“Gunguna rahe hain bhavre….Aradhana”

Yesterday I downloaded one of my MOST favorite songs of all time “ghunguna rahe hain bhavre” from the Hindi movie “Aradhana”. I am listening to this song after 14 years. Yaar, Lata Mangeshkar’s voice is so captivating. This used to be my favorite song, in my LKG and UKG days. My father is a big fan of Kishore Kumar and so I am. This film features 2 of the all time great songs of Kishoreji. “Mere sapnon ki rani” and “Roop tera mastana”. But somehow I always got hooked on to this melody. We had an audio cassette of that film and my father says that, I listen to this song “ghunguna rahe hain bhavre” at least once a day. I don’t remember all that, but what I know is that I used to love that song better than any other song. The cassette got lost somehow. Then as days passed by, I forgot all that. Suddenly when I was listening to my kishore playlist in my comp. suddenly I thought of this song, the tone and lyrics of which I could barely remember. I searched the mighty web typing “Aradhana” and to my luck, found the song. But the problem was that the website didn’t have an option of download, I could only hear it on the web. I was on gtalk and suddenly my friend Krishna came to my mind, IMed him and asked him to check for this song in their IIT LAN, and he found this song and mailed me immediately (IIT LAN rocks man!). Thanks to globalization, technology boom and of course IITM.

When I double clicked that song, boy-o-boy I really got nostalgic. Images of my jim dandy childhood in Delhi started popping out of my mind. Those days were awesome, indeed. Life was full of fun. I am really fortunate that I spent a good amount of my childhood in Delhi and I’m 100 % sure that I wouldn’t have enjoyed as much if I were in Tamil Nadu.

I would come back from my school at 1’0’ clock in the afternoon and freak out for a game of cricket or bittu(the marble game). When kulfi wala comes, I used to run into my house, literally beg my mom for money and finally after all that advice and scolding my mom gives me the money. Then again play..play…Phatak then comes challi wala (corn stuff), again running into house for money, same advice and at the end of two minutes, convincing my mom, that this is the last time and all that- my sweet mom giving me the cash again. Then bhel puri wala…..lol. Finally at 7 or 8 pm I reach my house just before my dad comes back from his office and start learning my school stuffs. I was always a brilliant chap and my grades were always good so my parents didn’t bother much about the large amount of time I spent in playing. More special were the days around holi, diwali, Independence Day (we used to fly kites for a month or two and all that comes to a halt on the Independence Day). Life used to be rocking then. I can very proudly say that I don’t have bad habits, I have never bunked (in the sense, without the knowledge of my parents) my school for going to theatres etc. Coz if I wanted to watch a cricket match, my parents would allow me to cut the school. Thanks to the large extent of freedom given by my parents, I am in a good position now. I was brought up in the right manner- that is how children have to be brought up. I have no regrets now.

Though college life is supposed to be fun filled, it is not really as it is projected (curse Indian films!). We do last minute cramming for the exams, vomit the crap and finally hold on our nerves on the day of our results. This holy shit happens four times in a span of six months (semester lol). Sometimes I feel that this kinda stress is also fun, no denying this fact, as it is a part of our lives. Still those balmy days of childhood were simply unforgettable and adventurous. If we had a Rewind option in our life, it would have been fantabulous. Come on man, INNOCENCE IS BLISS.