Oh Hansini

You don’t know the movie it’s from. You don’t know who the actors are who are singing this song, but you do know the singer. Sometimes you felt this kind of voice should be made illegal, like a drug is in some places (where you are making a living now, for instance). But you love the song, the voice and the possible meaning, which your partner at work and a good friend, an artist on his off time, explains, because it’s a language he was born in. A kite is involved and a sweetheart, somewhere in the song. Seamlessly, many months later, as a segue from a familiar past, you meet him at a café for lunch and you remember this song when he comes in bearing a gift for your birthday, which is in the same month as yours is. It all makes sense.

Ruk jana nahin

It’s a Saturday in your sister’s house in town away from home where you’ve been living and working for a while now. You are used to it, the place, the people, the people at work, the work, the water which tastes seriously different from the one you grew up drinking. Saturday meant there would be a Hindi movie on the telly and you hope they’ll show something decent. You haven’t gone to see anyone, you look out the grilled window on the first floor and the streets are empty. There’s a water pump to the right where periodically there are fights among the people who come for it from the slum nearby. The programme on agriculture is over and your sister calls out to you to come watch the movie. There’s only her and another lady with her daughter. She knows the language so she can translate the tough bits. The movie starts with this song which you’ve heard as a kid on the radio, on the Phillips Major back in your home town. It takes you back to the dusty roads, the cool breezy mornings, the water, the house with the railway line way over in the back. It was one of those trains that you used to see that brought you here to this town.

Khilte hai gul

You are in another town, on a job. Actually it’s your first decent job, and you are on training. You don’t know where the posting is going to be, it could be anywhere in the country. It’s a bit disconcerting as this is the first time you’ve left home not knowing when you’ll go back. You remember how all your family and friends came to the train station to send you off. But the fact that you’re staying with your relatives, your mother’s sister, a wonderful woman, and her nice family, softens the edge of being away from home a bit. Soon you learn the basics, how to get around, how to get to the hotel where the training is, which bus to take back etc. You meet some decent people at the training. Some of the managers are nice, some seem tough. As the session of a week comes to an end, you wait with bated breath as to where you’ll be posted. You wait for your name to be called. Heart pounding, anxious which strange city with no friends or familiar faces they’ll post you to, you wait. The big boss calls your name, and as you stand there with a strange mix of dread and expectation, he says you’ll be posted in your home town. You could have bought the whole world a beer, only you hadn’t started drinking, and you didn’t have enough money. There will be a few more days of training, and then you can go back to working. It was a Saturday, when there’ll be a Hindi movie on the local channel. TV started only at 6 pm and lasted till 10 pm. On a particular weekday they showed the latest songs. Sundays featured the regional movie. As you went back, with your heart brimming with happiness and relief, they had just started showing the movie from which featured this melodious song.

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.

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.

andhi mazhai

The rain that started in the afternoon sputtered to a brief stop only to continue with more strength. It’s nice because the lights come on early, lending a festive atmosphere to the evening. The usual friends haven’t come today due to the wet evening. The working members come drenched with the handkerchief offering feeble resistance against the downpour. It’s decided that you will go and buy food from a neighbourhood ‘hotel’, famous for its sambar. You don’t mind the rain as long as you get to eat the delicious food from the restaurant. You go to your friend’s place and they have the same plan, so you share the umbrella, and walk to the hotel which is five minutes away, but tonight will take a bit longer as you will have to skirt around puddles of water and avoid being splashed on by speeding cars. You can smell the food already standing at the counter. You order your food and give the waiter a steel vessel meant for steaming hot ‘sambar’. As you wait, you talk of this and that, school and home work as you watch people who are waiting for the rain to stop, song comes on the radio from the cashier’s counter. Your food comes and you catch the second stanza as you near home. You’ve heard the song before and it will come again, unlike the ‘hotel’ food, with its idlis and dosas rolled in plantain leaves and wrapped up in rolled newspapers.

kadhal oviyum

It’s around 4 pm on a fairly hot day. The ground has soaked up the heat and radiates the it through the soles of your feet as you stroll to the front of the house where the water pump is to see if it’s your house turn to get water. The other tenant and the owner are done with the pump and you go back to bring buckets and plastic vessels. The pump handle feels warm too as you start pumping. The residual heat seeps through the wet floors around the pump. As you start taking the buckets filled with water back and forth, filling the drums outside your house, a friend comes by to park his cycle, so he can go to a movie that’s becoming popular at a cinema near your house. He asks you to join him but you decline. The songs are on the radio already, and coincidentally, this song comes on the a transistor set from the neighbour’s.

On the run

It’s Friday night and that means riding on the back of your friend’s bike or in his car and go with a bunch of colleagues and friends to the hill nearby to watch planes take off to this song. You stop off at the usual place to buy soda, someone has been assigned the task of buying rum or whatever they can get their hands on. A check has been and confirmed there are enough cigarettes. By the time you reach the top of the not-so-dauntingly-high hill, it’s past 8. Someone opens the bottle and mixes the drink, almost everyone lights a cigarette, you talk of office, the work done during the week, discuss which was good and before you know it, the quarter bottle has been empties. Time for another one. And, look, there’s the first of the jumbo jets, its screaming right above your heads, drowning out the song coming from the speakers. You wave, knowing no one will be able to see you in the semi darkness. You think you see the pilot. You watch the giant craft touch down, and wonder if you will ever go on it in your life. Time for refill.

Private investigations

It’s unlike any song they’ve played on Radio Australia, the source for all the latest songs those days. The programme started at 2.30 every afternoon, just after you come back from college. Perfect. You crank up the volume a bit knowing there won’t be any objections. The women of the house are chatting with the neighbours about the heat and kerosene prices. Your hands smell of the food you’ve had, it’s cool in the house. Someone selling small mangoes is in the small courtyard which has attracted more people. You are wondering how come the song is so different. The singer is actually talking, but there’s something surprising about the number, like the roll of drums that comes on when least expected. Or the guitar pieces that are so unusually varied from other songs. Nice.

Uchi vagundheduthu

It’s a hot summer afternoon. The earth has nearly forgotten the touch of the rain. The oppressive heat is hangs heavily over the skies. The only ones braving the heat are the cricket-crazy kids. They come around to ask you to join them or ask for ‘subs’ which is short for subscriptions to help your team buy a proper ball. It never comes to fruition. The sago pappads are drying in the sun, and drying faster than usual near the entrance on a wooden bench covered with a cloth. It’s summer holidays now and some of your friends have gone to a hotter city for the hols. The working people in your house come home for lunch. It’s a quiet time, you hear vessels being moved about, the aroma of food you had in the morning fills the air again. Few words are exchanged over lunch. Heat drains you. You don’t feel the heat much as you haven’t stepped out yet, and the floor feels cool as you lie down and browse a weekly magazine. Someone switches on the radio, and this song comes on, and there’s something scorching about the song too just like the day outside.

Naan Yaaru

It’s a night song. You hear it after everyone has gone to sleep. Because that’s how you heard it the first time. It was at your friend’s place where all songs made their debut. The evening’s revelries which began with the single malt you got for your friends back home from the duty free swiftly blended with the local variety. You went to late night food stalls run from street corners and had nostalgia in small plates. When you went back to the house, they played a lot of the latest songs you missed. Still some more of the golden liquid is left, which you down with the help of some gold flakes. It’s way past bed time in most parts of the world, and you go to the living room and see mattresses laid out like they used to be when you were doing ‘group study’ during college days. Some have already gone to sleep. The old fan is set a slower speed to prevent it making too much noise and this song comes on as you lie down for the night (or is it 3 am?). Quiet, soft strains of the flute. A single stringed instrument joins at some point. A mesmerizing rhythm. A perfect lullaby.

Ninaovo oru paravai

It’s another one of those ‘A’ movies you were not allowed to go to but the songs fortunately had no age restrictions. This one got a lot of airtime. Sometimes in the morning before you went to school and sometimes in the evening. Or Sunday mornings when the station played the latest songs. It’s not so much where you heard this one as it is about where it takes you. The second inter draws you in with a river of violins to a scene you always imagined was a lake with two people rowing a boat. Somehow that was the picture you associate with this song. And when you watched the movie much later, years later, you saw a lake with two people rowing a boat during the second inter. Then you realise, that’s the power of seven notes, the right hands.

Vadatha Rosapoo

It’s a hottish afternoon. The kind of afternoon you don’t want to be out, like during summer annual exam time when you have the afternoon shift. You are neither sleepy nor awake, it’s an indifferent time. Somehow you drag yourself out of your home, walk to the school. There’s a sense of stupor on the streets but for the few students who coming back from their morning session. You see more of your classmates near the school, it looks a bit busier there. You walk with your friend to the stationery shop, past the closed temple and watch as other students buy paper, pencil and erasers. Even the shop is empty but for the students. The push cart man selling coloured water and ice shavings with worm like things is trying to drum up business. The old lady selling mangoes, which are attracting flies sits watching the thin crowd. This song comes on a radio from one of the shops. Lazy, slow beat. Perfectly blends with the way you feel.

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.

Don’t go to strangers

It’s a warm day at the resort you and your friends from work have come to visit for a short stay. It’s a little gem tucked away in the neighbouring state, someone said, and someone packed a thermos with rum and coke and you all started on an overnight journey. The thermos is empty now, but it wasn’t that much for five people so no hangover. You sit by the little hut on n easy chair, lolling with an unread book, and an unlit cigarette. You wait for the beer to come from the thatched-roof bar a few metres away. You can see the sun bouncing off the shimmering sea from where you are. You ask the bar man to play the song from the cassette, and he obliges. The lazy guitar lead blends with the equally lazy sea breeze, you close your eyes and listen to both. You take a sip of the cold beer, it tastes like peace, with a hint of the sea.

Dil kya kare

It’s 8 a.m. and the familiar intro music to the morning programme starts from the radio. They always play this station, Radio Ceylon, every morning even though not many in the family know the language. But Akbar in the class knows a few words, he doesn’t know the meaning but they speak Hindi in his house. You are the only other person who is called upon to sing when there is a class function. It is convenient because no one knows what you are singing. They all know the tune so they sit and watch. This particular song sounds western (you learnt the word earlier), and you notice the violin in the when the singer repeats the verse. Much later when you play this song and point this out to a friend, he would be surprised that you noticed without headphones.