Cardiology

"I open my eyes, I try to see/ But I'm blinded by the white light/ I can't remember how, I can't remember why/ I am hee..re tonight!"

 So sang Simple Plan half a decade ago. You must be thinking what's with me and punk lyrics. I wonder too. It's a wonderful feeling when you think that an artist has composed something especially for you: when you turn the last page of a novel and go "Hey, that sounded familiar!" or when a stanza from the latest national chart-buster resembles your oh-so-modest life. It's a wonderful feeling. All through high school, I thought I had a secret deal with Green Day to write songs for me. And when the vagaries of love showed its face in subsequent years, Good Charlotte seemed to fit the bill. I found it uncanny - the regularity with which their songs came to mean something more than just a collection of emo lyrics to me.

 But then came college, and life was good and busy. Intellectual even! Punk took a backseat as Floyd, Nirvana and GN'R took centrestage. I was expected to appreciate the 'good' music. Not that I didn't like it. But then, the lyrics always spoke of somebody else. It wasn't too difficult listening to Denver to imagine golden countries and brilliant sunsets. Or to listen to Floyd and dream of smoky Sherlock-Holmesque living rooms and a life bordering on the surreal. Or to sing along with Axl Rose and feel a wonderful high. Or to listen to the songs of a Bengali bard and feel the rustic tension in the air. But somehow, they were never about me.

 At this point, I won't even blame you if you were to stop and impatiently enquire what all the fuss was about and why I even wanted these musicians to sing for "me"! After all, I am nobody. But then, you always have a soft corner for that one book, that one song that you feel is biographical. As such, I would continue beseeching your apologies for the writer's vain narcissistic fancies.

 And then I came home. And things were different. Suddenly, I wasn't in the 'league". All those beautiful memories of lazing down Jacob's Ladder with heavy schoolbags teasing a heartbroken friend how he was "Sorry, I can't be perfect"  seemed but memories. And when I went back to school and stole a quick glance through the window at that bench I once  sat on, and remembered how 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' was such a craze back in Classes 9 and 10, I couldn't but smile at myself and recall all the weird interpretations we made in our attempt to decipher the lyrics of 'American Idiot'. (Those were of course the days when instant Googling of lyrics wasn't yet possible, thanks to our Northeastern status of being disturbed regions where such things as easy Internet access weren't a priority for our Shining India government.) :).

 At once, I came back home, turned my music library upside down and filled my cell phone with all the old favourites. All Black, Everytime, Jesus of Suburbia, Dance Floor Anthem, I Just Wanna Live and similar titles which would make any pseudo-intellectual rush for air, once again adorned my collection. And it was just in time that Good Charlotte released their latest offering in years, "Cardiology".

 It was a happy return to the (g)olden days. As the night lit up with brilliant colours and for once, the stars disappeared entirely from the Shillong sky in a haze of Diwali smoke, I quietly put my earphones on and pressed Play.

 It took a while to sink in. The music was so like 2002. And no matter how much I had changed over the years, there are some things that never do. If the title song was memorable, Harlow's Song  left me utterly heartbroken. And then it came. It almost felt as if the entire vacation had been building up towards this one moment. As if everything that had happened over the fortnight had in one way or another, led to this instant. And with this pagan belief between my ears, Benji whispered those words into my ears that made me look up at the sky and shed a silent tear...