My birth place is Kolkata. I was brought up in Delhi. It wasn’t a happy experience though when by a turn of fate I had to return where I was born. For eight long years I stayed there before coming back to the place where I felt I belonged. The sense of belongingness to a place is difficult to define and also the alienness felt in the place where your roots are.

In Kolkata I stayed with my paternal aunt and her husband and became their de facto caregiver. They were childless. It was an orthodox household where I was not allowed to wear any dress other than saree. Every other attire, even though decent, was looked down upon.

The house had its own code of conduct. I say a house because it never became a home for me. My uncle was a talented musician. But he suffered from chronic depression. He had a big music system and a good collection of vinyl records – LPs as well as EPs. However, all were old Bengali songs (some predated before my birth), now considered classics, and some Western instrumentals. No Hindi song was allowed or liked to be played.

My aunt had a tape recorder and a few tapes of Bengali songs, one of Hindi Bhajan and one of Mehndi Hasan’s ghazals, the last one I doubt she ever understood or appreciated much. After much hesitation both uncle and aunt allowed me to play the music system and the tape recorder on my own. For a girl, in her early twenties, very much used to a cosmopolitan upbringing, the choice of entertainment was very limited.

There was a black and white TV too which had selective hours of watching, mostly over the weekend when movies were telecast and  the news on week days. The conversation in the household revolved around  fixed, repetitive topics. Both aunt and uncle had deeply rooted ideas about everything. In fact, this was the time when I was truly cut off from whatever was happening in the outside world.

It would be ungrateful of me if I downplay their role in this very critical phase of my life. I had a shelter and a support in a city about which I knew nothing of, especially, the people, dealing with whom became the most gruelling part of my existence.

What I am trying to underscore is the controlled and narrow confines within which life came to be settled during this phase of my journey. The sudden spurts of adventure that I headlong rushed into without my guardians’ knowing was I guess one way of getting off the shackles. Though on hindsight I think it was very headstrong of me. Anyway more of that later.

Our neighbours across the street always played their TV at a high volume. Strains of music, announcements, debates and discussions, therefore, easily floated in when our TV was not on. One evening I overheard a few lines of a Hindi song which sounded very different. The singer’s voice attracted me as well. I always had a keen ear for music. Now I was impatient to hear more. But this side of the street it was simply a no no.

While returning home from the office sometime I had to change buses twice. One fateful evening I deboarded as usual at a terminus from where I was to board another bus. As I got down I heard the same song being played on the loudspeaker. It was a busy marketplace. The song could have been played by one of the music stores.

I crossed over. I knew I had to have some excuse to keep waiting there to hear the song in full. Nearby was a paan shop which also sold cold drinks, cigarettes, chewing gums etc. It was not usual for a girl of my age to stand there for long. However, during hot weather many would cool off with a drink. I did the same.

It was mid summer. I don’t know whether it was my sweat dripping face or clothes sticking wet to the body that made the shopkeeper hand me over the coldest drink I have ever had in my life. The local lingo for ordering a cola was “give me a black”. So with the freezing “black” in my hand I satiated my auditory thirst.

Thereafter, I have heard that particular song many times over and still do. But what stands imprinted indelibly in my memory are the quick icy gulps slithering down my throat like fire in an attempt to finish a drink which outlasted a song I never had a chance to enjoy listening to in the cozy comforts of a home.

The song was…

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