Putham pudhu kalai

It’s a morning song. Not any morning, it should have rained the whole night before and just stopped just before you woke up, and the crisp morning air should carry the fragrance of the rain from the night. It’s a morning with the promise of a beautiful day ahead. Because that’s how you remember hearing it, on the way to school which was a bit close to a music shop your cousin opened with his friends. He has a sense of music and shows you all the shining new equipment and the largest collection of records you’ve seen ever. You still have time for the first bell at school so you hang around and listen to some songs when he plays this latest song from a movie that’s running at a cinema near your house. You won’t see the movie for some reason, but the song will follow you wherever you went, carrying with it the early morning, rain-laden breeze.

Ilamai enum poongatru

You’ve come back earlier from college and changed into your casual clothes. You are standing outside the gate to people watch and wait for the milkman so you can have your tea which your mother or sister will make. It’s around 4 pm, and the street is not exactly teeming with people. There are kids going back from their schools, chattering, laughing, swinging their bags and lunch boxes. The college goers consider it beneath their dignity to carry lunch from home. Not cool to be seen with packed lunch as it won’t make the right impression on the girls you never had the courage to talk to. Or ever will. By the time your job and bank balance gave you the confidence, you were all grown up, married, in another country as were the girls. That’s how it went. Presently the milkman comes on his bicycle, carrying a huge aluminium can on the carrier at the back, with thick ropes holding it in place. In front, around the handle bars, there are smaller cans and measuring cans. He gets down, leans the cycle against him to balance it, opens the tap on the can and pours milk into the steel vessel you hold under it. The fresh, cold milk fills up to the brim, sending a cool wave through the palms of you hand, contrasting with the warmth from the street which is still absorbing the heat from the settling sun. Then as you look up to turn around to go back in, there’s the girl you see quite regularly. Pretty, tall for her age, and looks the quiet type. You wait till she passes you by, then walk in, holding the cool vessel. The radio plays this song which you’ll remember for a long time.

Sendhoorapove

It’s annual school holidays in your new neighbourhood where your family has just moved into. You’ve made a friend across the street. It’s an unusually cool summer morning when you go to his house which is in the back of the owner’s house. It was a standard practice when the owner of a house wanted to make some extra money they rented out the small ‘portion’ in the back to people they knew or friend’s friend’s relative. Your house was also in the back come to think of it. Your friend is in the owner’s house, and he introduces you to them, two brothers. They seem like nice people. One of them has made some sweet dish and he is offering it to you to taste, you have a taste and it’s quite nice. It’s a fairly big house but not as clean as your house is. Bachelors are like that, you remember someone saying in connection with something else. Later, your friend takes you outside where the owner’s tractor is standing. It’s a blue tractor with a trailor, and you get on the trailer, and he tells you you can see air if you look real close. You strain your eyes and all you can see are those vague dots swimming in front of your eyes. He says that’s air. You can see it now, can’t you? When you go back in, this song comes on the radio, it sounds beautiful.

Ilaya nila

The year seems good for decent grades, especially in math, a bit unusual. There’s a sense of relief in the air as the eminently forgettable two years at the not-so-top of the line school are coming to a swift end. And come June, the so-far-near-drab life would take on an exciting turn with the next step being in a college. College! In other word, freedom. Freedom to go and come as you please, freedom to ogle girls, freedom to talk about things you couldn’t till recently, freedom to watch movies that were certified ‘A’, freedom to come home late … you can taste it now as you go to your school. The hope of a new beginning makes even this dowdy affair seem interesting. As you take the bus in the morning, and as yo leave for school, they pla this song on the radio. It’s captivating, jazzy, unusual (like the high grade in math), and its guitar work is like nothing you’ve heard so far. Then, when you are in college, in the hilly, cooler part of your town, enjoying the unalloyed freedom of being above reproach from family members, your friend plays this song on the guitar and wins a gold medal. Years later, very many years later, you would pick up this song on your guitar too, and it would be one of the most satisfying experiences of your life, especially when you play the last interlude. Bliss!

Chinna pura ondru

It usually comes on in the afternoon, a hot afternoon. You can’t recall why you were home when it came on the radio, maybe it was your time off from work, perhaps you were in between jobs, maybe it was the job hunting days right after college. You have been asked to go and get some tea bags for the evening, so you step out not much wanting to, as the girls you liked to see come back from their schools or college will be on the way anytime now. You don’t want to be caught with cheap tea bags, it would be embarrassing. Luckily, the shop is close by, less than 5 minutes’ walk. The street is a sleepy, a banana vendor is sleeping on the cart which is under the shade of a big tree. Milkman sees you and waves from his cycle. You nod and walk on, and buy your tea from the small petty shop round the corner next to a tea shop that’s a bakery as well. Vacant stares from strange people as you pay for the stuff and cross back. The putrid smell from the rotting vegetables at the entrance of the market hits your nostrils along with the assorted smells from the shop, a medley of cigarette smoke, burning rope for lighting cigarettes, fruits, candy, and ageing biscuits. The song comes on as you walk back, and your friend is at the gate. You signal to him, pointing to the teabag, saying you’ll drop it and go to his house, which is just across from yours. It’ll be just about right to watch the girls.

Paruvame

It’s a winter morning in the small town which has its own weather system that separates it from the big cities. Water gets real cold without freezing, coconut oil somehow freezes and becomes greasy snow in a bottle, door fronts feature rangolis with pumpkin flowers on cow dung mound, it’s December back home. You look forward to the school half yearly holidays, and soon, in the coming month, there will be a longish break for the harvest festival. As you walk to the bus stop, watching people shiver in the early morning cold which has made some shop keepers sleep a little late in opening the shutters of their shops, the sun breaks through the clouds bringing a brief respite from the biting cold. You try to keep to the slivers of the sun on the ground but it disappears again. Somewhere on a radio this song comes wafting through like the aroma from a gently cooked meal.

Engengo sellum

Another June morning, another beautiful day with soft rain and gentle sunshine. As you walk to school, past the tea shop with its customary morning customers, you scan the odd sizes posters hung from clips on a thread under the counter with big jars of candies and biscuits, carefully avoiding the puddles, you hear this song coming from the radio set. The songs is soft and gentle too, you notice, blending seamlessly with the June morning. People look happy, girls look prettier, the day promises nice surprises. You actually look forward to going to school!

Innum ennai

"You wake up from an afternoon slumber into a transcendental twilight in your home town. The orange skies accompany your melancholy as you drift out of the house after the coffee and as you make your way up to the bus stand potti kadai and buy a Gold Flake, the smoothness of which is indescribable and the smell of it, as yet unlit, is dragging you ever deeper into the town's flirtatious and squalid yet undeniably attractive depths, and as if you're not ensnared and enslaved enough already, there is that rough hemp rope to light that cigarette with, imparting to it a certain smokiness no oak cask of no 18 year old single malt could ever boast of. You walk on then, at once heady and humbly low, under the canopy of Gulmohar that lines the Colony streets, and onwards toward that deserted temple where the presiding deity communicates easier with you than the priest on call. The sun sets on the city that obligingly played Lolita that evening to your old man avatar. Hope stays afloat. Of course." (This post is from Kanna)

Vaa ponmayile

It rained the whole night, at least when the thunder and the flash of lightning bouncing off the wall and, somehow, into your sleep. You did go back to sleep after a bit of tossing and turning, listening to the steady fall of the rain outside. By the time you are up and ready for school, the rain has stopped but the bright morning with the clouds holding the sun ransom, still has traces of the rain. Grey clouds on the puddles on the street. Rain drops still dripping from the tea shop awning. The autos bulging with school kids has the flap that lifts up in the breeze. You see flashes of smiling faces inside as it speeds by, splashing the cloud puddle. Suddenly, you feel the taste of the hot rice and rasam that felt good on this cold morning, from the aroma that still on your fingers. Your friend joins you and you begin walking to your school. As you turn the corner, waiting fro the traffic light, this song comes on, fitting perfectly with the beautiful morning.

Sinnanjiru vayadhil

It’s evening , a regular warm evening on the cusp of summer and monsoon months. The occasional clouds have been hinting at rain only to laugh in the upturned faces and disappear in wispy trails. You take a walk with your friend and discover streets you haven’t seen thus far in your neighbourhood, mainly because school days do not afford you the luxury of exploring places where you have no reason to be, namely, friends or grocery stores for family errands. You turn corners and stumble on stretches of streets, there are quiet book lending libraries that have loads of Chase with scantily clad women on the cover and other shiny books. You enter the place, look around and ask about the membership fee, which you find is exorbitant (5 rupees). You walk away, not too disappointed, at least you could come back, much later when you have money and perhaps borrow a book or two. The sky is getting to resemble a darker shade your fountain pen ink. Lights come on in the houses. Radios start with the evening news, some cows are heading home. A peanut vendor passes by, shallow frying the nuts, and you stop and buy a papercone full of that. The aroma from the pan mixes with the evening air, as you see a pretty girl walk by with jasmine flowers in her hair. She lives close by and you know her face, but you’ll never talk to her. And she knows it too. It’s twilight now, in more ways than one, its twilight between preteen and adolescence too. A subtle change has come over you, going from 8th standard to 9th. Girls seem more attractive now, and you are noticing them. Munching on the peanuts, you talk about the girl with your friend who says he saw this prettiest girl from another school at his school today. He says she had a nice fancy name. Lena, if your memory serves you right. And this song comes on as you approach the street your home is on. Some songs, like some jokes, seem mean more than what they say on the surface. And you think of the girl again.

En iniya pon nilave

A morning song. More than where you heard it first, it’s about where it takes you every time you hear it. You can feel yourself going up a hill station you are so familiar with. You know the place. You know at which hairpin bend the mountain air gently buffets your nostrils with its eucalyptus scent. The winding road with its steep hill on one side, and a proportionally deep valley on the other. The hill with its wild flowers and trees growing at unnatural angles from between the crevices of rocks. The lumbering buses with the drivers acknowledging each other with a gentle beep of the horn. Fellow passengers are either too wrapped up in the beauty of Nature or just deep in thought. No one talks, even the babies are quiet. The monkeys that look on the scene with what seems like curiosity. The air gets cooler as the town comes into view.

Rathiriyil

It’s Sunday, which means you can wake up later than the rest of the family members, it’s a right you’ve earned by going to work the rest of the week. You are awake all right, you just don’t want to get up. You lie around, relishing the lazy beginning of the day off. The neighbour guy walks in asking you to get up, while he reads the paper. Your friend pops in on his way to the market. You like that people drop in without any formalities. The door is always open. It’s 8 am, and someone puts on the radio for the Sunday morning special, hey usually play the latest songs at this time. The majestic notes from this song fill the lazy morning air, the soaring violins carry you to a mountainous place. You can even feel the crisp morning air of the hills. You wake up. It’s going to be a lovely day as you see the sun break through the clouds.

Mayanginen

It’s a bus stand song. Probably on a work trip to one of the neighbouring towns. You don’t go often, maybe once a month or twice at the most. You get off the bus after an hour or so of travelling, and notice that even the short journey has lulled you into a groggy, sleepy mode. You look around trying to orientate yourself, thinking how all these bus stands are alike, with the diagonally parked buses, little kids selling hot tea and snacks, women selling flowers to uninterested ladies in the bus, the ubiquitous dog, the piled up dirt near the end of the bus stop, past the buses that won’t begin their trip for a while. There are a few ladies selling flowers arranged in heaps near the entrance, after which is a tea shop with the customary ‘petty shop’ right next to it, selling magazines, chocolates, cigarettes, and bananas. You stop to buy a Gold Flake and light it at the tiny machine that looks like a fan regulator without the white paint, its wire glows when you press the button next to it to light up. It’s a bit hot, hopefully you can beat the heat and return early, you think as this song comes on from the tea shop radio set.

Kadellam pichipoovu

You’ve read the story when it appeared in a local language magazine over many weeks, and it was a very unusual and interesting one from one of your favourite authors. They played this song a few times on the radio. It was instantly likeable, with an unexpected guitar and other instruments you could only classify as ‘western’ (for a story set in a village) while the singer's voice added a rustic feel to the whole number. And you would never hear it till 15 years later, when you are in another country. You can’t believe your eyes when you see this song on the list printed on the back of the CD, and you tell the shopkeeper how long you’ve searched for this number, and he doesn’t share your enthusiasm, but merely tells you the price.

Thendral vandhu thendum podhu

You are sitting around in a home far away and surfing channels on a Sunday. You’ve had your Sunday beers and a good lunch. You close the window to stifle the sound coming from the buses that screech to a halt everytime. Curtains darken the room and the air-con chills it a perfect snooze temperature. The room cools rather rapidly down to the bare minimum furniture. They are showing the latest songs of the week on this channel from back home, and this song comes on, nudging you out of a possible nap. Even from the not-so-hightech speakers of the TV monitor, you notice the near absence of percussion in this song that has you mesmerized from the first bar. Later when you play it from a CD on a Bang and Olufsen your wife got you as a surprise gift, you can hear all the instruments coalescing into in captivating symphony. Your wife loves this song even though she doesn’t understand the language the composition is in, that’s what is distinct about a well orchestrated piece. It transcends borders.