Forgotten loves, forgotten lives

The undercurrents of lives un/lived

I finally learnt how to drive in the past few months. Against all well meaning advice, I did this on an automatic car. Not because I can afford one like a first world banker, but because it gives me one less thing to do as my brain cruises through Gurgaon roads, terrified of minor bruises and/or other people’s death. It takes a cognitive load off, and I will take it against the chance of being able to learn the “finer nuances of driving a car” that can give up on you if you don’t brake and clutch at the same time. Thank you very much, god knows it took me long enough to get this far. 

While I have been scared of driving for as long as I can remember, practising on my parents’ automatic car has been an unexpected refresher on childhood loves and “time pass”. 

Kayi baar yun bhi dekha hai

ye jo man kee seema rekhaa hai,

man todne lagta hai

My father is listening to music in many of my memories from our first home. I can see him getting dressed next to a silver stereo which took up most of the space on a big marble shelf in his bathroom. I recall the remote he used when he flicked through TV channels which played retro bollywood music at night, while I slept in my parents’ bed and my sister slept with our grandparents. I can hear the sound of geetmala in my head if I put my mind to it. I can see his almirah full of cassettes, with posters of Roja, Lagaan, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Dil To Pagal Hai, and hundreds more, spilling out of the little glass doors. I can see his computer screen- a long list of songs downloaded from websites with funny sounding names. And now, every day, I see him walk into the house at lunch time and ask Alexa to play Vividh Bharti. I had no idea how much of this I had absorbed. On a field trip to Indore two years ago, a much older and senior colleague played her music throughout our long drives into the field. I sang to all of her music with eyes on the road, not thinking of the propriety of singing in a professional setting in front of people I barely knew. When we got off the car, she asked me how I knew all these songs, or if I had the lyrics open on my phone the whole time. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even know it was possible to not know any of these, and to not stop and wonder at the lyrics which sat inside of you like an imagined life, a forgotten friend.

Na koi tera,

Na koi mera,

Phir kiski yaad aayi?

So when I sat in my parents’ car with my driving instructor, I played music to give fear a seat in the car, but not in my head. I was expecting for the radio to come on and present a situation of optimal distraction. Instead, the car came alive, powered by a little yellow pen drive containing all the background scores to all eras of my life. Kishore Kumar, Mehndi Hassan, Michael Jackson, Bee Gees, Abba, Rafi, Sonu Nigam, Hariharan and even Honey Singh. Of course papa had plugged in his music to take with him wherever he went. I sang and drove not because I could drive now, but because I could always sing. And I had forgotten that.

Credits: SoundCloud

When I moved out of my parents’ house, my life changed significantly as it was bound to, but I also forgot to make it look familiar. It made me wonder if unknowingly, I let parts of me shed which I hadn’t actively built, only inherited or inhabited like a favourite movie or a long book. Take this for example- I forgot that I don’t really eat plain paranthas, only ones with loon (salt) and ajwain. I forgot that I like sleeping with a small light on. I forgot that I love watching TV at night on Fridays. I forgot that I sing to plants and smell the mogra. And I forgot that I listen to music outside of what YouTube and Apple Music come up with every morning, because it was my father’s habit, not mine. I forgot to miss it, until I realised I missed it. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t unhappy, or actively looking for anything to complete my days. It just didn’t occur to me that there had been a background score to my life so far, and this time, I had forgotten to press play.

Kabhi yun hi jab hui bojhal saansen,

Bhar aai baithe baithe jab yoon hi aankhen,

Kabhi machal ke pyaar se chal ke,

Chhuye koi mujhe par nazar na aaye…

A friend I met recently told me something similar. She narrated a story to me which I couldn’t believe was hers, she was so different now. We laughed and laughed, and then she told me how she had forgotten all about this incident, and was only remembering it in the telling of it.

This realisation took me back to a thought I have been playing with for some time now. Humour me. I think all of us inhabit an “undercurrent” self which grows old with us, and finds its way into our lives fleetingly. An alternative, forgotten self which feeds itself using the power of its own imagination, and some of our own. We don’t know what makes it. The self that the nameless narrator found living with him as Nick’s shadow in Amitav Ghosh’s Shadow Lines, the self packed up and locked safe by Dorian Gray, the woman that Mrs. Dalloway becomes on her walks… This self makes itself visible in the dreams we have for other people, and in the stories we don’t tell about our lives. I also think that this undercurrent self is more vibrant, and more commonly found in women, and people whose many lives, and many loves could not all be pursued. I used to think there’s no word for it, really, it’s just a feeling like the pressure of a hard surface against your leg which doesn’t bother you until you remove it. But once I found a way to see it, I found a way to say it.

I had once met an old Punjabi couple at the Delhi airport who had flown in from London, and were now boarding the flight to Amritsar. Uncle had dozed off in a chair in the waiting area, while aunty and I got talking as I offered her some cha. They were on a long journey, as they had plans of driving down to Ludhiana from the Amritsar airport. We got onto the flight and went our separate ways. After I deboarded, I ran into them again right before the luggage belt and she lit up like the Golden Temple after having spotted me in the crowd- “Tu aa gai putt? Tu mere chete aandi si.” “You’re here child? I was thinking of you.”

Chhookar Mere Man Ko

Kiya Tune Kya Ishara?

This is a bad translation, not least because the subject-object position is exactly reversed. But this is the closest translation I could get to with my skills, but “Tu mere chete aandi si” is not quite the same as- I was thinking of you. The latter implies an action, a conscious practice of putting your mind to something, and feeling some of what it makes you feel. The former is an unconscious existence, like a stock you invested in by mistake and then also forgot to sell, or the interest you earn on a public bank savings account, or the wetness under your foot when you’re watching out for the Bengal tiger. Cheta does not come with feelings unless it is broached, it is the push of an alternative life which does not live until it is remembered, but it breathes on. I was surprised that aunty had let me sit quietly in her mental landscape while on a long journey from somewhere in London, to somewhere in Ludhiana, gliding through three airports and many miles of vaguely familiar people, accents, smells, and toilets. If I had not run into her then, she wouldn’t have sought me out, she wouldn’t even have thought of me much, except if someone happened to mention to her somewhere, a young brown girl at an airport, all in the same sentence. She wasn’t seeking closure, but she was happy to see me.

When I found the music again in papa’s pendrive, I hadn’t gone looking out of regret, unhappiness, or even nostalgia. I didn’t even know I missed it. But I liked how my lungs felt after singing through all of “Kade na billo boli hasske” and the sargam in “Taal se taal mila”. With each passing song, a forgotten self who had imagined various meanings of these love songs, came to surface. It occurred to me how many stories, possibilities, and lives I had forgotten to think about, and how they were now making their presence felt.

I am glad I did it, because mai mere chete aandi si.