18 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELLER INDIA | MAY 2018
VOICES CREW CUTA
t 17, C and I had found our song.
It was 2008—which meant an
Internet-blessed romance with
someone you’d have to travel 2,
kilometres to meet was a fine tragedy to
sign up for. It also meant the only travelling
we ever did was virtual, between the lyrics
of songs about absent cities, or about the
unyielding charm of distance. As Plain
White T’s wondered “What’s it like in New
Yo r k Ci t y?” (“Hey There Delilah”), so did
I. I’d never been to Times Square (still
haven’t) but idling away in my bedroom,
I could feel the gaze of neon billboards,
hulking above an ocean of fleeting faces.
In short, I’d discovered that playlists can
double as maps when your destination is
one too many reality bites away.
Come to think of it, travel and music
have always had a soft nexus. So often, our
interaction with a place acquires depth and
dimension from the presence (intended or
accidental) of music in the background.
The nondescript lane you are walking down
acquires character. Whatshername, out to
squabble over the price of bhindi, glides
past in cinematic movements. The music
colours your experience, and eventual
memory of the place. This may or may not
have much to do with the place as it stands,
but that’s irrelevant.
I, for one, can no longer distinguish
the climbing crescendo of “Your Hand In
Mine,” by post-rock collective Explosions
in the Sky, from the image of a split-yolk
sun slipping into the sea at Palolem in
Goa. Would I have felt the way I did in the
moment, spied the odd stain of russet
on a wave, tasted brine in the air with the
same alacrity, had my headphones been
playing a different song, or none? I imagineThe
Bohemian’s
Rhapsody
not. Then a fresh import from Kolkata, my
classic cliché of bracing Bombay, arms
out, Bollywood in, would never have been
realised had I not played myself “Boondon
Ke Moti” (Wake Up Sid) on my first visit to
Nariman Point. It’s another thing that I had
to block out the jostling posteriors that
stood between me and my filmy moment.
Your song-place associations may be
less revolting, but I’m sure they exist just
the same.
Then, there’s music that conspires to
push you out on the road, and to very
specific places, without you budging an
inch. Songs that evoke countries (“Africa”
by Toto), cities (“Yeh Hain Bombay MeriJaan“ by Mohammad Rafi; “Empire
State of Mind” by Jay-Z ), states (“Sweet
Home Alabama,” by Lynyrd Skynyrd),
neighbourhood (“Brooklyn Roads,” by Neil
Diamond), streets (“Bleecker Street ”by
Simon & Garfunkel) or just a general sense
of chasing the trail (“Sleep On The Floor”
by The Lumineers).
My freind, J, tells me he sticks to songs
that are lyrical while travelling—gems
from Mark Knopfler, Kishore Kumar, Asha
Bhosle or Regina Spektor—so that repeat
inspections of the words can lay bare
complexities he might have earlier missed.
I imagine him picking up each pause and
prelude like one might hold a hibiscus set
aside for dissection, the scenery bolting
by, steeped in fresh awareness. The daily
commute-survivor prefers copping a spot
near a local train door in Mumbai, singing
along loudly to nobody’s alarm.S, a former colleague, cannot imagine
exerting his brain in the sweat-Nivea-kanda
poha scented rugby scrum that is the
inside of a Mumbai train. If he has to suffer
the hustle, he’d rather be kept company by
music that projects the same raw energy,
usually numbers by Mumbai rapper Divine.
He claims the tapori language meshes well
with harbari around. I toy with the idea
of testing the truth of his words on my
way back from work, but then remember
what had happened the last time I’d tried
listening to music on a local train, and
weasel out.
Just out of university and into the
city, I would never go anywhere without
my headphones—life, after all, had just
acquired a dreamy new soundtrack.
So it was natural, that I would board a
Churchgate-bound train, grooving my
brains out to Bombay Vikings’ “Kya Surat
Hain.” It was also natural that I would walk
straight into the ample bottoms of a fiesty
friyam chipswali. “Kuthe jaate maraila?!”
(“Where the heck are you going?!”) she had
barked at a volume that could offend Daler
Mehendi. The detail in which I remember
the platform, where the train had just pulled
in (Matunga), and my ensuing apathy for
poor Neeraj Shridhar (the singer), or train
rides in general, cemented the song-place-
journey theory adequately in my mind.¾THERE IS NO DENYING THE SWEET
MEDLEY OF A PERFECT SONG WITH A
MEMOR ABLE JOURNEYJOE DANIEL PRICE/MOMENT/GETTY IMAGESsohini dasgupta
is Assistant Editor at Na-
tional Geographic Trav-
eller India. She travels
with her headphones on
and head in the clouds.
Her klutzy feet are not to
be trusted anyway.travel and music
have a soft nexus