirting with the freedom, struggling to take care
Occasions where you feel pampered seem rare
Envy of one’s eye, she exclaims “I wish I had it like you!”
And you are left to answer whether you’d still be you

You have a dream, someone else follows his
You stay put when you know the things you miss
There is so much you want to do, so little you can
Time passes painfully, time slips like sand

Irony underlines your time, irony mimes it well
You may not word it perfect, but you have thoughts to sell
It’s not really a rough ride, but the ride is whirled
You can’t really laugh, but it’s a funny funny world.

Till Death do us apart...

It is not new that movies and books stimulate a certain thought process, something specific and profound. For me it is just the movies because I don’t read at all, and the movie in question is Almost Famous. There is a particular scene wherein the characters in the movie are flying to the next concert destination and come into rough weather. Almost believing that they won’t be able to make it, each starts to articulate his/her last words quite bluntly, almost to the brink of it being a blasphemy in the book on social conduct.

Now, the thought that followed the hilarious rendition of “What I feel about each of you in this plane where I am dying” was something like this. If we knew that today was the last day of our lives, will we be the same? All of us look forward to change, but a drastic one at it just alters and accentuates everything we do or feel. Specifically in case of being in our death beds, what are the things that we would say…to the world, to our world or to people who just happen to meet the same morbid fate that we are destined to.

When I talk of myself (because this is how it always is), I imagine three situations: one being in the plane, one getting a whole day, with the will to go anywhere and to anyone and one having the world to hear me. First of all I will absolutely make sure I am dying and there is no way I am going to get lucky (?). Because frankly there are so many things I want to owe up to and so many secrets in the closet (the key to which even my closest friends don’t have), that if by chance I survive that fate I will have to kill myself anyway. I will be like the drummer (in almost famous) who screams “I am gay”, and the plane gets past the rough weather that very minute and they survive (I am not saying I am gay here for the record). He wishes the plane would have plunged and killed all of them. It is like someone you really believed in, cheated on you.

Back to the plane. Keeping in mind that this could easily come to the notice of people who I hate and who irritate the crap out of me, I will tell them that instant that they do. I will probably not tell the people I love that I love them because that’s understood (and I have very less time to articulate my thoughts the last time). I will talk of the things that I wanted to do and want to do because sometimes I don’t word quite what I desire. It can be completely contrasting at times. And I will probably say that I don’t care where these people go from here but I want heaven.

In case of a whole day I guess half of it will be spent in indifference. Some part of the first half will be spent in telling the people I love that times up folks and I will invite a selective few to my house to have the last talk (now this is to my friends: please don’t ask me if you are in this list, because my answer to you is going to be I am not dying today). Now what I will say or do with them is subject to just one thing: me dying.

In case I get to address the whole world and they are made to listen to me, I will sing. Just sing and hope I die before the tiredness shows in my voice. I will sing my songs with everyone and just my songs, as well.

The things typed in above are nothing but a rough description of my last day on earth. Maybe my last words will be nothing but I hate yogurt or perhaps something profound like I lived…but whatever they are I don’t know now, because I don’t know if today’s my last day. None of us would be able to answer the above question anyway till they really know. But hypothetically this question just reminds us of our dark secrets and it reminds us of the consequences to live with them when you no longer burry them and instead voice them. How would it be like to live after you say “I am gay”. Death can be quite liberating it seems. For now, today, my secrets remain with me and not for anyone’s ears, till say…death do us apart.