Imagery has left the building…

With memories of my grandmom flooding my mind, I took up to listening some of the old hindi film songs which were her favourites; having heard them over and over while growing up, while she played the harmonium and set her court with her loyal lot of friends who looked delightfully at her pretty face, enamored by her personality.

She certainly had a lovely voice to go with that ambience she created.
As a result, I know many obsolete songs which I might never have had a chance meeting with had I grown up in any other family. Two of the songs that remain vivid in my memory are Lata Mangeshkar’s ‘Chand phir nikla’ and… Geeta Dutt’s ‘Kaise koi jiye’…

While completing a few chores at home, I suddenly felt the need to look, these songs, up on the internet. Lo’ behold, I found them and realized that my petite granny use to bungle up many a lyric while she concentrated on the language and avoided her Bengali accent from creeping into the melodies…

Coming back to my virtual success at the lyrics hunt, I realize that the songs then had some lovely lyrics, the images the songs created with words enchanted the hearts of the listeners. Even today, while I close my eyes and listen, I can feel the clouds they speak off, casting shadows on the mind while it prepares to face the grim reality the heart often has to suffer in love. Fascinating!

Truly, none can make you understand the matters of heart better than those who can paint a picture with their words…
How unfortunate that such a gift has turned into a dying art.

Perhaps today when people don’t have the time to look around and feel one with the paraphernalia that crowds their life, the lyricists might have taken to a more contemporary need. Say things they way they are, and leave it to people to accept and move one…

But sometimes I feel, if they would bother to paint a picture, we might take time out to breath life into it.

...couldn't be more blank!

My grandma lies cold in the hospital as I write this, awaiting her funeral….
Yesterday when I got the news I couldn’t put a finger on how I felt about it. She was 85 and suffering… so I am glad that the ordeal is over for her. But there’s this emptiness… there are so many things that went wrong between her n I that I really wish there was a way that our relationship could have been simpler… happier…

We spent a lot of time together. I remember visiting random people and getting bored outta my skull but accompanying her all over town. I remember she and I took a trip once with some other people and she really took care of me, like a grandma… these were days when life wasn’t really all peachy with us n her. She and I never really fought but seeing her exchange horrid words with my closest people often had me in tears. Life spent with her need not have been that bad.

Life is just so short… people always forgive and move on… but… why quarrel in the first place? Why have that bitterness and waste time which could have been lovely… just like that trip we took… why does it always take strangers or worse isolation and separation to remind us of how close we actually are?