singing along

Yesterday the radio made me listen to an old Hindi song from the 60’s. It is not that I ‘vent heard this song before. I’ve even hummed it quite a number of times. But today the song brought along with it a memory. Of a little girl and her mother, ears fixed on to the speakers of a cassette player. Pen and paper in hand.

It used to be our Sunday afternoon pastime. Listening to old and much loved songs to take down the lyrics. We both had our lyric books with us, to write out the lyrics neatly, without the many corrections that our papers had. I used to learn them then, diligently as if for an oral examination. It was my way of impressing my mother. The tune was invariably wrong and off key, but the lyrics were impeccable. My mother would correct my awful rendering in her smooth, beautiful voice. And I listened to her, awestruck as always. Falling in love with her again, yet another Sunday.

This was our time.

Today, I sit in front of the laptop, from whose clutches I never seem to escape. I try to remember which song it is that she had asked me to look up a few months ago. I kept telling her that I would find it, no big deal. After all there is google. But the fact is I haven’t and it has been months.

I miss many things in life. In fact too many things that it is probably unhealthy. Today however, this ranks supreme. The ‘our’ time. I think somewhere down the line, there are so many moments that I cherish, with so many different people. Which are simply not there anymore. And that makes it probably more beautiful.