Sing a song, oh baby Sing Along

On an average weekday I spend about 10 hours at home, 9 at work, about 1 in the gym/out walking, ~ 2 in the general entertainment category of movies/eating out/shopping/ visiting friends/family and another 2 hours in the car. Including the weekend, the ‘in-car’time probably starts stretching closer to 20. Hence I would have to say that cars with Bluetooth phone connectivity are a gift straight from heaven!!

Till about 4 weeks ago, Sumit and I spent ~30% of our car travel time discussing what music to listen to. And then one day Hit 95 FM, Delhi’s (umpteenth!!) #1 hit music station, suddenly put an end to our lively discussions on the ‘Dire Straits vs. U2 vs. Norah Jones vs. Rabbi…’ conflict. (I have to admit this claim to stay honest – that I made so boldly in my first post - is sometimes really hard to live up to). For good measure, we also keep some Thievery Corporation, Miles Davis, Vivaldi – Four Seasons, Jagjit Singh – Mirza Ghalib, etc in the car but they are, let’s say, not as popular as the recently acquired Rihanna CD.

With Hit 95FM belting out an eclectic mix of the latest in American and British rock, pop and rap, interspersed once in a while with the more familiar and hum-able 80s and 90s popular fare, we effectively said goodbye to the car CD player. The discussions on what to hear were quickly replaced by schzam-ing every song on the iPhone and singing along with the few songs that were soon becoming familiar. On-lookers would have surely been jealous of our satisfied sighing and frequent cooing sounds accompanied by expressions of the variety “Oh, this is great! We can totally stay on top of new music now!” If it were a Karan Johar type hindi movie, our bliss would have been a perfect moment to cut to a shot of an adoring elder parent (of the variety often played by Kiron Kher) to say, “hai main mar jawan, inhe kissi ki nazar na lag jaye”

And that is exactly what happened! Kissi ki nazar hi lagee hogi.

One day, just 15 minutes into an hour + drive, after having sung along to a new catchy song that goes, “Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…. Sunday, Monday..”, Hit 95 FM, Akon and I were now trying to match rhythm on “I just wanna love you, love you…all that I can” Youtube tells me this is the ‘clean’ version of the song and the not so clean one replaces ‘love’ with ‘F^&*’. All was well, when suddenly, accidentally I switched the radio to 98.3 Mirchi. There it was “Haule, Haule se hawa lagti hai, Haule haule se dawa lagti hai…” I let the song be and then followed the more beautiful and meaningful “Hai tujhe bhi izaazat” from Life in a Metro.

But NO, we had heard this stuff before, and this was our precious time to catch up on all that’s new on the pop and rock scene. We switched back and there was someone singing “I just wanna be ok, be ok, be ok, be ok, be ok….” The beat was unconventional and catchy for sure, but my desi mind, often under no control of me, decided to have some fun and started translating the song to see what it would be like in Hindi. “Main chahti hoon, main theek hoon, theek hooon, theek hoon, theek hoon.” Next it translated, “Sunday, Monday...” into Hindi until it was in an uncontrollable translation mode. Have you ever tried this? If no, NEVER DO IT!!!!! EVER!!!!

It did not take long to realize the most of the stuff on Hit 95FM when compared to even popular hinidi film music was not exactly in the same genre as say a “Hai Gujarish”. from Ghajini.
When it came to lyrics and beats this stuff was definitely more in line with ‘Lucky Boy’ and ‘No Entry’ (I am not sure why both the songs I picked for comparison were done by Ms. Basu.. maybe food for thought for another post later)!!

It has been 10 days and unfortunately this translation syndrome continues. Hit 95FM in the car is accompanied by my besura hindi translations of their songs and while this definitely makes for some good laughs, no matter how catchy the beat, we just cannot get ourselves to sing to it anymore!

In the last 4 weeks, Popular english music has changed for me forever. I think it is time to admit that I am old and am likely to remain happy arguing over tried and tested U2, Floyd and Norah Jones rather than ‘get with the latest music scene’!

Hindi radio channels are unlikely to have my affiliation given the endless senseless ads (the only radio ad ever worth listening to from an entertainment perspective was lexi pens – strongly urge you to check out the jingle on their website if you are not familiar with it – if you are under 18 adult approval recommended), the more-boring-than-a-corpse callers, the chirpy RJs and the equal focus on ‘lucky boy’ and ‘haule haule’ in terms of music. But I will admit that I am considering investing in some serious amounts of hindi music! God, I did not think this day would ever come!!! But then who would have thought an Indian composer would win the award for originial score in a movie at the Golden Globes!