I saw an interesting ad recently about each song having a
story. It led me to wonder if there are songs that have been a part of my life.
As I recalled one song to another, I realized that I could not remember a
single song. That was very odd because I listen to music almost all the time;
some have been my special favorites and travel with me on my cell phone
wherever I go. And yet I thought of nothing as I listened to these songs? How
could that be?
My bafflement was so great that I did an exercise; I turned
on all the music I had on my computer and discovered songs that did bring back
memories, those that have certainly been my friends for life. Although the
lyrics, melody and the beat is the same, these songs became the trigger to
remember lost memories. I must admit though, all the memories were not happy.
So I thought to voice out some interesting “adventures” I have had as certain
songs played in the background, just like in the movies...
- My hands were shaking, my right foot could not stop fidgeting and my heart was pounding in my throat when a boy next to me tapped me on my shoulder and offered one of his earplugs. I was reluctant to take the earplug from the kindly boy though; I wanted to be left alone in the cocoon of nervousness I was in. It was my first acting performance in my whole life, in front hundreds of people of all age groups and I could not think about anything but my lines and listen to my heart pitter patter as I sat behind the curtain waiting for my curtain call . The kindly boy tapped me on the shoulder again and waved the earplug in front of me; I couldn’t help but take it and insert it into my ear. He then turned on “Amplifier” by Imran Khan and began making silly faces and rolling his head around silently. This song is so ostentatious and it was the no.1 song on all iPods and car radios of Karachi at one point or another. Yet, this song helped me calm down and this song reminds me of the kindness that boy did for me. The moment soon came when I was motioned to go on stage, I gave the boy back his earplug and squeezed his shoulder gratefully and went out to perform. It was only a school play at the Arts Council a couple of years ago, but no matter how big a stage, one always has a nerve-racking moment just before one is about to be somebody completely else. That boy helped me get my bearings and I will always be grateful to him.
- This song always brought a smile to my face when I heard after such a long time. It was 2 a.m. when my sister and I were dancing on this song. Yes, we certainly woke up in the morning feeling like P Diddy, in fact we did not sleep much at all. We were youtube-ing some dance moves on this particular dance on my sister’s Dholki. We though to do sort of a sister’s dance number at the Dholki, just the two of us and so we found two Asian sisters who had made an amazing choreography video on “Tik Tok” by Ke$ha. However, unlike the very fit Asian sisters, my sister and I pooped out after a few steps. We abandoned it after a few more tries and then just talked about silly things. I was most probably the happiest at that point. They were just a couple of days left for my sister and I to share a bed with junk food all over, the music on and wearing the shabbiest PJs. We played “Tik Tok” the whole night and we had learned the lyrics by heart as well. It was a point in our lives where we were both young and single and ad no care in the world, exactly what Kesha meant in “Tik Tok”. After that, my sister got married and yet, this is song became a trigger to a very sweet memory. I suppose I will be adding this song to my cell phone again
- This song does not have one particular memory, it is a collection of my whole pre-teen to abut fourteen years of childhood that I give my thanks to. "Everybody (Backstreet back) by Backstreet Boys" has been my companion through years and years of dance mania, angst and boy craziness. It has been the background music in my head when I would pretend to be a princess who kicked ass at dancing. The song used to console me when the boy I liked in class did not ‘like’ like me back. It was the assurance that even though I would never be able to meet any of the Backstreet boys (since I live on an entirely different continent than them), I knew that I would always be able to meet them in my dreams. Yes, Nick, Kevin, AJ, Simon and Howie were my best friends and I truly bonded over them through their songs but especially with “Everybody”.
- There were even some Bollywood songs in my exercise and a couple of quite interesting songs brought back memories. One of them was “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai”-Kuch Kuch Hota Hota Hai. I have seen the film a billion times; the Kajol and Shahrukh Khan combination was one of my favorite Bollywood on-screen couple in the world! All of my friends have seen it and I have a particular group of friends (all girls) who had a tradition of having sleepovers on New Year’s Eve. As time passed and our lives got more complicated and fast-paced, our New Year’s Eve tradition faded. One of life’s changes was that a good friend of ours, R, was moving to Canada and another was soon to get married. We HAD to have a sleepover for the last time when all of us were in the same country and single, hence the sleepovers which come high or low, we all attended no matter what. To keep our childhood alive for that one night, we decided to watch a Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. All of us knew each and every dialogue and we would foretell the next scene to come with explicit detail. When the theme song came up, I sang it out loud along with the film. I was really belting out the lyrics, with a shriek pitch which made my friends beg me to have mercy on them and stop. It was the peak of my contentment to be around friends I love and am loved. One of the best times of my life.
