Misusing Music

Try saying “misusing music” a couple of times until your tongue twists and twirls. Coming back to the topic, why do I always do it to myself? It happens every time. I come across some random, unknown song in a friend’s car, on the radio, during random youtubing, or through any random source. I like it instantly, so much that I look it up and don’t stop to rest till I find it. I download it on my laptop and in my music player. Then the fun begins.

For the next 2 weeks or so, I am found listening to that song in a loop every waking hour. If I am in the lab pretending to work, I put my headphones on and continue listening to it. During those 3 hour long classes, I keep playing it in my head. I sing it in the bathroom. I eagerly wait for class to get over so that I can come back to my lab and start listening to it again. It’s time to go home, and during those 15 minutes when I walk or take the bus, I wait impatiently to get back home. I reach home, kick off my shoes, head upstairs without even saying so much as a hi to my roomies (letting them think that something as urgent as restroom deadlines have come up). I go straight up to my room, start my laptop, and listen to it a few more times. Then I go down, say a hi to my roomies, grab dinner, and I am back to my room listening. I listen to it till I am sleepy, I listen to it one last time before I doze off, and when I wake up the next morning, I make sure that I start my day listening to that song. And the cycle continues. Me and my latest favorite song are inseparable now. I miss it when I don’t listen to it. I play it in my head and experience something as divine as a turn on, impatient to start listening to it again. I stop socializing and working in public places if I am not with my laptop and headphones. I dream of every good looking man I have ever known singing it to me. I even dream of it when I am sleeping.

If you think I am showing visible signs of incipient lunacy, hold on. I need to tell you more. After about 2 weeks or so, I experience a phenomenon somewhat familiar to a post-marital disengagement (assuming I was married to my song all this while). I begin to feel a negative overwhelming of my senses whenever I listen to it. I no longer miss the song. By now, I know every word, every syllable, and every note of the song. You can start the song for a millisecond and I will recognize it instantly. Soon my apathy turns to antipathy. I can no longer stand the song. My problem has almost become psychosomatic. Play it once more and you will see me wincing in pain with a distorted facial expression, both my hands covering my ears or clutching on to my chest. I know I have reached the point where if I listened to it once more, I would throw up, fall sick, or even have a cardiac arrest. I am happy not listening to it for the rest of my life. And this is how it ends.

There was a time not many months ago when I used to only listen to “Only Hope” (Switchfoot). I had a 3 hour wait for my connecting flight at the Atlanta airport, and no prizes for guessing what I did those 3 hours. I once loved “Mast Mast Do Nain” (Dabangg) as if my heart would beat to its rhythm. Then there was “Rabba” from “Main Aurr Mrs. Khanna” and “Zara Sa” from Jannat. Not to mention “Aashiq Banaya Aapne” years ago from the movie with the same name. And “Tujhe Bhula Diya” from Anjaana Anjaani. I can no longer tolerate listening to these songs. I will seriously have a mental breakdown if you played it. Because these days, all I am listening to is “Aasma Jhuk Gaya” from “Kal Kissne Dekha”. I did not even know of the movie until the last 2 days. I heard the song on one of the hindi radio channels (Radio Teen Taal probably) while doing statistics homework, and suddenly my senses were all alert. I quickly wrote down the first few lines and looked it up. Some moron had posted it on Youtube claiming it to be a song from Love Aajkal. If this was from Love Aajkal, I wouldn’t have waited for 2 years before discovering it. I tried all possible word combinations and eventually found my song. I knew the familiar feeling creeping up as I hunted down the song, a feeling of impatience while I tried finding it. Eventually I found it, it is apparently from a flop movie that did so badly that it was taken off the theaters after 3 weeks. No wonder I never heard of it. But this song stands out like the proverbial lotus in the mud (Keechad mein Kamal). I feel sad knowing the ultimate fate of this nice song in 2 weeks when I would not be able to bear it anymore. But for the last 2 days, it has been a blissful life. Akshay Kumar has sung this song to me in my imagination a thousand times now while we were shooting for a movie in Spain. I have woken up and slept listening to this song in a loop. I have obsessed with this song, not listening to a single more song. 2 more weeks I know, and then this song would be gone, along with Akshay Kumar and my imaginary shooting location in Spain. Sighs !!

sunshine