Quite a long time has passed since I produced a post on music, and that being one of the foremost things that guides my life, I felt that I had been unfair. So here goes one:
My stint with music started rather early … even before I knew that a word called “music” existed. For your information, I refer to my early childhood when I was a gee little fella … and wondering why one and one made two and not twa. My musically gifted mum, ensured that I got to listen to the best quality of nursery rhymes … by whatshername? … yup Preeti Sagar … how I loved them!!! Incidentally, those were rhymes that ensured that I took down that extra gulp of rice, or that extra spoon of milk … net net … helped my mum keep her cool.
Now as I grew up (honestly, I did. People still claim that I didn’t), I became more and more oriented towards that category … the dwindling minority of people who like music as a passive backdrop. (Wish I had stuck there, that would probably have been conducive for getting into Indian colleges with greater ease … read minority reservations).
My mum tried hard to make me fall in love with music, and made me sing Benagli songs, Rabindrasangeet, adhunik frequently … but then realised that, that led to larger and larger yawns, and more sleep. So that route was abandoned. The next milestone came in the form of my father.
OK, here I pause to clarify stuff. My father is an unusually tone-deaf person, and the only song he can sing today is the National Anthem, and he had no intentions to make me musical. It was sort of OK for him, if I became so, but if I didn’t, well and good.
It was only for my mum, that he bought a small keyboard in 1995 from Singapore, hoping that that would make help her more than harmoniums. The keyboard came, a small black one — a Yamaha PSS 290, and I was … if not exhiltrated … just about interested – the sort of interest that Diego Maradona would show on hearing that Fermat’s Last Theorem has been proved — you get it right?
What fascinated me however, was a new found button on the keyboard labelled demonstration. Boy oh Boy!!! How I loved that. You press that button, and so much sound suddenly appeared out of nowhere … dik dik tak tak .. tan tan ta ra … dig chik dig chik … wow, it was just amazing. So for many years to come, that one button would be the only button I used on the keyboard.
It was in 1997 that I first realised what a key board was. This bearded bloke in my neighbourhood put up a signboard in front of his house which said “SYNTHESIZER TAUGHT HERE” … it took quite some time for me to pronounce the first word correctly, but within a few weeks I realised that it meant the same black thing that I had.
So my mum, despite a great deal of tears, and forceful dissent, sent me to that guy, who taught me … Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa … for the first one month then some woeful songs for the next six. After that it was a strict NO … I would not tolerate him. Come to think of it, he was a good man, and he even organised a function where I played a couple of songs at the age of eight, in front of a large audience … but at that time I preferred drawing cars and watching Swat Kats to learning the synthesizer, so discontinued.
It was a full six year break from music that followed, and the next break through came in the form of a cool digital boom box, which my dad got from some country. Previously we didn’t have a proper CD player, and only listened to my mum’s CDs on our PC, and cassettes in the old cassette player that my mum had. Ths digital boom box, provided the much needed break through for me to enter the world of music. The first thing I took to was the easily accessible FM radio that came with it … and very soon, was addicted to it. After hearing songs there, I realised that I had to buy CDs too … my school friends had CDs, why shouldn’t I have them?
It was modern Bengali songs at first, then I drifted to Bollywood, and then … full blown Western. It started with Nachiketa, and Rupankar, … then Shaan and Sonu Nigam, and now … it’s pure Western Rock …
WOW, how I love my music now … can’t spend an hour without it, nor without my Yamaha PSR 403, which happens to be my soulmate after my blog. It’s a full blown synth people, not a baby one, and I play pretty well now, and take pride in saying that I am largely self-taught in this regard.
Today, I listen to a wide range of music, something I wouldn’t have imagined a decade back. My favourites include the cult Bangla Rock band Fossils, and I have completely idolised the lead singer Rupam. I don’t like Bollywood music much nowadays, but I listen do to it … KK and Shankar Mahadevan being my current favourites. I love Eastern Classical. Also, my favourites list includes the Gods of Soft Rock, Bryan Adams, and Bon Jovi, the Gods of Hard Rock, Guns n Roses, and the Gods of Alternative, Linkin Park. Yeah I am also crazy about the Beatles. The list of my favourites is actually endless today, and I am thankful that it is … I never run outta it now. On my synth, I love remixing tracks, picking up random tunes, and discovering and inventing completely whacked out chords … experimenting with Sitar on a death metal background, or Rabindrasangeet with a Techno Hip Hop track or even a Sweet Child O Mine on Santur…
It’s been an amazing ride till now through this enchanting world, and I hope it continues this way, and I’ll be always grateful to the people who led me to it … my mum for the support, my dad for the “breakthroughs”, and my friends at school for the rest.
//blog 