La musique nostalgique

Listening to the new album by Enigma. It’s good – very ambient; I am crazy about ambient music. It takes you to a different plane of existence. It is a catalyst, which can make any experience extraordinary – very much like the SonyErricson ad which has been showing lately. It just trickles through; it commingles with the mellifluous juices of a succulent pan, it flows with the cool pre-winter breeze as I walk in the inky blackness of the alleys of Koramangala late into the night.
Music induces in me a sharp feeling of nostalgia. It stems from the mutation of my musical preference with time, from the habit of overkill of what I am in love with then. It then becomes a marker of that chapter in the diary that is life. Play me High Hopes and I am teleported to my room in Calcutta, switching off the worries of the impending engg. entrance exams and lying in my bed soaking the magic of Floyd. Turn on Robert Miles and I ratchet down the highway of memory to the plush leather upholstery of my friend’s dad’s new Esteem; seat reclined, doors thrown open, as the garage throbbed with the beats of my very tryst with trance. Atif takes me down the corridor of my hostel during the last few days of college life. Enigma’s first few albums jog me down the Military Park in the sultry morning air, as I smiled quietly at the queer mannerisms of the motley morning walkers, thinking about how smooth my preparation for Std X boards was coming along. Rangeela finds me waiting in the car for my brother, as we got late for school in Ranchi. Pet Shop boys shrinks me into shorts with elastics when we got our very first music system- a Videocon, which was out of bounds for us as we got our first taste of English Pop. Pankaj Udhas plays softly in the background as we have our Sunday lunch of kathi daal-chawal in our airy duplex in Ranchi. Cranberries croons to my heart as butterflies flutter in my tummy – I sit dreamy-eyed stupidly smitten by a girl at her first sight. Maiden finds me stay up late nights enjoying my tension-free pre-engineering days. Prodigy and FatboySlip make me jump around like crazy in my first single room. Coldplay is what some happy memories are made of. And Himessss willl remind me of the days when Baba, Jalan, Dilip and I went grocery shopping; popped our heads out of the windows and 'serenaded' the unsuspecting bikers stuck at the traffic signal.