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.

Dance

There’s something nice and almost sacred about the CD cover, which is one of the reasons you pick it up. Then you look at the artists and the line up pleasantly surprises you. You pay up and rush home, shower, change, fix yourself a nice glass of whiskey, struggle with the cover and the tab that wouldn’t come off (especially when you are in a hurry), slip the disc in the system and settle in the sofa. After the teasing intro comes the distinct sound of the mandolin. Fluid, clear, seamless, like a drop of water along the strings. By the time the percussion kicks in, you are on round 2. The boy genius, no matter how old he gets, he will always be that, a boy genius, you think as you flip the rewind button.

Intoxicated

You’ve called some friends over with like minded interests in music and books and of course, whiskey. There’s great food, but first, the golden yellow liquid. And music. You have a playlist and you want to wait till there’s a mellow mood before you can surprise them with this new CD you’ve bought. After some random music and conversation, you realise everyone is on their 3rd drink, and you slip this disc in, and wait for the reaction. You take a bow when they are totally lost in this lilting number, somehow the mere act of buying good music has made you a member of the band. The single malt blends beautifully with the night, just like the two different traditions of music systems blend in the song.