Music that fed the memories

A rusty Tata school bus drops me after an hour-long ride around Chandigarh. It is nearly 3 in the afternoon and the sun is burning, I can’t go home as parents don’t deem a child in Class III grown-up enough to take care of himself. Playtime is still some hours away, and homework can be comfortably put on the back burner till after multiple rounds of hide and seek, tennis-ball cricket and loitering around Sector 55 with friends.

A crèche is then a space to be in till mum returns from work around 5. And maybe that’s how things should be. Is it appropriate to say amor fati here? I am sat on a classic Neelkamal plastic chair, may shift to the cool chip floor after some time. Enter, Bobby bhaiya, the crèche family’s son — anxious to leave his teens… you know hormones are playing their part. He is sweating profusely after beating a leather ball, distended in a sock hung from the ceiling, with a bat to master God knows what cut or stroke. He switches on the television, skips some channels and lands on MH1. It’s time to educate this English-medium kid about some Punjabi culture. There’s Amrinder Gill with his ‘Dildarian’ and ‘Sohni Kuri’, you know about hormones…, etc. Occasionally, there’s also Rabbi’s ‘Bulla Ki Jaana’.

For nearly 20 years now, their voices have stayed with me, and not just for the lyrics or the melody, but also because somehow the warmth of Bobby bhaiya, Neeru didi, aunty, and Tarsem uncle’s company has grafted itself to these notes.

Each hearing can become a jog back to the chatter that filled the room left — as life must have it.

Lovneet Bhatt, Chandigarh