Sound of Music

Sounds (music, in particular) always evoke memories associated with it. 

Some are wonderful memories, and they hijack you into a nostalgic trance. As I weave through these memories, I meet people (the ones that I can still see in blood and flesh now, but in their old-memories-attached-form), I walk the streets of the dusty neighbourhood of my childhood, I try to recall the smell and even other sounds of that time. When I wake up - shaken, no doubt by the harsh realities of the here and now - I can only sadly resign to the fact that I have lost my childhood and youthful mirth. The material things, and the elusive, questionable wisdom that I managed to gain, in exchange for all that I lost suddenly seems of no worth. 

I caught a strain of chicken pox when I was preparing for my class XII public exam. I stayed in Mama's house all through my study leave. Lakshmi periyamma was a hard task master who made sure I woke early, and at least kept making sounds to prove that I was studying and not dozing off. (Sanjeev exploited this in a different way 😜 - more on that later) What is pertinent here is that I used to listen to one Yesudas' Ayyappa songs album (vrischika poompulari, shabari giri natha, etc.) I am instantly teleported to that period when I hear any of those songs. Particularly, periyamma woke me up one day at 3:30 am thinking it was 4:30 and did not allow me to go back to bed ("now that you are anyway awake study for the extra hour - it won't harm you ")

Today I woke up hearing non-Raja Malayalam melodies by Janaki - from Twitter. I shared with the group as to how I found Jerry Amaldev's manjani kombil was similar to Naushad's aankuyile from the Malayalam movie Dhwani.

Then, I drifted to Dhwani - I have never been so crazily obsessed with a music album like this. When I got this cassette recorded in 1990 (I remember the year as I had just passed class XII) I really had to wander all around Coimbatore in search of this - perhaps I did not know if a 'recording center' which had all Malayalam songs. 

I was a devout Yesudass fan then (still am, for the great singer he used to be), and this set of songs was nothing like I had heard before. In fact I came to know about Naushad through this movie! 

I played one particular  song from this album repeatedly until all at home became sick and tired of it . I heard it this morning too - call me emotional, but I was moved to tears when I heard this today. It did bring about a nostalgic trance. 

It is also the tune - this is a tune set in Sindhubhairavi. You'll easily recognize it as having heard a lot of times before. It could also be the lyrics and the language - It was the Vairamuthu era in Tamil Nadu, but I perhaps found Malayalam lend itself more to romantic poetry then... 

"KalAkAran priyE nin prEmam ennil chErthorA deivam, kalAkAran"

Enjoy...