Shallow-Headed Nostalgia

Jakhon porbe na mor payer chinnho ei baate

Aami baibo na, mor kheya tori ei ghaate…

Chukiye debo becha kena, mitiye debo go,

Mitiye debo lena dena, bondho hobe aana gona ei haate…

Tokhon aamay nai bam one rakhle

Tarar pane cheye cheye, nai ba aamay dakle…

 

Listening to ‘Sakhi Bhabana kahare Bole’ and ‘jakhon porbe na mor payer chinnho’ on youtube, on a lazy Saturday, has brought upon what was termed ‘shallow-headed nostalgia’ by a favourite senior from College many years ago…

Amidst the complete lack of meaning in our haphazard ‘khichudi’ (mixture) of our day-to-day life, it is often so comforting to find solace in what has been… when you start counting all the memories of your life, ‘life’ seems so beautiful and fulfilling…

This post is about a few people and a few memories, which have touched my life, but I am no longer in touch with… They are just reduced to images in the abyss of my mind… Sometimes, it feels, that people who are only etched in your memory remain as they were, untainted by the present… the relationship you had with them remains as a beautiful memory, and are not blemished by day-to-day mundane experiences…

First, I shall go back to my singing school. In the fall, of 1992, my mother conspired with my grandfather to ‘deposit’ me in Gitabitan, a vocal training school concerned solely with the works of Rabindranath Tagore, after a snide comment towards a Bollywood movie that had escaped my mouth that confirmed their long-term suspicions of me going astray… I was all of 8 years old !?!

What it meant was, me missing the entire Disney hour, which came on TV on Sunday mornings, including my favourite ‘potli-baba’… Well, like most other under-privileged children, I did not have any say in the matter… ‘Rekha’ from Bollywood, had screwed my life…

I, of course often have a quite laugh, when I remember, that in 2001, 2 days before my Std. XI examinations, I had departed on extra singing lessons for the final degree examination, much to my mother’s disgust. Yes, indeed 10 years had passed since that first day, and close to 500 episodes of Disney hour, had been missed, but what I took back from there changed my life…

When I first went to Gitabitan at the age of 8, I was not pleased. Having spent almost 4 years in a quite-privileged-spic-n-span English speaking school, this dull, old building, with people, from diverse and not-so-privileged socio-economic backgrounds, greeted me with a feeling that I didn’t belong there. It however, passed soon after… Me being the youngest in the class, and immensely talkative, had brought upon sisterly affection from most of a class that was skewed in the favour of girls in a ratio of 80-20…

Thus, with this set of doting sisters, I realized about openness, acceptance and friendship… One of these people, and I mean only 1 had started with me in ’93 and had continued till 2001.  She happened to be my closest friend then… She had a remarkable voice, and had topped 8 out of 9 singing exams… I had spoken to her once since, then, and I just learnt by way of internet, that she’s married and in New Jersey…

 

I was in school, and took to the violin. A year after I had joined in 1992, this frail old meek kinda guy from another section, who weighed slightly less than a single leg-of-mine, joined… Much to our disgust, this guy also topped academics, from the other section, and was prodigious with the violin… 9 years later, he had successfully become the youngest graduate from Royal School of Music, London. He, however gave up his music and decided to follow medicine. Amongst the closest of my friends, and remarkably sensitive and wise, he has vanished from the radar… Hopefully, we will get a chance to catch up some day…

 

Next, I shall write about a person, I am in touch with but cant share the same relation any more. This sardar guy was my neighbor. He was 6 years younger to me, and treated me like his guru. I still remember, my mother’s horrific glance, when this puny little sardar (age-7 then), was carrying my 2 kilo backpack up a flight of 3 stairs, a week after his appendix operation… I shifted house, and although now we do talk, he has grown up and some things never stay the same…

 

And as such, there will always be so many numerous people who touch our lives, make us feel special and disappear… I guess that’s the beauty of life… Amongst the numerous different lives, that we live everyday, there are always these people… who we will remember someday, and maybe, meet again…

 

The song above is a delicate exposition of how we are survived by the memories we induce in others…