Mixtape childhood

Oh, how the music fed our souls...I miss it!

Joining a mini-reunion of my mother’s friends for lunch last week brought back a bevy of forgotten sounds and memories. Lilting melancholy strains from Madan Malviya’s compositions, upbeat melodies in Geeta Dutt’s voice, Manna Dey’s butter-smooth rendition of Madhushala…

It’s 1989. There I am, in the backseat of my parents’ chocolate brown Maruti 800, sitting squarely in the middle so I have both of them in my sights, hanging on the front edge of the seat, Daddy and I singing along as we hurtle down cozy tree-lined two-lane highways.

During the many road trips mom, dad and I took in those years between 1987 and 1994, I was entrusted with the most important job of handling the precious collection of tapes my parents had collected over years. I also got to choose which ones we would carry, selecting carefully from the hundreds they owned, always eliminating the classical music tapes and ensuring my favourite classic Bollywood mixtapes were included!

Much earlier during our Bombay days, when I was only about eight, I had learned the entire Geeta Dutt collection “by heart” - words, melodies, interludes, pauses, all of it. Being able to sing any of of those songs in a near-exact replica of Dutt’s original recording, replete with pauses and emotional cadences, became my party talent (yes, I was Daddy’s little girl, always ready to sing to make him proud!) .

My parents were music lovers to the core. In my childhood home, it was normal to wake up on Sunday morning to the sound of Kishori Amonkar and fall asleep to Kumar Gandharva’s sonorous voice. Neil Diamond and Nat King Cole also featured sometimes. And in the car, the pantheon of Bollywood’s music stars from the 60s and 70s, cast their spell over our lives, Daddy’s intimate knowledge of Bollywood trivia delightfully filling the silence as one cassette was ejected and the next one inserted in.

Many, not all, of the mixtapes we played had been “copied” - in the wonderful traditions of the analogue era - from the collection of the gentleman who hosted the lunch I attended last week. He had been mum’s colleague during a two-year post-doctoral research fellowship she did in the US in the late ‘70s. Over the years, his name had cropped up in gratitude and fond remembrance, especially in relation to his musical collection and tastes. He probably has no idea that his generosity greatly influenced the musical tastes of a little girl who he barely knew.

The music my parents and their musical friends brought into my life became an anchor for me to navigate life’s transitions, from a childhood in Bombay to an adolescence in Lucknow. I landed in college with a readymade persona of the singer/performer, the “All India Radio” who could help teams win Antakshari competitions and ease a nighttime train journey with non-stop music. Later when my Dad was terminally ill, singing him his favourites was my way of offering him a little succour.

But somehow, as the years passed, despite several attempts at reviving the riyaaz and the listening routines, the songs faded and my musical persona took a backseat. Maybe it felt less meaningful without Daddy, my eternal cheerleader and singing companion. Maybe life simply switched gears and I went with the flow, not fighting hard enough for what fed my soul.

I felt something shift, though, when memory expressed itself as song last week. With Geeta Dutt’s “Mera sundar sapna beet gaya” and Rafi’s “Khoya khoya chaand” playing in my head, like a whiff of a familiar yet forgotten fragrance, music re-entered my world. I found myself singing along to old, familiar songs on my drive to work a few days ago. I walked to Rashid Khan’s Raag Bhatiyar one morning. I thought about playlist ideas while returning from dance class today. I rued the shift to individual playlists and the loss of a shared listening experience in our homes today.

Its 2022. Rahul is blasting Frank Sinatra over the fancy new cuboid speaker he has just installed. The kids are amused, but tolerant. A roast is in the oven. Ice cream is on its way. Whose music is up next?

Back to the present. I do feel a tad more hopeful about retaining the music habits this time, but since I’m a great one for over-promising and under-delivering to myself, I’ll hold back a bit. Instead of being over the moon, I’ll hold myself in a tight hug and wait patiently for the music to take hold of me again.