Life is string of songs - Part I

To me life is a string of songs – mostly, Hindi…those that became etched in memory at a given point in time - and then memories have this unfailing ability to attach themselves to those songs. Every song reminds me of some particular phase of my life…

Sharing this with you, hope some of these may tickle few memories very personal to you as well…

Aaj kal tere mere pyar ke charchey har zubaan par – reminds me of my days in Delhi when I was perhaps  in Junior KG. In RK Puram, government Naval quarters. These quarters for some strange were painted yellow from outside and white from inside. I also remember the supermarket at Yashwant Place, the Hindi medium school costing 11 paise fees/month, the Bengali master.

Chaand si mehbooba meri ho, aisa meiney socha tha – reminds me again of Delhi days, the naval sailors' welfare center, the single black and white TV in the whole naval base, the congregation of 100 plus families in that welfare center on sundays to watch hindi movie.....

Pathar ke sanaam – Our first movie after moving to INS Shivaji, Lonavala – thus began the most important 8 years of my childhood. Beautiful memories! The first year was tough since we had to learn English, but thereafter it was just cake walk.....

Ahsaan mere dil pe tumhara hai doston. – sailors and families picnics. One young apprentice sang this song. This guy almost looked like Rajesh Khanna and seems like he was well aware of that fact. I do recollect that many teenagers were crazy about this sailor.... 

Bobby Songs – brings back memories of our first house, Siddiqui uncle and Salma stayed with us in sharing. We brothers had a 200 gallon drum that we had cleaned and we used to catch fish from the stream in front of the house, across the road and fill the drum with fishes. All our friends would come and watch those fishes. This was also the place where Mom was recognized as the Story teller, par excellence - she was just an amazing story teller and our friends and all of us would listen to her spell bound....Sham Lal and his family lived 2-3 houses away. Miss Chitnis and her brother lived further ahead in that row. She used to teach us English. Sham Lal joined apprentice and after 10 years left to join merchant navy.

Dum maro dum – I remember the days of wardroom and living in quarters behind officers’ mess. Young Sub-Lieutenants and Lieutenants had fabulous music systems and stereos that would blare from their cabins. The whole place would be alive with songs from "Hare Rama, Hare Krishna". There was another sound that reminded me of those days - the sound of Yezdi 250 cc bike. Many officers had that bike and they would ride in and out of the wardroom mess.

Kanchi re Kanchi – again, the music was so haunting! The song was so hypnotic…

Phoolon ka taron ka… - reminds me of the days of Lonavala, Fiat car of Lt Egwatoo. He used to play Dum Maro Dum music on his car stereo. Also, reminds of Seema, my sister – she used to encourage me to understand lyrics of the songs and not just be swayed by music.

Bhanware ki Gunjan – brings good memories of CPO quarters, we had Suba Singh (DSC Subedar’s son) staying next to us. He was junior to me but mingled very well with us. We brothers used to go into the hockey field right in front of those quarters and play cricket as much as we could. Dad would get very angry and occasional beatings were in order J This was also the place where Rajwant Kaur lived 2-3 houses away from us, in fact in the row behind us. She was my arch rival in studies. Manoj, my younger brother and also my classmate, had standing instructions to spy on her – when she played so I would study and get ahead of her in the class. Also, the place where Cricket became our first passion, second passion was always comics, especially Indarjal comics – Phantom and Mandrake. Also Amar Chitra Katha, were introduced to us. I remember Mr Kulkarni, our library teacher, always taunting and cynical and also angry with the world, impressing on us need for total silence in the library.

Mere Sapnon ki Rani and other Aradhana songs – Babloo, my youngest brother, singing it loudly from toilet. I believe he has better voice than Kishore Kumar – we never encouraged him as a family. In fact, he and Sunil, my eldest brother, are real good singers.

Tum Kitni Khoobsurat ho – again memories of CPO quarters – this was also the place, Sunil would rote “Nimbu ki Aatamkatha”. We were neighbors with Ranjana and Manju. They had a huge tree of guava in their house and we brothers would raid it every now and then. This was also the place where my good friend Shekhar Marathe lived two houses away. His sister was two classes senior to us. Umesh uncle first came to meet us in this house.

Reshmi Ujaala hai – Savita Sharma, my classmate, and a very beautiful girl would dance on this song. I didn’t like her much because for some strange reason, I liked the girls who were brilliant, and except Rajwant, Dolly Kaur, Alka, there was no competition. Actually, only Rajwant was real competition – I had to study very hard to beat her.  She stayed with us in KV, Lonavala from 3^rd to 5^th standard.

Pata pata boota boota – We were staying in Katari Bunglow in Lonavala and Dad had gone to watch this movie (Ek Nazar) with his friend. This was also the movie that marked the start of Amitabh's ascent to to dizzying heights.

Namaste Namaste oh Pitaji – Bawarchi movie song – we were shown this movie on Sunday movies.

Daag Songs – Baby Bai used to be our domestic help and she and Mom went to see this movie with Babloo. These songs were such a craze…

Gadi Bula rahi hai – Seema came second in eighth class and she got permission from Dad to go and watch this movie in Lonavala with her classmates. She came back and narrated the whole movie frame by frame….We had this weird ritual at home - anyone who watched a movie that rest of the family didn't, would need to come and narrate it to the whole family.....I suspect Sunil fooled us by narrating fictitious Dracula stories under this unwritten, implicit agreement...

Aaj galo muskuralo – This is from Lalkar movie – wow! I and Sunil went to see this movie – we used to stay in Katari Bunglow, it was thick monsoons and raining heavily that day. Seema wanted to come but we left her at home. When we reached Neelkamal theater, we saw Seema standing behind us, totally drenched. Sunil got so angry and was about to whack her then we decided to buy ticket for her as well. All three  of us saw the movie.

Julie Songs – This was when Dad left Navy, got into small business that failed and then went Merchant Navy route and joined MV Camelia at Khorramshahar, Iran. Captain Kaparwan was commanding the ship. He would later vanish at sea with all his crew (his son, Vijay Kaparwan, was with him in the crew – so both father and son just vanished).

Will Continue…..