Falling in love, Again...

It's been a number of times I have found myself falling in love. Don't know when it happened for the first time. But when I heard Deewana of Sonu Nigam, I was surely in love. In love with the voice, in love with the music. And then it kept on going. I fell in love again and again. With the same voices. With the music that touched my heart every time I listened to it. On my tape. In grand parties, on DJs. I fell in love with the music of Nadeem-Shravan. And Jatin-Lalit. And above all, of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. The music that makes me feel that love is permanent. Even today, I feel the Kal-ho-naa-ho-heartbeat as if its mine. I still love that song like anything. Feels like it'll remain with me for life. Because u never know what's gonna be there tomorrow.

There have been numerous things in music I have loved. Probably the first song I really 'loved' was 'Ye Dil' from the the remix album Pardes'98 I had. Then came the Deewana-Jaan-Yaad trio of Sonu Nigam, one by one. At that time I felt like he was the best singer, the one who could sing just anything. And truly speaking, I never thought there could be a period like the present scenario in the life of 'the great Sonu Nigam'. It was during my class X board exam, that I used to come back from the exam and switch on the TV, put on ETC, and wait for the song 'Mohabbat kabhi maine ki to nahi thi', as it was a regular on the 'ETC Maalgaadi' those days. I simply loved the song.

Then the time kept up its speed, and yet another favorite came up. It was 'Tum Bin' this time. The title and the 'Koi fariyaad' by Jagjit Singh were the two that still make me remind of the time when I tried to study regularly, putting my tape with me, in a seperate room on the first floor of our house. That was the time when I started buying cassettes regularly, and got almost one cassette a month. That was the time I realized I could believe the brand values, of Nadeem-Shravan, of Yashraj films, of Jatin-Lalit, of Sonu Nigam (in case of private albums) and so on, until I got one bad album from Nadeem-Shravan, called 'Jeena Sirf Mere Liye'. But overall, the results were very encouraging and for a person like me who wanted all the good music before others got it, bought just one cassette a month and bought only original cassettes, I think they couldn't be better, almost.

With the time, things kept on changing gradually. Never drastically or dramatically, just gradually. I loved lots of Hindi music. After contemporaries, I found myself liking Mohd Rafi's songs. Kishor Kumar was always one of the favorites. But after I got into college, I could get as much of the two as I wanted. Like never before. I had my laptop where I could keep all the music I liked. But even before that, when I had been in my first year with no computer of my own, there were several rooms in the hostel where I developed a liking for old songs. And during that one year I became a big fan of Shaan, always listening to his 'Bhool Ja and Other Hits'. Along with 'Phir Milenge'. These two have been of my most favorites. I simply loved them. Actually, those two are the albums that helped me a lot during my first year in the college.
I helped my seniors while they organised a Hindi Antakshari in our college festival, and the next year, in '07, I set all the content and questions of the same thing. That was one period that really told me a lot of things about music I didn't know. I went deep into the histories of musicians and singers. And sometimes, even directors and producers. I always liked to keep track of such things but that time I really gained something. After a long time there was something I had really worked hard with, and that was purely out of my interest. Out of my love for music. Hindi music. Atleast by that time.

In the meantime, my range kept increasing. First I was into contemporary music, then into 70s and 80s. And then came all the Ghazals of Jagjit Singh and now some by Ghulam Ali. And though I liked the old songs, I was not as much into them as I went since came the Moserbaer revolution. I thank Moserbaer a lot, not just for providing CDs for Rs 28, but also for starting a price race in the market which has brought down all the Rs.150 movies much below that. And since then I got a chance to understand the melodies of the old times far better. Today I have a small collection of around 20 movies that include classics such as Pyaasa of Gurudutt, the second costliest movie of collection (Rs.99), and Shri 420 and Barsaat of Raj Kapoor.

Seems I went off the topic. So I was talking of things and people and concepts I have fallen in love with. They always included Amitabh Bachchan, ever since I used to watch KBC. I was a fan of that simplicity. I simply loved that. But very recently, I got a chance to see the outer world of Shahrukh Khan, and even after having developed a soft corner for Shahrukh Khan ever since I saw 'Swades', I never before felt that I liked Shahrukh a lot. But after watching this CD, I felt he deserves what he has. I could relate to it when he told about the feelings he had whenever he sat at the stairs of some stage he had to perform at, just before the performance (If u didn't get the sentence, u can try to find the outer world of SRK).

And here comes the latest. I'm falling in love once again. This time its different. And I think I'm gonna enjoy this love very slowly. Because all my life, whenever I loved music and musicians, there was one thing in common. It was in Hindi always. But this time its different, this time its Enrique songs I'm really falling in love with. And that's why I'm gonna take time to understand it. Its just 3 songs of his I have heard properly, but it seems I'm gonna like him a lot. And in such cases, my predictions don't generally go wrong, as long as they're about myself. :)