Song requests…

While in Bombay, I used to watch this program on Asianet once in a while. It was a song request show hosted by a very charming girl. She read out letters from Malayalis all over who requested songs for Binumol who was celebrating her first birthday in Thrissur or Vinumon who was turning 5 years old the following week. Song requests went out for newly married couples now separated with one half of the couple slogging it out in The Desert or Marubhoomi as the Middle East is known in God’s own country. It struck me as somewhat sad and I often wondered what difference did a damn song make. I mean, what could be the point of dedicating a song from a distant land to your loved one in your hometown? Does it make you feel any closer to your beloved/daughter/son?

Till I heard Onnaam Raagam Paadi, a Malayalam song from one of Mohanlal’s best films. The song was shot in Thrissur, my home town and in one of my favourite temples, one that I have been visiting since my childhood. One with which SO MANY of my warmest memories are associated. And then I understood the significance of the entire song dedication theory. Like food, patriotism is probably also the memories of songs heard in childhood. Yesudas’ voice is the colour of sunshine, bright, golden, blinding and sometimes burning. His is the voice that Malayalis world over associate somewhere with their inner selves, their homes, their families. His fabulous voice brings memories of the green fields, the warmth in May, Pooram, paayasam and Vishu. In an instant, he is able to connect us with our own selves, in a flash of a second.

Some days I end up feeling hopelessly lost. I yearn to go back to Thrissur, stay with my grandmother and cousins in our newly built house. Go to Parmekkavu and watch the elephants make their majestic pradakshinam around the main deity. Wander through the huge Town Hall library where I was introduced to mythology and books a million years ago, courtesy my grandfather. By virtue of his gift, Yesudas takes me back to that glorious world which I hated while growing up and now hopelessly adore. For all the bitching that Keralites do about Kerala, it is so hopelessly self-evident that you can’t take Kerala out of the Keralite. No matter where she goes, she carries that golden sunshine and those glorious monsoons within. There are roads more winding, forests more green and elephants with larger ears in other parts of the world…. None as charming as the ones in God’s own country, though. Bias speaks!!!