I was browsing online one evening when I happened on a recording of maestro Jagjit Singh in concert at the Sydney Opera house where he regaled the crowds with his (true to his name) indomitable voice and sang a famous ghazal called - Wo Kagaz ki Kashti (One paper boat).
This ghazal that Jagjit belts out showcases why he is indeed a master singer where he reminisces and gets nostalgic of a past that he misses dearly. He longs for a simpler time where kids play in the rain water with paper boats. He remembers how wisdom was not some complex idea but metaphorically an old lady on the corner with her million wrinkles that always had a long story to tell about many a thing and time flew by when listening to her tales.
That made me think back some 40 years when my paternal grandmother who visited our place in Bombay with a Quasimodo like back and entertained me and my sibling through many an otherwise boring evening with tales of kings and kingdoms of a past that seemed as amazing as watching a fantastical Disney movie today. As low tech as it got it was her calming voice with some quirks thrown in for sound effects that made these stories awesome and memorable. Another of her uniquely memorable feature was the wrinkles all over her body. She was approaching 80 some years but the timbre was strong, her eyes large and expressive and those wrinkles on her hands like soft vermicelli that you could rub against and feel calm descend on you.
'Ek hota Raja' is how many began and went on to encompass parts of the globe that in the absence of Google maps were merely an abstract idea until she colored them with action and sound effects all through her power of story telling.
As an aside I read about two Israeli researchers specializing in Cognitive Psychology that posit that people remember a story more on how it ends and therefore the end is special. Movie makers have long understood this concept and know people talk about how a movie ends, not so much what happened in the middle.
That said my Aji (grandma) ensured her tales always ended with a memorable climax where good crushed evil or like an Aesop tale the takeaway was poignant. I still remember some of those tales and her voice.
This ghazal that Jagjit belts out showcases why he is indeed a master singer where he reminisces and gets nostalgic of a past that he misses dearly. He longs for a simpler time where kids play in the rain water with paper boats. He remembers how wisdom was not some complex idea but metaphorically an old lady on the corner with her million wrinkles that always had a long story to tell about many a thing and time flew by when listening to her tales.
That made me think back some 40 years when my paternal grandmother who visited our place in Bombay with a Quasimodo like back and entertained me and my sibling through many an otherwise boring evening with tales of kings and kingdoms of a past that seemed as amazing as watching a fantastical Disney movie today. As low tech as it got it was her calming voice with some quirks thrown in for sound effects that made these stories awesome and memorable. Another of her uniquely memorable feature was the wrinkles all over her body. She was approaching 80 some years but the timbre was strong, her eyes large and expressive and those wrinkles on her hands like soft vermicelli that you could rub against and feel calm descend on you.
'Ek hota Raja' is how many began and went on to encompass parts of the globe that in the absence of Google maps were merely an abstract idea until she colored them with action and sound effects all through her power of story telling.
As an aside I read about two Israeli researchers specializing in Cognitive Psychology that posit that people remember a story more on how it ends and therefore the end is special. Movie makers have long understood this concept and know people talk about how a movie ends, not so much what happened in the middle.
That said my Aji (grandma) ensured her tales always ended with a memorable climax where good crushed evil or like an Aesop tale the takeaway was poignant. I still remember some of those tales and her voice.
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