On a recent study session with my friend, we were listening to ghazals. If you haven’t realized it yet — everything in my life has to have music affiliated to it. We then got into a conversation about how ghazals create a very soothing, comforting, sometimes thought provoking ambiance.

For a large part of my life though I was very aversive towards ghazals.
Initially, and I regret thinking this way, but I associated ghazals with drinking. From reading books like A suitable boy (if you’ve read it then I’m talking about the elderly woman who Mann falls for initially), watching ghazal singers in movies, I somehow related this kind of music to red lipped, seductive eyed begums surrounded by men screaming ‘wah wah’.

A few years later ghazals reminded me of hotel singers. This is largely based on the fact that the only time that I heard such music was when we went to expensive, sea facing Indian restaurants in Oman where we only went when appa’s colleagues came from other countries. I sometimes think that India to them probably meant rich, masala filled food, and alcohol with light music in the background.

It wasn’t until recently that I actually started respecting this genre of music. Having urdu lyrics for most of them didn’t exactly make liking ghazals any easier. But there thankfully came a night, when over a chat with my cousin, who challenged me to hearing a few ghazals. By the end of the night I fell head over heels in love with these velvety soft numbers.

There are the old classics like tumko dekha to, jhuki jhuki si nazar, hoton se choolo tum, salona sa sajan, hungama hain kyun barpa, chandi jaisa rang hai tera which to date hasn’t been disliked by anyone I know.

Modern ghazals like aur ahista,shaam se ankh mein, hoshwalon ko khabar, badi naazuk, kaash are all approved and appreciated by the current generation, despite the heavy influence of bollywood numbers. Of course, having good looking and pretty popular women and men in the videos have perhaps contributed to making ghazals popular.

To me nothing can be better than unwinding at the end of the day with a ghazal. Feelings of romantic pain, lazy dreamy happiness can never be conveyed as well through any other kind of music. Try listening to this in a quiet and peaceful environment and you’ll know just what I mean.

“Let’s call them gulf sisters!” suggests akka (my grandma) one afternoon while sipping her coffee. The adults sit in the veranda enjoying the breeze.”When Bombay sisters, Hyderabad brothers exist, my grand daughters can be gulf sisters. Can’t they?”

“Hmph. Adakella these girls must practice a lot akka,” answered appa with an oh-my-daughter-wasted-her-talent nod.

“Listen to them now. Yaavdo hindi haadugaLu. Thu”

Hearing the adults murmur outside LC (the other owner of this blog) and I clear our throats and begin one of our many musical hours. The selection of our songs are pretty simple. Being hard core dev anand (me) and amitabh bachan (her) fans, anything and everything from their movies is welcomed.

“Hmmm..phoolon ke rang se, dil ki kalam se.., “is by default our opening song. Rhimjhim gire saawan, yeh duniya waale poochenge, kasme vaade nibhayenge hum, dilbar mere follow along. On hearing lines like ”jiski biwi moti uska bi bada naam hain,” we get a grunt from one of the ammas — “Aye shu! Lower your voices or sing something better!”

Our level of enjoyment grows with each song as we continue singing, banging the table, being our own instrumentalists with to-do-dos and ting-a-ling-a-lings. Everything comes to an abrupt end when occasionally, the door of our room opens with a bang.

“Din dhaal jaaye haye, raat na jaaye…..continue” sings akka and we gladly join in. Although they won’t admit it, the adults derive a lot of pleasure from hearing us sing. If we had it appa’s way then we’d be on a raga marathon, jumping from mohana to varali to revathi to jog. But there’s only little that a lone man can do in the midst of 5 women, and my appa is wise enough to pick and choose his battles.

Be it any environment – in an auto , the building terrace , the grand old creaky bed in akka’s house — we take shakespeare’s words all the world’s a stage literally. How can I not mention the looks of disapproval that we get from our auto driver shanmukha?

“Obviously,” says amma “Who would want to wait at a signal with two girls screaming “saiyaaaaaaa, saiyaaaaaaa, tu jo chule pyaar se aram se mar jaaoo?”

These are the moments in my life that I would love to re-visit infinite number of times. And just for old time’s sake, here’s one of our all time favorite songs

Having always been a person who dislikes any kind of change (wardrobe being an exception), I am yet again at a point where I can do little to control the situation.

A couple of months ago, appa informed me about the big promotion that he got. Yay!! I won’t say I was surprised. For the amount of work and effort he puts in, this to me is a trivial reward for him. Naturally my opinion is biased because it’s about a person who I yearn to become like someday — both professionally and personally.

Switching back to the point — he then put a very excited amma on the line. After our initial ‘ayiooo wows,’ ‘yays’ and ’sooopers’ she slipped in the other half of the promotion which was moving to another city.

I would be lying if I said this was great. And for being the heartless soul that I am, I gave my parents umpteen reasons for why this move isn’t worth anything, ranging from ‘the city is too crowded’ to ‘this is not the age to socialise and make new friends.’ Yes I know, I can be mighty immature and stubborn sometimes. But sigh. Me ain’t happy about this move.

To justify my unhappiness, here’s what I think. Many middle eastern kids (I said many and not all –exceptions do exist) get confused when they have to decide where they are from. We know that we are Indians and culturally identify with that term. But when it comes to discussing Indian politics, agriculture, weather, and other basic cultural facets — we’re limited to textbook knowledge. Our connection to India is limited to our birth and other annual vacations.

We move to the gulf at a very early age and live there through our entire school years. A few choose to continue there if there are options, but the rest move out to a whole new setting for higher studies. Eventually our parents also move out to another city, or back to India cutting off the last bit of connection left to our childhood. So when the time comes for us to answer the question — where do you belong? What should we say?