Do you remember the first song you heard on a CD when you were young ? On your own CD! I had no idea till a month ago. I never looked for it, it was never important. But what I didn't know was that it can make you happy, it can make you a child again.
For me it was a CD from my uncle, who got it from some Arab at his work place. He didn't listen to English songs, so he gave it to me when he came to India. The CD, gold plated with black font , stayed on the book shelf for a long time, until my father got a Discman from somewhere. I'm still not sure if it was a new one or a second hand one. It was a new gadget and we didn't have a CD to play on the Discman. A CD , at 300 rupees for just ten songs was an expensive proposition at that time . Even now if not for the easy downloads we get over the internet. A CD was just not meant for normal people. I even remember my neighbor taunting me that I can't a record new song on a CD unlike his Singpore imported audio cassette player with double speaker and Woofer. The CD's wouldn't last , it was way too expensive he said. Yes, he was right, the CD's didn't last, because MP3 format was born, and then iPod was conceived. I must ask him if he still listened to his audio cassette.
I dug the golden CD from the book shelf, with only ten tracks, of which only one would work. That was no fault of the CD, I didn't know how to turn off the repeat mode on the new Discman for a long time, an by the time I learned about repeat function, the CD had just vanished. Being bad with lyrics, and more so since I didn't understand a single word of what the singer sang, I could not find what the track that was. I liked the song, but I could n't and ask anyone what the track was. I wasn't sure of the singer's name too, just that he had some sort of an animal name , a pet animal. Cat, Parrot or something on that lines.
A month ago, years after I heard that track on Discman, by then even the Discman had vanished, I chanced upon the very song at a book store. I knew it instantly. It transported me twelve years back, the time when I was only twelve, wearing a checked shirt, and sitting at the reading table , strewn with comics, and color pencils, listening to Cat Stevens 'Wild wild world' over and over again. Just that I didn't know that it was Cat Stevens or 'Wild wild world' at that time. Memories of school days rushed inside my head, the new school, new people, and the anxiety of English speaking teachers. The way around my old house, the spots were I used to gaze older guys playing cricket on the street, the noise of my father's kinetic engine, and so much more. It's a piece of memory. And I realized music is the way to make a crisp time travel , is it the only way ?
I discovered Cat Stevens, and he keeps me happy these days.
Two of my favorites from Cat Stevens. Thanks for reading.
Would love to hear about your piece of memory.
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