—Gowri Raj Varma
Since the lockdown began, I’ve had difficulty listening to certain songs. They carried painful memories of a time and place where everything seemed possible; my own personal chronotope, if I may. So I did the mature thing and deleted them from my playlists. Out of sight, out of mind, right? But one day, my father brought back from oblivion this rusty old radio that played reprisals of his favourite classics. Coincidentally, this one happened to be on the list. Waves of bittersweet nostalgia washed over my mind, and I was left unprepared to deal with a complex set of emotions that flooded me. I closed my eyes and listened to the stories, the ephemeral echoes of events that happened to another me a lifetime ago.
“aisa dekha nahi khoobsurat koi
Jism jaise ajanta ki murat koi”
You have a vivid memory of that moment you fall in love with a song. It catches you unawares in a most mundane second, leaving you breathless; your life is never the same again. It was on a summer afternoon this March that I first listened to Afreen Afreen. A couple of us girls were trying on some bold red lipstick, the looming mid-semester exams nearly forgotten. This song played on a carefully-curated Bollywood/Hindi playlist, and, my oh my, did I get hooked. And can you blame me, when the voices of Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Momina Mustehsan blend into an exquisite weave that brings to mind the music of a maharaja’s court. I am no connoisseur of music, but I knew this song was a masterpiece in its own right. From that day on, I would listen to this on loop for hours on end, be it when rushing to a lecture, sitting in the corner of the mess engrossed in a book, or walking down the SAC road alone at night. This song took over my life.
“jism jaise ki khilta hua ik chaman
Jism jaise ki sooraj ki pehli kiran”
I remember evenings spent with a friend, rushing to a school for the specially challenged* which was a twenty-minute walk from the Main Gate, for our National Service Scheme project. We dreaded these trips, since leaving the campus almost every day was a hassle we hadn’t asked for. Nevertheless, we would meet at the GC bus-stop, reminding ourselves of the mandatory credits. Gradually, I stopped despising these sessions. For one, my friend and I bonded, over cups of filter coffee and the books we were reading. I began to barely notice the evenings coming to an end as we spoke of our hopes and dreams, the fears that plagued us, and what we wanted from life. Even so, on every bus journey to the Main Gate—regardless of whether we were sitting comfortably or jammed amongst a throng of commuters—I would listen to this song on my headphones as I watched the trees pass us by, and I would smile wistfully at the little kids returning from school. Strangely, I began looking forward to these trips that belonged only to us; my small, safe haven.
“jism jaise mehekti hui chaandni
Jism jaise machalti hui raagini”
I remember midnights with three of my favourite people, sneaking off to rooftops and lying on the dusty floors, four heads on a lumpy backpack or two. This tradition evolved rather randomly this semester and continued till right before we left. The last time plays over and over in my head like a broken jukebox. A box of doughnuts, a Bluetooth speaker and a luminous full moon. Laughter ringing late into the night, despite a Monday with an 8 am lecture awaiting us. Four people who are a little lost, each in their own ways, finding comfort in one another’s quirks and misadventures. Two freshies trying to find their place in the world, and two seniors who knew it didn’t get any easier with time, and that that was the beauty of it all. Moments I yearn to return to, for group video calls do not quite capture our looks of surprise when one of us drops a salacious bit of gossip. That night, we chose to lie in silence and gaze at the stars whilst soulful music played in the background. When this song played, we murmured in collective appreciation. In its seven minutes, we looked at each other in the dark, and I could feel us smiling at each other and at ourselves, and I recall thinking to myself how lucky I was to find people that felt like warm hugs on a rainy day.
“mere chehre ki subah, zulfo ki shaam
Mera sab kuchh hai piya ab se tere naam”
I remember date nights spent on another corner of this same vast rooftop. The very last time I heard this song was also the last night I spent in insti. This time there’s a different Bluetooth speaker, and the two of us eat pizza in silence, one in denial about the precarity of the situation the world was in, and the other drowning in the sorrows of uncertainty. Time is ticking away, and we have no answers to the unspoken questions that hang in the air. The fear of separation, of loss, and of impending doom converge into a matrix of mixed emotions, none of them hopeful. Finally, we decide to live in the moment and enjoy each other’s company without worrying about what was to come. It didn’t work, but we tried. At around 3 am, we begin to feel drowsy and decide to sleep there, too tired to go back to our hostels, and, furthermore, not wanting to waste the few hours we had together. I play this song, seeking comfort in its familiarity. And we fall asleep in each other’s arms as it plays on to another day.
“husn-e-jaana ki taareef mumkin nahi
Afreen afreen, afreen afreen”
For me, this song is a tryst of reveries and of remembrance, of lazy afternoons spent basking in the warmth of friendship and self-love. Of evenings spent talking about anything and everything under the sun. Of nights spent with great company, recounting raucous tales or simply losing ourselves in the beauty of the stars. Of early hours in the morning, spent dreaming about a time when we meet again the ones we love, and when we finally go home.
Written by Javed Akhtar and music directed by Faakhir Mehmood, Afreen Afreen was originally composed by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
Listen to Afreen Afreen by Coke Studio on YouTube and Spotify.
Edited by Swathi C S
*The Article 19 Team has rephrased this sentence slightly to avoid using insensitive language.
Article 19 