Formed Memories

There is something about Handel's Harp Concerto in B flat that I can't get enough of it. I have always loved the sound of the harp, but that's not what this is about. Memories of my childhood home, listening to Rabindrasangeet on vinyl records come rushing even as the first movement begins.

I can't trace it back to a particular song but given the influence of western classical music on Tagore, it is entirely possible he composed something inspired by this piece of music. These are the tenuous strands of memory that slip out of one's reach like so many skeins of silk.

Yet sometimes, memories for the future are subconsciously made. One of my very favorite songs of all time, Rukh Jaana Nahin by Kishore Kumar turned even more so after my marriage. I played it countless times on the keyboard R gifted me on my first birthday as his wife.

So many years and upheavals later, that song has turned into my personal anthem - every word profoundly meaningful. When I first heard it, destiny must have turned on receptors unawares knowing that I would one day derive much more than musical pleasure from it. Memories like these etch marks that you wish would dissolve with time but they don't - they are meant to be indelible.