Last week my husband was casually playing some old songs on his mobile. Those were the songs of our childhood, the songs of early and mid 80s and 90s. The songs were truly melodious but more than the melody it was the memory associated with those songs which stood out. I remembered my childhood how my mom used to switch on the radio every morning while me and my siblings hurried to get ready to go to school, mom used to give breakfast, dad used to get ready for office while all those songs kept on playing, almost daily. I remembered the school and college days.
While traveling by Ola cab when the FM is switched on, the songs that play often remind me of my early days of marriage, the time I was expecting my children, the time my children were younger, the time I used to listen to radio along with my sister and mother before marriage and so on.
Any Bengali Robindro Sangeet is associated with my childhood and my father teaching me and my sister those songs or us performing at the small Bengali gatherings.
As my husband played an old Hemant Kumar song, it brought back the memories of my late father who used to sing Hemant Kumar’s Bengali and Hindi songs.
Why are some songs so special to us? Most of the times it’s the memories that are associated with them, both good and bad, that make those songs special. We go back to that time, re-live that particular moment.
“One old song, a thousand old memories.”
Life and its different shades 