Women 101

I like sad songs. And I cannot lie, no other brother can deny, when I hear a sad song I almost cry…

I abhor happy ones.

Those chirpy duets indicative of forest based trysts and other romantic hang outs. Even the solos, promising undying devotion to a beloved etc. They make me want to pour acid down my ears.

But the sad ones, well. It could be that the music you can relate to becomes more potent to you. But it’s not that. I’ve always always been more inclined towards the sad songs, even when being sad was hardly anything more than the state of mind I experienced for a fleeting moment when dad would glare at me or when mom would neglect to bring some goodies back home from her shopping expeditions. Even then, even in the twilight existence of puberty, even when I had more or less learnt the language I would be listening to, I had hardly any awareness of the words being spoken and their implications. And yet, for me, with or without you was the obvious winner when compared to anything else doing the rounds back then. The melancholy of it, the inexplicable surrender to the ‘you’ amongst other things. I hardly knew what the jack ass was crooning about, but the melody made sense, even then it spoke out loud and clear of the gut wrenching pain that alone can make a man sing like that,

But you know what I’ve discovered in the last few weeks?

I’ve discovered the purpose of the existence of India. Yes, our neighbors. Maha Bharat. Even though they’re stomping us into the ground with their techno savvy now, and their half naked women parading across our TV screens are causing hard-ons and heart ache alike, but that’s just a by product of our inability to accept our place in the 21^st century. No, what makes India worth the salt in its mines is the music.

They were fucking brilliant. I mean its mind numbingly exasperating when you sit down and listen to the music made in the 60s and 70s. Even the 80’s and 90’s. Even now a gem seeps through the short skirt inspired ditty’s these days, but nothing like the magic R.D Burman and company were weaving way back before I was even conceived.

And more than the composition, it’s the lyrics.

Good God! The lyrics, they will make you gasp. Especially if you can relate at all, they will make you struggle for breath. You will sit up and wonder how the hell did this dead man way back then know how I would be feeling today and then how did this other man know precisely how to accompany the words with a lilting violin crescendo and yet another man know the exact right timbre of voice to say the words with so as to, 30 years after the fact, make me sit up and gasp?

The pain they must’ve suffered the gift that they must have had to be able to craft their pain into melodies which will sting every broken heart for centuries to come.

I feel that the sub-continent has always been a part of the world mired in misery. What with are need to harbor tradition and cultivate archaic principles to a degree that even today we are unable to break free from familial constraints upon being romantically inclined. It is inevitable to loose love in such stifling circumstances. And back then, with wounds fresh from love separated over newly formed geographical and religious boundaries, its no wonder really that the poets back then had so much manifested pain to deliver through their art. I can just imagine one forlorn Hindu sitting by a Goa beach contemplating the twist of fate which had taken his beloved Muslim girl suddenly into enemy territory. What had simply been a religious complication to their story is abruptly turned into a political battle. Whatever hope they may have had of making it work turned to dust by a few lines drawn over a map.

And Amongst the seething embers of fury, shining brilliantly is strength of character. Which clearly dictates where loyalties have to lie and where loss has to be borne with dignity and pride. The only release for ones anger being pen and paper, and eventually song and music.

You listen to these old songs of eternal love and you realize that amongst all that is ever considered holy, the holiest of all is the promise of never ending faith in broken promises. Of bitching about it in rhyme so as to be shrouded in the guise of theatrical entertainment. The death of hope, relieved only by the birth of the knowledge that no matter how much circumstances change, something never do. Such as true love, such as naïve promises. Even though it becomes painfully clear that what had been dreamt of has now become more of a dream than ever before and yet it is a dream that will never let go. Not for any hope of ever being true, no Hope is dead. But simply because it will forever remain the most cherished dream of all. What still lives amidst the residual hopelessness are smiles long since erased and tears long since dried. They lay buried within the subtle lyrical nuances of these songs. They draw shallow breaths nestled inside the memories woven into the heart breaking melodies.

Its all quite fervent really. May be its just my desperate imagination that makes me attach so much history to words that may just have been uttered one unholy night drenched in alcohol and lust.

But it’s hard to imagine that something that oozes heart break and gut wrenching angst could have been borne of anything less than immense tragedy.

Anyway, whatever caused those old buggers’ hearts to bleed all over our ears, I’m grateful for it. This is why:

‘Itna he upkaar samajh koee,

jitna saath nibha day,

janam puran ka mail hai sapna,

yeh sapna bisra day…

koee na sang maray!

Mun ray, tu kahay na dheer dharay?’

Hats off, Rafi… hats off, throat constricted, breath surrendered, tears strangled.