ore o parevda

Somebody gave me a collection of songs which included a lot of unplugged from MTV. These were some awesome songs sang unplugged by these great singers. Jispa has a musical ear. This was confirmed to me by her music teacher in school. She also listens to a lot of music thanks to jasmine who keeps the radio on whenever she is in the car. Music is something that has in many ways missed me by. I can hear some amount of music but not too much of. I find it distracting or I think worse – pointless  - after a point of time. It is amazing but not my passion. I am weird I guess in this respect.

With my analytical brain I possibly try to over analyse the music and in the process I possibly don’t enjoy it at all. Amongst the music I enjoy – I love good fusion music. I remember once dad listening to fusion music on the radio. I think was the government AM channel. I was asleep and I remember waking up slowly to the music which was in its last fast tempo.  Dad also I think liked his music. We had a big stereo in the house in Dubai. It was big sexy looking Sanyo with a recorder and all. I remember listening to some classics – especially the songs and dialogues of Sholay!

Jispa and I have had some interactions on music. I have tried to get her to listen to some of the music I like. I remember especially eth sound track of Bunty and Babli which we ejoyed listening to. The other was of course – my all-time fav – With or without you by U2. But nothing consistent. So this time I suddenly have started listening to the unplugged Indian songs.  On the menu of the car – the song name was flashing with the Unplugged suffix. Jispa asked me what unplugged was. While explaining the same – I had an interesting discussion on the Unplugged genre. Here the singer sings with no electronic instruments and has only acoustic to back him up. The focus is on eth singer and we agreed that the singer in many ways is infusing his soul, his version, his life into the song. He changes the temp a bit, he adds a bit of his variations while singing and overall it creates a different experience. Jispa even felt that singer is changing the lyrics. I guess – he reorders them basis his liking. But clearly the singer is in focus and that I what makes the experience interesting.

Another thing I learnt from the kids in office is the amazing breath of coke studio. They too take music and allow the artistes to reinterpret it and reimagine and to have conversations with it. With multiple artistes coming together in a melting pot of sorts. What I found most interesting is that cool young people showed me these songs. I was young and cool (hopefully cool) cool was definitely not hindi and definitely not this kind of melting pots of classical, folk and fusion. It’s interesting that not only is MTV doing this but it’s something that is resonating with the people that are cool. I would love to know how this works across India. This kind of studio set up mish mash was the exclusive domain of Doordarshan in my time with only oldies watching it.

Wow. Here listen to this episode. I love the explanations and the discussion of the artistes on what they want to achieve in the songs and how they bring them all together. The first song in many ways in as ode to Jispa – my daughter - ore o parevda tu kale udi jay re. Dear birdie – you can fly away tomorrow, today stay over once with us. Hah!

But all there are three songs in this and all of them are interesting with cute back stories on the arrangements…

I sure wish that we as aq family were able to let Jispa learn the guitar. In her swimming and studies – Guitar got the boot. I don’t forgive myself for this. Dam shit!