Nostalgia is strange and memories stranger..It is a bit past 5 in the evening..till the clock turns 7..there shall be a sense of slow eternity that crowds into an impending sleep. A sense of waiting, as if watching the little things closing in for the night. There is still light streaming in from some of the delicate curtains in the living room and all of a sudden a song hovering in the mind. For someone from the East, it still surprises me at the amount of light late into the evening.
I was perhaps in lower school, we had a record player that looked a bit like this. Sundays smelt of the mandatory Mutton while Baba would put on a shiny black record on the player and the strains would waft in..The houses in Assam had wooden floors, I remember trying not to step on the odd board that creaked. More than the song it was Baba humming along that I loved listening to..the opening of a tap somewhere..the whistle of a pressure cooker, all while Hemanta sang-
'Mone robe kina robe amare
Se amar mone nai mone nai
Khone khone asi tobo duare
Okarone gaan gai'
The player would sometimes stop and the pin would stick to one place and keep repeating the same part again and again..I would lift my head from my abstract games behind the curtain, giggle and look at someone walking up to the player to adjust it..sometimes the same song would play again for sometime..with feet creaking on the boards, the humming would be louder..Ma would call from somewhere..stillness in the air was still complete.
Today as I sip my tea and remember the song from childhood I hum it again while I play it on Youtube..things have become simpler..only nostalgia remains inexplicable.
( Image from Google)
4 comments:
Sweet memory.
Ahh! reminded me my own childhood days....and what to say about Rabindra Sangeet, the only classical with lyrics at its heart.
You surely transcended me to the past. We were not lucky enough to have the player. But our flashy neighbour had it all. He used to entice us with the LP of Sholay. It would begin with Thakur's quest for Jai and Veeru and then the train would come....
Sorry for unloading those petty moments of my own. You have perfectly described the behaviour of the apparatus. But the song you loved to hear and the creaking wooden step you avoided weave a rich world of memories.
Beautifully written.
very sweet post :)
InkMyTravel
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