Musical Memories

Notion - For music and moments are bound melodiously

Song - Moh Moh Ke Dhaage

Literarily, this one is as garbled and incoherent as any of my other ponderings.

Generically, it is pretty inconsequential and unnecessary at this point in time. 

Sentimentally, a bit anachronistic.

But, emotionally it is way overdue - just like some emotions are.

If you haven't yet, watch the musical Wicked or at least listen to its songs or if not all songs, at least For Good. Glinda's part sweetly starts with,

"I have heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason..."

Sure, Wicked might not be the true and only source of the above adage, but there is no harm in listening to or quoting from Wicked unnecessarily.

But yes, all would mostly agree that people come into our lives for some reason. Everything may not happen to us for a reason but we do learn something or the other from all life events. I firmly do. And because I am a bit theatrical, I extend this belief to music too. 

For me, music and life are meant to co-exist. There is a rhythm and rhyme to each of life's moments. Every emotion and sentiment has its own melody. Each memory is entwined with some tune, and every person has a sound of their own music. So for me, just like life and people happen to us for some reason, music -  particularly songs or melodies - enters my life for a reason. And because this is my life, its entry into my life is slightly dramatic as well. Sometimes the entry may fail to impress me theatrically. Like a pivotal character in a narrative being passingly mentioned. But eventually it finds the right moment to resonate resoundingly. This has been the story of Moh Moh Ke Dhaage in my life, more or less. Details follow.

Now all of us have a musical identity, the sound of our own music. And if you feel that’s a bunch of hogwash, I am sure you would at least agree that all of us have a tracklist that can be named after us. And if not a tracklist, a song. Moh Moh Ke Dhaage entered my ears as a must-play song for one of my friends. I got introduced to it as her song. It had to be played when she is around. And so it was; for many moons. I appreciated it plenty, as had the rest of the world that loves Bollywood romantic songs. But surprisingly, that was that. It had fallen on my ears umpteen times but had not struck a chord with my heartstrings.

Almost 2 years later, I heard it being performed at another friend’s wedding function. It was a melodious end of the year 2016. The next day was the wedding day and it was the worst day of my life - I had terrible diarrhoea and could not eat any of the wedding food! I managed to stand alive, be a part of the wedding, and then fled home - in a train. Life was testing me on the very first day of a brand-new 2017. Dehydrated, I persisted. Well, I mainly just deflated myself on my train seat, held on to my backpack tightly, and listened to Moh Moh Ke Dhaage - to both the male and female versions - on loop all the way from Pune to Mumbai. I am sure it seeped into me the first time itself when I hit play, but maybe the numerous repeats in those 3 hours did their magic too. And then onward, Moh Moh became the song to be identified with romance and love. And more than romance, love.

Have to admit that I have been obsessed with the idea and concept of love since puberty and all my adult life so far. Romantic movies, songs, and tunes breathe life into this obsession. And Moh Moh did just that but in a very sane and sweet manner. At least at the beginning that is.

And then the inevitable happened - I ended up associating the song with a certain moment in my life, with a someone special. We all do this, yes? Dedicate a song to a special moment or a person? Well, I do. Right from the days of keeping individually assigned ringtones for my friends to emotionally tying a song and a person together. This knot though was tied a bit too tightly. And it stayed tight for a long long time. Perhaps, because of the way the person had entered my life or because of the intensity of my emotions, or bear with me, maybe it was just meant to be.

Now besides the evident sad effects of people leaving our lives, there is one sad part that I detest the most. With their departure, they take the songs associated with them. Dramatic as I am, it becomes darn difficult for me to keep those songs and tunes in my life without the memories of the associate person. So I end up doing a very juvenile thing - I remove those songs from my life. Very much painfully and obviously dramatically. It has gotten minimally better recently where I manage to disassociate real emotions from mere artistic expressions, but Moh Moh was a difficult separation. Took me almost two years to let that song back into my life after that person. No, I didn’t bawl but my eyes did get a bit misty without me realising it when I heard it again after so long. It was at that moment that I finally accepted my emotions for that special someone. I had fought back my sentimentality with logic and rational thought and rendered my thoughts of ‘true love’ silly. But in the end, I realised that you cannot reason emotions, you can’t use logic to find your way out of love. Moh Moh Ke Dhaage was enough of an 'explanation' for me after all that time. And so, I decided to let it in furthermore. By singing it.

The first time I sang, recorded, and shared it online was only the second time I was sharing my singing quite publicly. So there was a general emotional reluctance and hesitance. But what helped me get over the anxiety is the thought of that person. And I know while I sang it, I could not stop thinking about them. Just that I didn’t fight their thought. It was good enough an emotional progress for me. Again, bear with my dramatisation of a possible infatuation, but for whatever its worth, those emotions felt intensely strong for a very long period of time. Fighting them had not proved useful at all. Giving in was the only way out I reckon. My rendition was acceptably musical. But more than anything, I was happy that Moh Moh was back on my playlist!

Unfortunately, my emotional steadiness had to suffer yet again though. With the song back in my life, I went down the rabbit hole of allowing myself to think of the good times, then some bad times, and then the whole gamut of experiences and emotions associated with that person. It was really quite pathetic honestly and I was tired of it myself over and over again. Yes, ended up troubling that person and some of my close friends with a walk down memory lane along with some added ‘also forgot to tell you’ etc. But eventually, I did find my own closure (don’t ask me after how long please) in my own way - I sang it again, wholeheartedly and kept that special person at the centre of my singing. And I let the song go yet again.

But this time, the letting go was more of an acceptance that this song might possibly never get disassociated. And that it’s okay for it to stay that way. I don’t know if I have finally matured emotionally or if I have just gotten a bit too practical in life. But I know that it has now gotten easier to go back to some songs and tunes and with them to some of life’s memories. Not just about that one person, but many other people and events too. I have managed to make music an intrinsic part of my life’s experiences. I don’t know whether it’s good or bad, foolish or thoughtful. But I know that music makes those events, those memories, those people feel real. The experience of it all stays intact. Visuals might do the same job I suppose for others. And equally so, perhaps so would smell or touch or taste be able to evoke old memories and take one right back in time. But I can’t think of anything that is as timeless as music when it comes to my life.

You would be glad and relieved to know and read that I have managed to get over that special someone - well almost I think. I shall not be surprised if I go down that rabbit hole again. But I shall go down much more gently this time if it were to happen. And hence I mentioned that emotionally, penning this down is a bit anachronistic. I don’t feel those emotions anymore and I don’t think about all of it with that intensity. Then why on earth did I do this? Well, like I said this was emotionally overdue. It was due to the me that genuinely ached and teared up with and without this song. It was due to all those unexpected moments when listening to the song would gush all my emotions. And definitely a bit due to that person who deserves to know that regardless of everything else, at least there was something as beautiful and lovely as this song.

The obsession of associating music with other things and people in life carries forward into my writings too. Each writing down is associated with a song and whenever I write something down, I keep that song in my ears throughout my writing and did just that this time too. It’s been a while since I allowed myself to loop Moh Moh Ke Dhaage these many times. How was it, you ask?

I managed.