The Music That Maketh Me

An old saying has been modified as “a man is defined by the type (called ‘genre’ by the GenY) of music he listens to.” I haven’t heard nor read this quote anywhere so I can safely assume that this is my creation. And there are reasons enough for my creation..

Back in college, there were three basic categories of people.

Type A- People who listen to hip-hop, death metal, punk or thrash or crap or garbage metal which the average Indian male would not even know the name meant.

Type B- People who listened to hindi songs almost 99.97% of their time. The only English songs they knew were sing by Celine Dion (or) Bryan Adams (or) Linkin Park (Now you know what songs these were, right!!)

Type C- These guys were completely undecided- they would listen to Kumar Sanu, Pink Floyd, Sonu Nigam or the countless number of Punjabi songs that they could lay their hands on.

The type A guys were the ones who were considered the hippest guys in college. These guys had long hair, facial fur ranging from a stubble to the infinitely outrageous and wore jeans that were at the tipping point ,that is to say a small shove could land them in a huge trouble. The type A guys ruled when it came to getting the best girls in college because ‘arey yaar! Do you know, he listens to Dimmu Borgir! Isn’t that cool!!!!’ or ‘He plays such beautiful guitar. He just sang a soulful rendition of Eminem’s Slim Shady just for me!!!” kind of responses were elicited for them.

The type B guys were just plain losers in the eyes of the A-listers. “Chee! He listens to Manna Dey! He’s light years away from being modern” or “ Wo to aise gaane sunta hai jo truck driver log chalaate hai”. These guys would just roam about in the hostel lobbies playing the song in full volume and presenting shaayaris from these and getting the customary “Waah! Waah! 's” from equally “Medieval” guys. They got girls who were mostly local and whose expectations from their boyfriend being a show off material was quite low. For these girls, having a boyfriend in itself was enough of an achievement!!

The type C guys were well- to put it mildly- nothing. They did not create any flutter..neither in the guys or the girls. They ended up lonely in their rooms with people similar to them or would go about their routine life as if nothing ever mattered. They were equally at ease in the eastern as well as western section in the Music Nite at Bitotsav. And yes- they got nothing.

Several movies I saw recently put this startling fact to light. In one of these movies, a character lambasts at Konkona Sen-Sharma’s character that she did not understand what true music really was! The peace and the solitude one could find in Jazz was unmatched. And Konkona Sen Sharma – a typically type C girl was left speechless.

Are people who listen to Mohd Rafi or Kishore Kumar fools or ignorants? Are people listening to “Cradle Of Filth” just the best that nature has to offer? In what way are they any better than the type C guys? Why is memorizing a song in a language one barely understands and singing it with a voice that’s not your own so cool? And why is dressing up like a total ‘Gangbanger’ hip? Why should people be looked down upon just because they do not like Metallica and/or have not even heard of it?

I want to say this now, we are as good as the type A guys if not better. We who belong to the type B and type C categories do not feel such pain as the type A guys do (since they claim to relate to these songs which only talk about pain). Please do not judge us from the kind of songs we listen to. If given a chance, we can beat the type A guys at their own game.

PS- if you have not already guessed, I belong to type C and have my own choices when it comes to listening. I listen and respond equally well to a Telugu song as I do to the ones sung by Pink Floyd.