An ode to the indefatigable bathroom singer; wrote this, as usual, while crappily humming an ear-worm in my head, under my breath!
Everybody in the world indulges in music, while they don’t need it for essential survival. You could hate some sorta music, surely. But you enjoy music; period. Representation pic/iStocK
This one time Donald Trump unwittingly left an impression on me (circa 2003), is when the prank-artiste Sacha Baron Cohen as Ali G mock-interviewed the real-estate baron then, to ask what he thought was the most popular thing in the world.
Never mind the context of that joke; without a pause, Trump said, “Music.” And isn’t that frickin’ true? I thought.
Everybody in the world indulges in music, while they don’t need it for essential survival (unlike cooking, cleaning, etc). You could hate some sorta music, surely. But you enjoy music; period. As against, how fewer people engage with all other arts.
But do we experience music the same way, too?
The great VS Naipaul was once asked in a BBC radio interview about his personal relationship with music. He said he grew up with music being “external” to his home. Which is an interesting split to define it as, I felt.
Profesional singer Shilpa Rao. Pic/Nimesh Dave
Isn’t music quite internal to the brain, still? Can speak for myself. Tap on my shoulder (anytime), I’d tell you the exact song playing in my head, right now (and all through the bloody day)!
It’s not necessarily a favourite song — quite often the last tune I heard, getting off a cab, perhaps. Or simply something that someone said, or I read/saw.
Which the subconscious mind, drawing some connection or the other, segued into pulling out a random track from an infinite playlist.
The composition is usually an invading ear-worm. I don’t know/care for the lyric so much. The notes refuse to let go. Until another set similarly replaces it, sometimes within a minute. And yes, I softly hum, throughout the waking hours.
Which makes me wonder, if this might be a desi thing — to whistle, hum, rattle or drum, in the car, in the shower, up the lift, down the street… It’s how music possibly transmits through generations. Melody is chocolatey. Words are simple.
And perhaps why we still love popular Hindi music from the 1950s, down to the nasal ’90s? Or, maybe, in the popular imagination, Beethoven/Beatles bigger than, say, Megadeth; or SD/RD Burman > AR Rahman?
Obviously, no knock on the talents. They’re all as timeless as it gets. But you inevitably bend on your knees and move to Rahman’s GOAT number, ‘Chhaiya Chhaiya’ on the dance floor. You hardly sing it to yourself.
That said, for the most part, none of us, really, are singers, worth listening to, anyway!
Professional singer Shilpa Rao believes being born with a voice is a myth. In the sense that, “you sing in several capacities. The lohri/lullaby may not be technically sound. But it’s correct with the love. That’s what the music holds for you.”
Before Rao became one of Bollywood’s top playback singers, she read statistics in college. “In one line,” she tells me, “Statistics is the study of human nature, put in numbers; it captures anomalies.”
And in that anomaly resides art. It’d be AI, otherwise. For instance, she argues, when she performs her popular track, ‘Bulleya’ (from Ae Dil Hai Mushkil) onstage, it’s usually the super-loud audience, around 10,000 people, who sing along.
Each is not a perfect singer. But the collective sound averages out the margins of error, and it becomes harmonious: “There’s still no AI, or auto-tune, with human-feel button to it.”
What about those who sing so perfectly that your jaws drop, that regularly, when you tune in to reality TV shows like Indian Idol, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, even YouTube/Instagram Reels?
If that’s the level of talent that’s always existed — why’s it that when you look back at the popular Indian greats, such few come to mind? From 1950s/60s onwards, for decades, in Hindi playback singing: Kishore/Rafi, Lata/Asha, give/take a couple more!
“Persistence,” Rao reasons. It’s one thing to sing a song already sung. Quite another to repeatedly produce from within, in two hours flat, when no reference point exists.
The first time Rao attempted an original composition (‘Kaisi paheli zindagani’ from Parineeta), she knew she wasn’t there, yet. Composer-singer Shankar Mahadevan guided her to sharpen wares with ad-jingles first.
She’s been a singer since a baby. Her father S Venkat Rao, a high-end engineer with an MA in music, ensured music wasn’t just “internal” to her home.
It was their home itself. He told her, there are always two lives — one with art; the other, without. Pick the former. It’s inherently a more enriching life.
He drove her to practice/riyaaz. “He’s Aamir Khan from Dangal,” she laughs. I suppose, persistence makes perfect. Sometimes, the penny drops.
The first time I watched Rao perform live (2024) was in her 30-second Insta Reel, singing the title track of Kalank! It felt so viscerally pristine/pure, I must’ve replayed it a thousand times myself. It’s gone viral since.
She remembers, it was from singer Hariharan’s birthday. “They call it aamad,” Rao says — the arrival of the muse. “You’ve to catch it. Sur lag rahe the.” The notes were flowing.
I find that with writing, on rare occasion. Surely, same with you, regardless of what you do. Plus, whether or not you believe in God — how can you not believe in music? Turns out, all of us do. Amen to aamad!
Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14 Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper
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