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…
What a great blog about home, where we live, where we feel we belong and music linking through all those films. I wrote, and read at an event last year, about my love of Scotland – a place I’ve never lived though visited often. (My dad was from Aberdeen). I called the piece Home is a Place Where I’ve Never Lived. Your blog tells a different story but reminded me of it. Home is much more than where we live.
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Thank you so much. As you rightly said home is where you feel comfort, peace , love and oneness.
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👍🏽😊
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A beautiful blog post GC! I enjoyed hearing the song, too! 😀 ❤
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Thank you so much Carol Anne. I am glad you liked the song
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Such a complex time. A fine, melodic, song
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Thank you so much Derrrick. This was a trendsetting song by the Oscar winner composer A R Rahman.
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What a powerful read! The way you’ve described that feeling of alienness where your roots are, and the struggle against those ‘controlled and narrow confines’ is just so relatable. It must have been tough, especially the orthodox household and limited entertainment choice. But that entire scene at the busy marketplace, drinking the freezing ‘black’ cola just to satiate your auditory thirst—that’s a true core memory, honestly! That little act of rebellion, getting off the shackles, all for a song. Beautifully written.
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Thank you Shanky. But I don’t think it was an act of rebellion but more a desire to be connected with what I was used to.
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खट्टी मीठी यादें,और फिर यह गीत,सब बढ़िया
मुझे इस मूवी के सब गाने बहुत पसंद हे
हमारे घर पर रेडियो पे सुनने की पाबंदी नहीं थी पर चित्रहार नहीं देख सख्ते थे पर हमने भी हार नहीं मानी कभी, छुप छुपाते देख ही लेते थे और इस जुर्म में हमारी आंटी भी बराबर की शरीक थी
आप के इस पोस्ट ने सारी अच्छी बुरी, खटी मीठी यादें ताजा की , गीता जी ❤️
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नुसरत, चित्रहार हमें भी देखने दिया नहीं जाता था। हां ये सभी यादें खट्टी मीठी हैं। अब याद करती हूँ तो मज़ा भी आता है और अफसोस भी होता है। मेरी आंटी चुलबुली सी थी पर जिंदगी से परेशान रहतीं थीं। मेरे अंकल सख्त मिज़ाज़ थे। पर दोनों ही ने मेरा बहुत ख्याल रखा था।
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शायद हमारे बड़े हमारी ही भलाई के लिए सख्ती करते थे,तभी तो कहीं न कहीं आज भी हम उनका आदर करते हे
यह गाना याद दिलाने और सुनाने के लिए शुक्रिया
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सही कह रही हो तुम
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This was an interesting story, Geeta. I’m sorry for your early heartaches.
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Thank you Mary
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Haunting song. Does it speak to your longings to be seen? To be deeply loved. I think so. At the age of your story I had many adventures, too risky for my Victorian mother’s taste. My husband threw out my diaries of that era. Then children came and some delightful memories are on my blog. It is necessary to cross the street; to seek life in the right places where we can find living water, no matter what stage of life we are in.
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Yes it is a love song….your understanding of the song proves that music has no language barrier. Thanks for your effusive comment.
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I remember this song. A soulful melody. Thanks for sharing your memories dear friend
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Welcome Sadje. Take care
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You too dear friend
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I was just thinking about this movie and song yesterday. The song shooting took place at Bekel Fort in Kerala. I was working in Northern Kerala that time and visited with my hostel mates. I didn’t live with orthodox family but in a very orthodox Christian nuns run hostel. Ha could relate to your blog so much. 😊
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Thank you Ganga. Glad the blog resonated.
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The song is a great melody, gc. But, I’m sorry about just a house you’ve been to, not a home. Hugs a lot!
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Thanks Hazel. The song is really nice
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My pleasure, gc
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[…] Source link […]
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Beautiful song. It felt like I saw you drinking that cola enjoying the music.
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Thank you Cindy
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Wonderful!
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❤️✨
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Being a 90’s kid I grew up hearing these songs! Love them!!
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This was such a vivid and moving memory. The way you described hearing the song from across the street and then waiting with a cold drink just to listen to it fully felt so cinematic. I grew up listening to this song too, but in Tamil — Uyire. It was one of my dad’s favorite songs, so reading this brought back a lot of memories for me as well. Music has such a powerful way of holding a place, a season, and a person in our hearts.
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I have also heard the Tamil version of the song beautifully renditioned. Thank you for getting back in the post. Appreciate.
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Such a gentle and expressive piece — really liked the way you shaped the feeling through the lines.”
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Thank you very much Kash
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Tu Hi Re’ doesn’t just play in the background but it quietly takes over your emotions every single time.
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Yes, it does
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I have never heard the song, yet the story carries an unmistakable longing, as though it was penned not from the sound of the music, but from the emotions it leaves behind.
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Thank you very much 🙏
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Congratulations dear Geeta on being selected for Freshly Pressed.
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Thank you Sadje
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You’re most welcome 🤗
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Tats ARR magic right there for you…in this mundane and monotonous life his music transports us to a different terrain or landscape…..atleast for those 2-3 minutes!
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This is a lovely post!
Sometimes, we go through things that doesn’t fit well with us. We might have endured heartaches from the past, your longing to be free to love is shown in the song. Have you considered writing a book? This is a great read! Is there a Part 2? 🌸
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Thank you so much for your encouraging comment. There is no sequel as of now, however, writing a book often comes to my mind.
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Beautifully written. I was in school when this movie was released. The entire soundtrack was an instant hit, but Tu Hi Re is a masterpiece. It’s amazing how a single song can carry such a powerful, vivid memory of a specific time in life.
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Yes, all the songs are A Class but this song stands out
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Loved your post 😍
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Thank you very much
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Wonderful
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Thank you Adarsh
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A deeply personal and vivid account of displacement, confinement, and quiet resilience. It captures the feeling of not quite belonging, while also finding small, unexpected moments of freedom like a song heard on a busy street and a cold drink in the summer heat. A powerful memory shaped by longing, sound, and survival.
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What a beautifully told memory. I could almost feel the contrast between the restrictions of that season of life and the freedom you found in those few stolen moments listening to a song that spoke to your heart. The image of you standing there with that ice-cold “black,” determined to hear the song through to the end, is wonderfully vivid. Sometimes it’s not just the music we remember, but where we were and what it meant to us at that moment. I’m curious now – which song was it?
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Thank you so much for reading. The song clip is attached with the post.
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What an exquisite elegy to displacement and longing, Geeta. Your prose captures the suffocating sanctimony of that household with piercing clarity, yet there’s such tenderness in your recollection. That marketplace scene, standing with your “black” while the song floated over loudspeaker, crystallizes a moment of clandestine joy with such crystalline precision. Music as transgression, as lifeline, as the sole aperture in those narrow confines. Rahman’s composition becomes the soundtrack to your unspoken rebellion, and the way you’ve woven memory, thirst, and sound together is absolutely luminous. A haunting meditation on home, belonging, and the ache of existing between two worlds. 🎵✨
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Thank you for your appreciation 🙏
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That’s a powerful read, and beautifully written. Lovely song.
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Thank you very much
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You are welcome 😊
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