“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”
― Bob Marley
Music to me is Kishore Kumar's voice when he is impish in "Ek ladki bheegi bhaagi si", or heartbroken in "Badi sooni sooni hai"; it is devotion when Mohd. Rafi sings "Aye duniya ke rakhwale"; philosophical when Mukesh sings "Zindagi kaisi hai paheli"...the twang of Jimi Hendrix's guitar, the moonwalk of Michael Jackson's "Beat it", the precision of the Mamas and the Papas melodies, the soaring voice of Whitney Houston, the mesmerizing lilt in Yo-Yo-Ma's cello, the drama of Mozart, and clean meticulous compositions of Beethoven and Strauss.
What would this world be if there were no music in it? How else would we be able disengage from our cares and tensions? What would happen to our sanity if there were no music to keep us calm in a traffic jam? How would we be able to tune out the cacophony that surrounds us, courtesy a developing city?
I envy people who can sing...out loud in tune in public with confidence. There is something heaven-like in a sweet melodious voice...Lata Mangeshkar in the 50's and 60's, Shreya Ghoshal in the present times, Chitra, Yesudas and those many other greats.
I grew up with Carnatic classical music playing in our home...Dr. M. Balamurali Krishna, G. N. Balasubramanium, Lalgudi Jayaraman, the Sikkil sisters, K. V. Narayanaswamy...to name a few luminaries. In my teens, with the advent of MTV, the Western world made its appearance in our drawing rooms. I remember watching with awe...and varying degrees of crushes as ABBA, Bruce Springsteen, Wham, Prince, Bryan Adams etc gyrated, strutted, and belted out their best. And then there were the ladies...Madonna, Pat Benatar, Tina Turner, Whitney Houston...with their big hair and clunky bracelets, and outlandish clothes that they alone could turn into chic must-have clothes.
Soon pop, rock, country music vied for playing time with the classicists, and old Hindi film songs. "Generation gap", I muttered when my father deplored my taste in music, calling it "loud and nothing to do with melody". But we wanted to be cool and so we listened to the latest that the West had to offer.
Life has come full circle for a friend of mine who cannot 'get' the musicians these days...and so, much to the horror of her teenage daughter, she does not differentiate between Justin Timberlake (hot!) and Justin Bieber (not!), or cannot understand groups like Maroon5, Coldplay etc. Pitbull (to her) is a breed of dog and Lady Gaga a knighted Dame of the British Empire...need I say more?
I have realized that the older I get I am returning to the music of my teens. Yes I do like the songs of today, and can even enjoy a "Badtameez Dil" as much "Yeh shaam kuch ajeeb thi"...but if you ask me who my favourite singer is...it is beyond doubt Kishore Kumar for his sheer range of music, his voice, his eccentricity.
But at the end of the day it is music alone that is the winner, and we mortals simply blessed to be able to hear so many different sounds and appreciate the vastness of this divine ocean.
― Bob Marley
Music to me is Kishore Kumar's voice when he is impish in "Ek ladki bheegi bhaagi si", or heartbroken in "Badi sooni sooni hai"; it is devotion when Mohd. Rafi sings "Aye duniya ke rakhwale"; philosophical when Mukesh sings "Zindagi kaisi hai paheli"...the twang of Jimi Hendrix's guitar, the moonwalk of Michael Jackson's "Beat it", the precision of the Mamas and the Papas melodies, the soaring voice of Whitney Houston, the mesmerizing lilt in Yo-Yo-Ma's cello, the drama of Mozart, and clean meticulous compositions of Beethoven and Strauss.
What would this world be if there were no music in it? How else would we be able disengage from our cares and tensions? What would happen to our sanity if there were no music to keep us calm in a traffic jam? How would we be able to tune out the cacophony that surrounds us, courtesy a developing city?
I envy people who can sing...out loud in tune in public with confidence. There is something heaven-like in a sweet melodious voice...Lata Mangeshkar in the 50's and 60's, Shreya Ghoshal in the present times, Chitra, Yesudas and those many other greats.
I grew up with Carnatic classical music playing in our home...Dr. M. Balamurali Krishna, G. N. Balasubramanium, Lalgudi Jayaraman, the Sikkil sisters, K. V. Narayanaswamy...to name a few luminaries. In my teens, with the advent of MTV, the Western world made its appearance in our drawing rooms. I remember watching with awe...and varying degrees of crushes as ABBA, Bruce Springsteen, Wham, Prince, Bryan Adams etc gyrated, strutted, and belted out their best. And then there were the ladies...Madonna, Pat Benatar, Tina Turner, Whitney Houston...with their big hair and clunky bracelets, and outlandish clothes that they alone could turn into chic must-have clothes.
Soon pop, rock, country music vied for playing time with the classicists, and old Hindi film songs. "Generation gap", I muttered when my father deplored my taste in music, calling it "loud and nothing to do with melody". But we wanted to be cool and so we listened to the latest that the West had to offer.
Life has come full circle for a friend of mine who cannot 'get' the musicians these days...and so, much to the horror of her teenage daughter, she does not differentiate between Justin Timberlake (hot!) and Justin Bieber (not!), or cannot understand groups like Maroon5, Coldplay etc. Pitbull (to her) is a breed of dog and Lady Gaga a knighted Dame of the British Empire...need I say more?
I have realized that the older I get I am returning to the music of my teens. Yes I do like the songs of today, and can even enjoy a "Badtameez Dil" as much "Yeh shaam kuch ajeeb thi"...but if you ask me who my favourite singer is...it is beyond doubt Kishore Kumar for his sheer range of music, his voice, his eccentricity.
But at the end of the day it is music alone that is the winner, and we mortals simply blessed to be able to hear so many different sounds and appreciate the vastness of this divine ocean.
No comments:
Post a Comment