Thank you for the music

Watching Big play his parents' favorite song on a gramophone in Sex & The City today brought back some cherished memories from my childhood.

I know this may sound arrogant, but let me say it anyway : For those who have never heard music played on a gramophone - my condolences.

My first introduction to music was listening to Jagjit & Chitra Singh weaving their magic on a round black plastic disc....There is something about listening to a song on a gramophone - there is a richness to the timbre that I think is hard to find in even the fanciest surround sound/home theatre systems. It seems as if the singer is sitting in front of you, singing for you, only you. The feeling gets reinforced as the little needle takes your hand and gently leads you on a journey of love, hope, despair and beauty. Its the perfect make believe world, with the singer moving the potter's wheel, giving shape to your dreams...and your life. Fiction becomes fact till nothing else matters....just how music should be.

When I was about 12, we shifted into a new house. While packing (there were no Movers & Packers then), my mom threw away all my Dad's records - a priceless collection of at least 100, if not more - as junk. Even the kabadi would not have them. The beautiful gramophone - with its solid wooden casing, the smooth red velvet casing inside and the i-belong-to-a-different-era smell- was also given away, probably to the maid or the dhobi. So much for Rafi, Kishore, Manna De, Hemant Da, Geeta Di and the Mangeshkars.

I would give anything to have some of those records back. I still harbour hopes of buying a gramophone someday - supposedly for my Dad, but I suspect its more for myself.

Don't it always seems to go, that you dont know what you have till its gone ... They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot.

Yesterday's junk is today's loss.... and tomorrow's fortune.