I think that most of my life, be it a celebration, a period of mourning and self doubt, be it the day before an exam, be it Monday; can be portrayed by a genre. Music has been the most elemental part of me. Growing up, I was surrounded by it. My father, a music connoisseur himself, used to break out into a rendition of a song on Sunday mornings. He used to compulsively hoard vinyls and records. He has sung to me throughout my childhood. Looking back, he was probably just practicing for a family karaoke sessions we used to have. You need to see it to know, these were a big deal in my family! People used to bet on the who will sing the best, there used to be categories, chakna, beer, dress up….And of course, there was the usual line up of Hindi songs that we've all come to love. You know what I'm talking about, right? The percussion on the song Dil Se by A.R Rahman, the melancholy lyrics of Ek Raasta Hai Zindagi… I'm sure these are synonymous to most North Indians here.

Some of these classics meant more to me than others,because I was often asked to sing those in front of guests. Not a lot of you know this, but I was trained in vocal music till I was in 3rd grade, where I decided that Beyblade was a bigger priority. You know your parents do that, right? Ask you to sing in front of uncle. Or just say, dance karo beta! Naacho. You see, it was this performance which always made me a crowd favourite. Most of the significant memories from K to 12 can be re lived just at the tap of a play button. School talent competitions told me about Green Day, numbing auto rides in Delhi winters made me acquainted to the band 1975, cynicism in 12th grade made me listen to Tame Impala, The Beatles helped me deal with heartbreak, and Frank Ocean taught me how to love again.

I have always been a devotee of the band Porcupine Tree, and there's they have this song called Trains. As a child, in Patna, our house was situated amongst a rather noisy train track, where I'd spend a lot of my childhood sitting with my cousins. On my first day, sitting in front of TT and listening to my favourite song, watching the train pass over… it felt oddly religious. I knew nothing about Tamil Nadu’s rich culture and the cathartic way that the film industry is worshipped. I was almost too eager to make fun of the music here, and I asked my roommate for a recommendation. The song he told me about was Maruvaarthai,by Sid Sriram. One day, it suddenly started to play on shuffle, and it became one of my favorite songs. To this day, it's something I'd always go back to whenever I want to think about my first year here. Some wonderful people from Chennai broke my childhood one day, by deconstructing Hindi movies and their Tamil “inspirations”. They introduced me, not only to some of the most beautiful music that I'd ever listen to, but also to nostalgia associated with AR Rahman. We knew that both of us have heard different versions of the song, but we murmured verses, and that was it; familiarity in an unfamiliar place. Somehow, mimicking the acoustic riffs of Kadhal Sudugudu and correlating this to its Hindi counterpart, Odi Odi, I'm able to relive those exact memories which I'd lost way before.

I wrote this speech when I found myself amused as to how so much of my life has spent listening to music. They say that life has 8 stages. The way music helps you travel from one to other truly is remarkable. Sometimes, I feel tethered to my old self, and I am, almost compulsively, trying to relive a simpler time. But sometimes, I feel perfect contentment with where I am and who I am. That I'm different, but so is Bohemian Rhapsody, that I'm changing, but so is everybody, and that I'm flawed, maybe even deeply, but all I have to do is put on some earphones, hit play, and even on my worst days, I don't feel so alone anymore. And if that isn't magic, what is?