vague

Row, row, row the boat,
gently down the stream.
Merrily merrily merrily merrily,
life is but a dream.

Innocent kinter garden days. :)

But it amazes me! The depth of these few lines. Children recite this heavy or light (depending on our perception) piece of philosophy, in a singsong voice with a purity that can only emanate from an unsullied heart. And I have a feeling that they understand it better than the adults do. Some wise man had once said-"If you want to see life in the exact way it is, see it from a child's eye". I think all of us were much wiser and much better humans when we were young. But alas! Not anymore. Someone was kind (ahem) enough to remind me that at twenty-one, one ages enough to publicly enter the aunties' leauge (huh! :x). Ohh..no one has called me an aunty yet. I don't think I'm prepared to be called one, nor am I prepared to bid goodbye to the twentieth milestone of my life.

My throat is a lot better now. Throat infection gives me the scare of my life. Imagine not being able to talk! It's like a capital punishment for me. :o

Today as I and priyal sipped our coffees after finishing the paper work, it struck me that the tagline of the coffee shop is sufficiently justified. Indeed, a lot can happen over a cup of coffee.On sunday evening it was a typical g-talk with anu and chinky in the same place. Yesterday it was a leisure talk with harshit whom I met after a long time. And today it was a some vital and hopefully fruitful work.
Now that I come to think of it, I have a lot many good memories associated with these joints. A lot of casual hanging around, a lot of meet-ups, a lot of catching up, a lot of idle talks, a LOT of gossiping :P. I remember the first time I went to one of these outlets, it was with anu, on our way back home from school. As young girls in uniforms, we were heavily embarrassed to see a couple right across our table snogging unabashedly in the full view of public ( I, anu and the shop workers were the only public!). Of course it is OK, but there has to be a refined technique. Tearing each others' faces- how primitive are you? :o
And also that time: my most horrible day of the college till date. The whole thing was so nasty and I was so weobegone that I didn't even care to leave soon. Which is totally abnormal, as I look forward to leave the college area as soon as I'm allowed to. I'm the last person to suggest -"hey, it's just seven thirty let's stay for one more hour". But on that occasion I let the caffeine system along with my friends cheer me up.

As I was glancing through the tv channels yesterday, desperately trying to evade the ridiculous details of Rakhi-ne-Eelesh-ko-chuna-apna-var news, I came across a hindi music channel where they were playing all those nineties' hindi movie songs. Pehla nasha, Main koi aisa geet gaaoon, Dil hain chhota sa, Baaho ke darmiyaa, Aawaara bhanvare...most refreshing! It was then that I wondered where had these songs gone? Why don't I listen to them anymore? I should. I've grown up listening to these songs. Every generation is most attached to the songs that they hummed while they were young. At the age of ten, totally overwhelmed by kuch kuch hota hain, I used to daydream about my college life (a glorious period, thought I, when I'll be like one of those big girls) on the background music of koi mil gaya. Then, when I was in seventh, the entire country was obsessed with ek pal ka jeena from kaho na pyar hain. I was obsessed with na tum jaano na hum, from the very same. I used to sleep with that movie's cassette! In fact, Hrithik Roshan happens to be the only celeb/person whose poster I glued on a wall of my room :). Then there was a movie called 1942- a love story. And if I were to jot down a list of my top ten or fifteen, all of its songs would feature.
There's so much that has changed now. Anyone from the same era would remember a trend that was characteristic of that time. I don't know when it died out. Remember the music videos with songs that had a story to tell? I used to like piya basanti a lot, I still do. It had nauheed cyrusi playing a kashmiri girl and then there was a terrorist who falls in love with her..something like that. Colonial cousins, falguni pathak, sunita rao, alisha chinoy,shubha mudgal- these were people who used to cut an album every now and then. All with stories. Sometimes senseless, and sometimes very touching. What happened to this story-in-a-song culture? It was kinda nice.
Music actually is a very strong link to one's past. It can remind us as much as an old, battered diary can do. If I speak for myself, then as far as hindi music is concerned the nineties and a few early years of the new millennium would define my type of music. Of course some old and new ones are classic as well, but they don't make me nostalgic the way the songs from the former category do. :)

PS: This post is vague :)
PPS: yaaaaawn!