The noise of music

When I was in my school till class 10, singing any Hindi song was blasphemy. Within the little world we had, we were convinced that every form of Hindi music outside was out there to corrupt our minds, and therefore not listening to them was the best way of keeping the outside influence out. You know, no garbage in and hence no garbage out. We had our own set of songs to sing: Rabindrasangeet, Bhakti-geeti, Ramprasadi, Nazrul-geeti, etc. I believe that we learned a great deal from these songs at that time -- my love for these genres of songs and music stems from the time I spent there reading, singing and assimilating them. However, whenever I went home and listened to good Hindi music I secretly liked it, although I never admitted that. You gotta practice what you preach, y'know.

After leaving this school, I started listening to Hindi music. This was part rebellion, and part realization that among the many good things taught there, some crap came through as well. So I started humming the tunes of "Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai", started talking about Hemanta Mukherjee and Mohammad Rafi, and discussed melodies from the latest movies with friends. The transition to actually and whole-heartedly accepting this sort of music took time; it happened only when I reached college. We danced to "Chhaiyya - Chhaiyya" and excitedly looked forward to new releases from the music industry. This took time, but I gradually came to know that Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle were sisters, and that the latter was married to R. D. Burman. I came to know that all three brothers among the Ganguly-s were big names in the industry, and that Ashok Kumar was also young once upon a time and he indeed starred as a romantic hero in some movies :P

Things were different when it came to English songs, though. So some of my "intellectual rebel" seniors swore by Pink Floyd. Not meaning to be left out, I listened to their music a few times and decided that if I wanted someone to read out meaningless passages to me in a sleepy voice, I'd rather do it myself (I swear I didn't know that it was a "they" and not a "he" for the longest time). Opera music seemed like someone was strangling a cat real bad, while rock music was like some people were asked to clean a lot of dirty vessels and screamed their lungs out complaining about it while they were at it. I admit, it was absolute torture for me to listen to most of these songs. People who swung their heads from side to side and swore by this music featured on my list of the mentally deranged.

But I admit, English music has grown on me. I can appreciate Bruce Springsteen and U2, and tap my feet to the jingle of hip-hop. I don't know many of the voices or bands which play on the car radio, but yeah, some sound good. I have stopped judging people when they sing along these tunes, and I have discovered the subtleties of the lyrics as they come along. One of the other reasons might be that I have rare access to the Hindi songs, but I strongly believe that the reason has been more than that. I think I like some forms of English music now, and maybe I will like some more in the future. But I am glad that it has happened that way. Music, like books, is one of those things where you cannot have enough -- the more you have, the finer your senses become.

Updated the name of the post to noise of music instead of the sound