Let the melody shine, let it cleanse my mind, I feel free now...

The thing about songs is that they live on. Sometimes not just live on but build lives of their own. Within their familiar notes, they entangle a little piece of our history, and in their beats that sweet smell of nostalgia. And foremost amongst those songs, none could spell college as obviously as Bittersweet Symphony. No song could be more us than this one. 

When Ashcroft wrote this melody he didn't imagine that a lone guitar wielding figure, in an inconsequential college in north Calcutta (even though professors would have us believe that we're everything but inconsequential), would pass on the bug to so many. He didn't imagine the song would be played, practiced, strummed, over and over again, ad infinitum, ad nauseam until it would take over our collective consciousness. It would become the song that a classmate would name her blog after, the song a senior would only have to hear the first two words of, to cringe "oh no, not that song again", the song that gets at least one replay during the many BYOB parties with ex classmates, the song that plays on my phone when anyone from that precious group calls, the song that has now found playtime in my earphones after eons, the only song that can transform this gloomy rain soaked morning into hope.

My father remembers a time during his third year in BHU IT, when his classmate played Staying Alive, continuously for an entire week. Much as he'd hate it, for me it's the song of his youth. Just like Bittersweet Symphony is mine. What's yours? 

Karaoke Happiness

We lay like broccoli, me scribbling meaningless nothings on my notepad, both on a new OST trip. There is a contentment in shared melodies. A space is of your own is so overrated. Wouldn't you rather sing along than sing alone?