By Mridula Chaudhari
When my husband proposed to me, I
readily said, 'I do'! What drew me to him that time was his love for music,
specially the old Hindi film songs. When
I learnt about his passion for Hindi
film songs, I conveniently concurred that he was an overtly romantic fella.
I was not so much impressed by his qualifications (he is a Chartered
Accountant) as I was smitten by his passion for music. Romance was very much in
the air, I considered him to be a music fanatic.
I could visualize myself running
around trees like Asha Parekh with Shammi Kapoor following her. But alas! My
hubby darling was too preoccupied with his ‘numbers’ than fishing for my dupatta in the woods. His office was
utterly important and I kept wondering where all that love for romantic songs
of 60s and 70s disappeared.
We both got engrossed with our
careers and home until one day when his love for music resurfaced. He would
begin his day with vividh bharati
and the music system would blare at the top of its voice in our house, so much
so that if I had to talk to him I had to lower the volume considerably. As I
would approach the remote to lower the volume, he would frisk it from my hands
and signal me to talk later. Mohammad
Rafi was too important a person in his life than his own wife.
This music could be heard by the
neighbours as well. While leaving for office, one of the sugar coated neighbor
would come up to him and say, “You have such a lovely collection of songs. I
love listening to them early in the morning”. Next day the volume of the music player
was even higher for our neighbor’s convenience.
By now even the children had
forgotten the music of their own generation. Asha, Rafi and Lata were their
Sunidhi Chuahan, Sonu Nigam and Shrya Ghoshal. Their weekend morning sleep was
very musical. They got up humming ‘Dill
deke dekho, dil deke dekho, dil deke dekho ji’ or ‘Ankhon me kya ji…’ very early in the morning.
One day in pursuit of cleaning
the house, I chucked some papers which I thought were trash. Within an hour
hubby darling came to me with a concerned look, “I had kept some important
papers on the bed and I can’t find them there. Have you noticed them anywhere?
They were very important”. I panicked. I thought I had chucked some of his
really important office stuff. “I am sorry darling,” I apologized earnestly, “I
thought they were not of any use hence I threw them in the dustbin some time
back. But don’t worry I chucked them in the bin meant for dry trash so I think
I will be able to retrieve them. What was so important about them?” I enquired.
“I had written the name of music director of the song, ‘Yeh dil diwana hai’.
Thinking that my husband is
really ‘diwana’, I simply walked away from there. I did not care to
find out whether he retrieved the pages from the bin or not.
If he is so passionate about his
music, I thought I should be equally passionate about something and that was
reading. I decided to read at least for two hours every evening. I bought few
books of my interest. One evening my dear husband also came around with a management
book and sat next to me, reading. Thinking that finally I was able to pursue my
own passion as well, I opened the first chapter of my book. Just then he said,
“Let’s listen to OP Nayyar while reading. It will be so much fun”. When he said
this he was so excited that I did not have the heart to disappoint him. The
song began, ‘Jata kahan hai diwane, sab kuch yahan hai sanam…..’ Needless to
say, I could not read the chapter beyond
the first word.
Now I don’t read any books when he
is around. I simply enjoy the music. Our wi-fi connection is permanently
downgraded due to continuous downloads from ganabajna.com
or some similar website, the house is cluttered with CDs lying all around and
he has just now messaged us on our family group, “Can Somebody order a 320GB HDD
for me urgently on Amazon?” Amazing, is he not?
Long live his love for Indian film music!!!
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