Moments: Happiness in an anachronism

This year has been difficult for all of us. Over the past couple of months, I have felt an overwhelming hesitation whenever I look at a blank screen and try to write. Add to that a time crunch, and you see why my posts are dwindling down. But, there's another reason. Ever since the lockdown, life has felt listless at times. I look around, and I see the struggles of so many people. I wonder, what is it that I can write about to alleviate some of this dystopia? Silence greets me. Today though, I see a glimmer of an answer, and I attempt to bring some peace and happiness through this series of articles I call "moments". Here goes!

The subject of my article and my latest delight is this tiny cassette player. Yes, you heard that right! In today's era of music streaming services, it is doubtless an anachronism. Yet, it brings a smile on my face. Let me elaborate.

In my childhood, we always had crazy mornings. There would be breakfast and lunch getting prepared, my parents and me trying to shower and get ready for work and school respectively, gobbling up breakfast and finally leaving. In this frenetic one to two hours, we'd barely say a word to each other. But breakfast was the only time we spent together as a family. It was the late nineties then, and my parents owned a cassette player. We also had around 50 cassettes of Carnatic music, predominantly MSS and Sri Vidyabhushana. One day, all of a sudden, my mother started playing music in the morning. One cassette every day. As a kid, everything excited me, and so did this new ritual. I volunteered to pick a cassette every morning and play it. 

I would wake up and head to the shelf bleary eyed. Initially, I would pick out the cassettes arbitrarily. But soon, I knew all the songs on every cassette, and I had favorites depending on my mood. I would browse through the shelf, searching till I found what felt right for how I felt that day. I would press play, and then go about getting ready. Somehow, music enveloped the frenzied mornings and turned them into beautiful voices. I measured time in songs, not minutes. We still didn't speak to each other in the mornings, but now, for me, the silence was in honor of the music that was playing. I inhabited another world for that duration everyday.

Over the years, we continued this ritual. New cassettes were added to our collection, and my musical vocabulary grew. One cassette player failed, and another came to replace it. But half a decade later, cassette players went out of the market. Our existing one started to fail, and it sometimes chewed on the tape, and spat it out mangled. I would rush to the player and hit stop, nursing the wounded cassette as if it was actually alive. Sometimes, I would try to reattach the frayed ends with a cellophane tape, and this would make the music come back alive. I would feel ever so happy.

Gradually, the player failed completely, and our mornings lapsed into silence bereft of music. But digital music had already come into vogue, and I would leave the house with my earphones plugged in. My commute time was my music time. This habit continued for another decade, till the recent lockdown cut my commute. After a month or two, I realized that I no longer listened to music everyday, and I felt sad. I tried multiple times to renew the habit, but somehow couldn't fit it into my routine. Then, I decided, I would resurrect this ritual from the past- playing music in the morning from the time I woke up till breakfast.

I initially hooked up my phone to a speaker, but turned out I wanted my phone every now and then, and the music kept getting interrupted. Also, several of these old favorite songs were lost in time-- the cloud apps didn't have them. I ached for those familiar haunting melodies from my childhood that I had heard a thousand times. Luckily, my husband had a music player which could also play old fashioned cassettes. I was delighted, and asked my mother if I could borrow our music collection.

I was in for a rude shock. My ever so pragmatic mother told me that she had given away the entire collection to the scrap guy. I was aghast. How could you? I wailed. Some of those songs, you can't find them anywhere now.

But what's the point? The player isn't working, and no one makes them anymore. They belong in the past, and we must move on.

I fumed at her and slammed the phone. I mourned the loss of those cassettes. Each one was so precious, so memorable. A collection of two decades, and she threw them away? That was a legacy, an inheritance to preserve. If only she'd told me, I'd have taken them gladly.

My husband had a good collection of instrumental cassettes, and I decided I'd start with them instead. To my dismay, I found that the player we had didn't work anymore. I looked online if we could buy one, but no one listed them anymore. Technology had progressed far ahead. I almost gave up, but my husband asked my in-laws if they had one that was working. Fortunately, they did, one that had survived the vicissitudes of 30 years, and it reached me just this week. I held this tiny gadget in my hand, and felt an entire childhood of memories wash over me. Happiness, sorrow, and the haunting ache of old, familiar music.

I hit play this morning, and Kunnukudi's Eppo varuvaro greeted me. This Deepavali, I'm thankful for all the light music has brought into my life. I'm so grateful that this anachronism survived all these years to find its way to me, and give me back a much treasured ritual from my life. I wish you a happy festival, Dear Reader, and hope that you find things that light up your life too! :)