My mom was the best singer in the world. How coincidental that the word Maa or Mom or Mum starts with an alphabet M and so does the word Music. Actually for a child anything mom says is music. Right from day one the baby recognizes the touch and voice of its mom. And my mom was actually a great singer. She had the most melodious voice. For a long time I used to think that she sings on radio because her voice was so similar to Lata Mangeshkar. She was an orphan and we come from a very simple family that never was so competitive to even try to get her to sing locally and get her accolades. Well but, I am sure she was more luckier than any famous singer as she had the most devoted fan base in her children, neighbors and her distant cousins and her nephews and nieces.
For me her word was music. In spite of having inherited her voice I could never sing because I always compared myself to her and rejected myself. I could never measure myself up to her. She had actually told me that I sang well but I thought she said so out of a mom's love for her daughter. However she never forced me to take up singing but we always talked about music.
After her demise I cry even when I sing in shower. In summer 2013 we attended a music concert locally by a great Indian singer Anand Bhate and the third song her sang had the word Pushpa (mu kom's name) in it and was about some love for music or something and I went out of the hall as I just could not stop the tears rolling down my cheeks. I missed her. After coming home as per my routine I called my brother's home (where she used to live in India) and just talked with my brother and told how I missed her. Any music concert I attended, I would call up my mom in India and express how nice I felt and how nice the singer or instrumentalist was. She shared my love for good lyrics and excellent melody. We both used ti stay up late to listen to the mushairaas in Delhi Doordarshan in 80s and I used to write down those ghazals. I feel the best song is always the one that conveys its emotions to the listener to an extent that the listener is moved by it.
Ajeeb (weird) Dastan (Tale) this is. It was her favorite song and I can never bring myself to sing it now without breaking down. It is indeed a weird tale. Now after I attend a concert I call back home talk to my brother every thing other than music and concert and feel the connection. I attended another one of the best concerts yesterday. One of the song talked about missing a lost one. The MC for the evening talked about it so passionately that I broke down even before the song was sung. The song was about the birds flying in the sky making a pattern of flowered necklace and losing one of them midway. I missed her and did not stay in the hall for the song. After coming home I called up India and talked with my brother and did not talk about the concert or anything about it but just talked to him and listened to his voice. It's my only connection with her now. The unspoken words remain in heart but I believe she knows what I want to convey.
Ajeeb datan hain yeh, kaha shuru kaha khatam; yeh manzile hain kaunsi, na woh samajh sake na hum.
