<p>The second wave has made me incapable of listening to sad songs. And I hate it. Melancholy drives my musical taste; I am your original wallow-in-misery music aficionado. There was a time I had specialised playlists for different kinds of sadness, and even now, loved ones tease me about my instinctive reaction to being upset — lock myself up inside a room and cry it out with a Rafi or an Atif.</p>.<p>And strangely enough, I can’t seem to listen to very cheery numbers either. The world around is so grim that the cheer sort of dissipates before it reaches within. Which is why, this week, I went back to some old reliables, which almost magically, manage to combine a never-say-die spirit with essentially unhappy lyrics. Talat Mehmood’s ‘<span class="italic">Zindagi Denewale Sunn</span>’ is a prime example. Even while he laments to the creator that he is tired of the world and he feels dead while alive, somewhere you realise he will fight it out; and he will certainly emerge out of that deep gloom. Maybe, it is just Talat’s singing; or perhaps it is Bhupali on which the song is based — a raga that has the power to instantly calm one down.</p>.<p>There’s another song with mournful lyrics that brings an inevitable smile on my lips. ‘<span class="italic">Apni to har aah ek toofan hain; kya karu woh jaankar anjaan hain; uparwala jaankar anjaan hain</span>...’ (roughly, ‘My every sigh is a storm; what do I do, the one above plays innocent...’)</p>.<p>Sung beautifully by Md Rafi, for a long time, I thought it must have been picturised on a lone hero in a godforsaken place. Much later, I saw its video. It showed the ever-effervescent Dev Anand crooning this number in a train. And the ‘<span class="italic">uparwala</span>’ who was being ‘<span class="italic">anjaan</span>’ to his woes was a sleeping beauty on the upper berth.</p>.<p><strong><span class="bold">Play By Ear</span></strong> <em><span class="italic">showcases a potential earworm for you, the discerning listener, who is on the hunt for some musical serendipity.</span></em></p>
<p>The second wave has made me incapable of listening to sad songs. And I hate it. Melancholy drives my musical taste; I am your original wallow-in-misery music aficionado. There was a time I had specialised playlists for different kinds of sadness, and even now, loved ones tease me about my instinctive reaction to being upset — lock myself up inside a room and cry it out with a Rafi or an Atif.</p>.<p>And strangely enough, I can’t seem to listen to very cheery numbers either. The world around is so grim that the cheer sort of dissipates before it reaches within. Which is why, this week, I went back to some old reliables, which almost magically, manage to combine a never-say-die spirit with essentially unhappy lyrics. Talat Mehmood’s ‘<span class="italic">Zindagi Denewale Sunn</span>’ is a prime example. Even while he laments to the creator that he is tired of the world and he feels dead while alive, somewhere you realise he will fight it out; and he will certainly emerge out of that deep gloom. Maybe, it is just Talat’s singing; or perhaps it is Bhupali on which the song is based — a raga that has the power to instantly calm one down.</p>.<p>There’s another song with mournful lyrics that brings an inevitable smile on my lips. ‘<span class="italic">Apni to har aah ek toofan hain; kya karu woh jaankar anjaan hain; uparwala jaankar anjaan hain</span>...’ (roughly, ‘My every sigh is a storm; what do I do, the one above plays innocent...’)</p>.<p>Sung beautifully by Md Rafi, for a long time, I thought it must have been picturised on a lone hero in a godforsaken place. Much later, I saw its video. It showed the ever-effervescent Dev Anand crooning this number in a train. And the ‘<span class="italic">uparwala</span>’ who was being ‘<span class="italic">anjaan</span>’ to his woes was a sleeping beauty on the upper berth.</p>.<p><strong><span class="bold">Play By Ear</span></strong> <em><span class="italic">showcases a potential earworm for you, the discerning listener, who is on the hunt for some musical serendipity.</span></em></p>