Kadavul oru naal

The man next to the room your dad was staying in played this song. You didn’t know what it meant. You were just about 4 or 5 years old. But you liked it for some reason. Thinking back, maybe he played it over weekends. He had a machine, which you later learnt was a gramaphone. It was fascinating that a spinning disc with a needle could produce songs. Who was singing? Where did they hide? When you were not being captivated by this machine, and this song in particular, you climb the short wall next to your dad’s room onto the tiled roof. You remember the mornings when your dad took you to the ‘hotel’ nearby for breakfast through a market selling fruits and vegetables. The whole restaurant smelled wonderful. It had a counter with the cashier sitting behind at a height. The counter had a red Coca Cola sign. You don’t remember what you ate, but you remember your father transferring coffee from tumbler to the ‘davara’ which is a flatter vessel to cool it down.

Statue, statue (Boomiyil iruppadhum)

You remember the smell of jaggery being made. That’s what your parents and your family members you went with to see the new house they were buying. It was far from where you were living, with your cousins on one side, and the friendly neighbour who gave you a teaspoon of ‘powder’ which was ‘Ovaltine’ and a biscuit every morning. You remember the medley of smells from the small ‘petty shop’. An old woman is sitting behind a row of bottles, handing out cigarettes and candy to customers. She has huge gold jewellery hanging from her ears. You can see the big hole. In her ear from which the piece of jewellery is hanging, and you wonder if it hurts her. The smell of ripe bananas, cigarettes, groundnut cakes and other candy hit your nostrils. But dominating all is the smell of jaggery on this warm day. This song comes on from the small transistor radio in the shop. Later you would go to the place where they were making the jaggery. There was a well, and a thick tube stuck out of the well all the way out into a tank. The water rushed out like a frothing, liquid snake. You still the smell of the jaggery in your mind, and the song. Statue, statue, he was saying.

Thiruparan Kundrathil

You were probably 4 or 5 years old, and it was the first few months of having been admitted to a school down the road from your house. You were playing with your cousins and friends all day long, and suddenly you were yanked from your familiar routine with familiar faces and thrust into this school with total strangers. You hated going to school every day. You hated saying good-bye to your elder brother who sat you on the front bar of the bicycle and took you to school every morning. You sat there on the edge of the bench and kept thinking of when your sisters will come with your lunch. After a while, you seemed to be getting used to the routine, not whole-heartedly, but whole enough not to feel so sad. Because you learnt that the kids you played with were also going to school. One day, around 11 am, while not listening to the teacher going on about something and daydreaming, your sisters come to your class and you see them talk to the teacher. Your new found friends want to know what’s happening. Soon, you are told to take your bag and go with your sisters. You couldn’t be happier. Once you are home, your mother is waiting for you. She says for you to get ready as you are traveling to meet your dad who is working in a town some hours away. You just follow her and go to the bus stop. Strange women smile at you and talk to your mom. It’s warm inside and you wish the driver would start the bus so some breeze would come in. There’s a smell of sweet fruit. Some mother buys ‘murukku’ from a vendor for her kid. You don’t get that as you are not allowed to eat outside food. Then you hear this song, rendered quite badly. You look around and see a girl with a small boy, and she is singing this song, and stretches her arm out for alms. You don’t remember if anyone put any money in that hand. You just remember the song.

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!

Take a bow

It’s during the first few months on your new job in the new city. You’ve come to work on a Saturday and the office looks deserted save for the few other people working on the same project. Time dilates on a weekend shift, especially when your wife is waiting at home. You finish your work as best and as quickly as you can and take your friend up on his offer of a lift, he is going your side of the town he says. There’s still someone at the office who will lock up later. You take the empty elevator down to the lobby that has a few tourists looking for a bargain at the shops selling cameras and watches. Your friend says he has parked his car a few blocks away, about a 10 minute walk, so you walk to the car park in a mall. It’s an old beat up Toyota. It has character, feels strong somehow. The streets start getting emptier and emptier, wearing a lazy weekend look as you reach home. This song comes on, accentuating the emptiness further. Your friend looks at a passing car and says, ‘red merc’. You laugh at the way he says it. He drops you off outside your apartment block and you walk up, feeling a bit drained but looking forward to the evening.

Walking in Memphis

It's early days in the new city you have moved to, and you are on your way to work or is it a weekend and you're on your way to the mall in the downtown area with your newly wedded wife? You don't remember now, but you remember the day was pleasant. It was a cool tropical morning and the air con in taxi make sit cooler. Rain drops slide down the window blurring the view of buses, cars and pedestrians on either side of the road. Everything feels refreshingly different, the newness of the place hasn't left you yet, there will be time for that, years later when it would be not so different as it is now. The cab with its air-con and the almost silent clicks of the indicator light, the smell of the interior which is quite pleasant, the taxi driver's accent, the sights of the city ... everything feels so different. The taxi is at a traffic light, you look out at all the foreign-make cars you never saw back home, as a yellow taxi pulls up next blocking the view, and this song comes on the car radio.