Music and Memories

Music can have this amazing effect on you. You can remember exactly what period in your life you heard a particular song. When you hear that song again today, you kind of travel back in time and revisit that period. There are some songs that make you feel so nostalgic, they can move you to the core and bring tears to your eyes, some others can make you laugh, still others just make you feel good all over.

There is a song in Marathi... mogra phulala....it used to be on one of the tapes we had when I was maybe in first grade। To this day, when that song plays, I feel I am sitting in a cool room on a hot summer day, curtains pulled, everything very peaceful and content, one of the best times of my life. My mom was trying her hand at recording songs from the radio on our brand new tape recorder that my dad had picked up from Germany. Tapes were kind of a precious commodity then. Lots of songs were packed on these tapes, not necessarily categorized according to genre. It is amusing to think of the sequence of songs.Some other favorites that were on the tapes my mom recorded were hindi songs like yeh parbaton ke daayre, and raat suhani jaag rahi hai, soft, slow numbers that are lilting and calming. These songs take me back to quiet after dinner times, late in the evening, relaxing on the couch. TV was nowhere on the horizon then, radio was the king.

A rather surprising partner to these songs, are songs from a prerecorded tape, one of James Last's finest, called Hair. All jazz instrumentals, I loved the compositions and can sing along when it plays even today. One kind soul has the whole album up on his blog. Thank God for such kind souls! As I looked up the history of the HAIR musical, I am glad I did not what it was about back then. I like the music, but do not care much for the hippie movement. Ignorance sure is bliss sometimes.

Sunday afternoons used to feature English songs. Yesterday once more, a song by the Carpenters was my favorite. Again, a very soothing song. Oh for nostalgia!
In later years at school, we truly believed that listening to new songs alone was 'the' thing to do. Mom would keep reminding us that developing a ear for melody was listening to different kinds of music. She would listen to Radio Ceylon a lot. Classical music was played often. I would not be too happy about that, but mom firmly believed that that was how you developed a ear for good music. I sort of agree with that today. Dad kept bringing great Western music, from Mozart's symphonies to Country to the Beatles, we had it all.

A partner for the tape recorder was a small record player. We had a bunch of 78 rpm records. Then 33 and 45 rpms joined them. We had good music, almost all of which is considered among the 'timeless hits' today.

All these songs build our memories. Little did I know of it then. I keep telling myself that we need to choose what we do today, and how we spend our time, as these will be memories of tomorrow. Something we will feel nostalgic about, hopefully.

Spring is on its way out!

A better way to put it would be - Summer is already here! We felt the heat in mid May and then a cool front moved in. Thank God for small mercies. The roses went into another budding and flowering cycle. The yard looked nice for a little while longer. The next three months will be HOT, no doubt. If the thunder showers keep rolling in every now and then, things will be bearable, if not, we are in for a bad one. I would love to keep the hurricanes out this year. We had more than our share last year, and I would like a nice quiet summer.

On a recent trip to India, I have already experienced summer for three weeks. It was so HOT, you could fry an egg on the sidewalk, and while you tried to do that, you could sweat a bucketful. It would be a good bucket to water the plants. Urghhh, I am getting nasty, blame it on the NASA reports where they said that the astronauts recycled even their own urine. Those guys are awesome, what a feat! Rejuvenating a 19 year old telescope and being successful at it, is nothing short of spectacular. Five spacewalks, in a place where space debris is supposedly common these days, dealing with sometimes hard to loosen bolts, replacing gyroscopes that were as large as pianos, they managed to get the thing going for at least another five to ten years. Hats off to you guys!

What I am in total awe of is the fact that people (the number will go up to 6 soon, from the present three) live up there in space aboard the International Space Station (ISS). I am particularly impressed given the poor state I am in even after a 9-12 hour flight. These guys live there, and it is not very big. Great going guys!

What an accomplishment for Man this whole venture has been. Space Exploration is simply awesome. What is amazing is that in spite of all we have achieved, NATURE is still so in control. Atlantis could not land in Florida because of all the rain, it had to land in California and NASA will have to spend $ 2 million to bring it back to Florida on piggyback a 747 jetliner. Hurricanes will continue to torment coastal regions and wreck havoc in those areas. Earthquakes will happen, and so will floods and droughts. I wonder when we can find a sure shot cure for these calamities.

Till then, I prefer to salute the people who got us this far, with the hope that they will take us further down the path of wonderful exploration, keeping in mind and respecting the laws of nature.