On another despondent pandemic morning – the only saving grace being that it was a Saturday – I was lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling fan, with my iPod plugged in. Phir se ud chala from Rockstar started to play. I closed my eyes. I saw snapshots of the song, its scenes in Kashmir, an image of Ranbir Kapoor singing Jo bhi main, and before I realised it, I was at my preferred spot at the dining table of the flat I lived in during my first year of post grad. A spot by a grubby window of the ground floor flat. I’d just bought the CD of Rockstar and was listening to it on an endless loop on my white-and-red headphones. It was the one of the few things that kept me going while studying for my first semester exams, studying theories that I couldn’t understand, all the while worried that I’d spectacularly fail, cursing myself for wanting to study after a few years of working.
I felt sharp pull back to the Saturday morning reality as I wondered where the CD went. I vaguely remembered seeing it in a cupboard with a few other CDs while vacating my previous home in Delhi. Did I throw it? My heart sank. I didn’t buy too many of them, but CDs, during times when mp3 songs were, erm, easily available, I tried my best to purchase Rahman’s albums, especially while working in Singapore. iTunes wasn’t available then, so on occasion I would dutifully trek to Little India to buy CDs. Whenever I did that and returned home with a shining new CD, I felt proud (and relieved) that I’d finally earned the right to spend ten dollars or more on a CD. The Rockstar CD was from Bombay, and thinking of CDs that Saturday morning, I felt terrible. How could I – nostalgia-keeper – have let it go?
My mind drifted to the whole idea of ‘buying’ music. There was a sense of dedication to that act; you bought a cassette or a CD out of commitment to an artist, a desire to experiment, or after having listened enough to an album or a song you knew that you needed it in your collection. You wanted to shell out money for it – thirty five rupees for a cassette in the 90s, a hundred fifty rupees (or ten dollars) for a CD, and so on. I remembered the CD playing ‘stations’ in Music World stores in Chennai, where you could pick a CD from the shelves and insert it into the kiosk and wear the huge headphones – it felt like the ultimate cool in the late 90s/early 00s.
I enjoy music differently now. There’s music from around the world (at least that which makes it to Spotify) at my fingertips. There are songs from Iran, Norway, Russia on my list, as are tiny, indie bands that produce stunningly good music, with a dedicated following. Algorithmically generated playlists with songs bunched up by genre, year of release, composer, etc., sometimes feel dulling, although I’m delighted when just because I listened to some Ilaiyaraja of the 80s, Spotify pulls out a fantastic set of his songs, or because I listen to Norwegian Wood on loop hundreds of times I get to discover other such gems from years before I was born.
I’m not simply talking about the idea of purchasing music for the sake of nostalgia, but for the kind of pause, delayed gratification, and deliberation that that act allowed, all of which made the music even more precious. Waiting impatiently for my father to bring home the cassette of the latest release, only getting snippets of the songs on trailers or ads on TV channels. Even in the 2000s, I remember the excitement of a movie’s audio release; there was that thrill of listening to the entire album over and over, just so I could figure out my favourite songs and talk about it with friends. The favourite would change a week later. Such a celebration has no place today as the songs are ‘dropped’ one after the other, and it’s a while before the whole album comes together and takes shape in your mind.
Well, for now I can live in both worlds – thanks to this beautiful device. Within a year, I’ve got around 10 records, and I can do nothing (well, I try not to) but listen to the entire album without skipping songs I don’t particularly like. Time slows down, a scratchy voice (the records are second-hand) sings, the strings are screechy… and even the random songs don’t feel so bad.
