Words are the clips that hold music to the strings of my heart, now happy songs had stopped tuning into the rhythm of my hopes and sad songs were driving me deeper into the bottomless abyss of my fears and anxieties. With every rock bottom that the world and I would hit, the ground would open up further. For me, the political and the personal, wrapped in a wrestling grip, were dragging each other down. Sometimes life experiences take your breath away and sometimes, your songs. It’s hard to pinpoint when – before the last election or around it? Or was it a personal setback which stole my songs? However, I truly realised that I had lost it when I found myself singing so loudly that my mother, who is severely hard of hearing, knocked on the bathroom door and said, ‘Have you swallowed the radio?’Īlso watch: Celebrating Being Queer and Muslim During Ramzan The night would invite Faiz and Ghalib to hover by my bedside while I ticked off the day’s ‘to do’ list in my diary.Īnd then I lost music from my life. My professional writing hours or housework would alternate between 80’s Govinda and random symphonies. There was a time when my day would start with qawwalis. My ears seem to have cultivated different pleasure zones which get activated according to my moods – so the same song which touches my soul one hour, may bore me to death the next day. From Nicki Minaj’s Anaconda to Mozart and Beethoven symphonies and what have you. I can listen to anything from ‘ gore gore mukhde pe kaala kaala chashma’ to ‘ nirbhay nirgun gun re gaoonga’. My taste in music, like in everything else in life, is eclectic to the point of being random. Her childlike zeal for Alvida Jumma took me back to another age, another me, another way of life – when every occasion had a song.įor me, songs are indelibly linked with hope. My lifestyle choices have squeezed out space for connecting with Ramzan or the elaborate and breathless preparations that would go into celebrating Eid. It’s the last Friday of Ramzan and applying henna to your palms is supposed to bring you blessings. I didn’t, so she sent the maid to the market to get a packet. My mother asked me if I had some henna powder at home.

Jamuna kinare mora gaon lyrics