Jul 23, 2008

Comfort in the Home Stretch

I am a more than casual listener of music. But it gets in the way sometimes, especially when I'm trying to learn a bunch of legal concepts for this exam.

At long last, and not a moment too soon, I've finally found the right sound to carry me through: Filmi songs from the 40s - 60s, featuring Lata and any partnering male (at this point, I'm listening to her with Mukesh). I don't understand Hindi, but that's the charm: these songs immediately speak to me of home - I can almost smell my mom's cooking, and I can hear her singing along. I know the melodies like old lullabies that you've heard a thousand times before. But I don't get lost in the words - I just hum along.

There's something about the way that these songs are hardwired into many of us: our parents because of the way the songs linked them to memories of home and gave them a lifeline in their new, immigrant lives (I touched on this once before) and us because we grew up with the songs playing all the time.

I feel like I should make a cup of tea and have some dhokla or something. All I need now is the rain.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Feeling a little nostalgic aren't we? My sister and I as very young girls loved the title song to the movie "Dil Tera Ashiq". We hadn't a clue about the words but the melody was something else.

Rage said...

Yeah - that's the comfort I'm talking about. Thanks for sharing.