Music & Magic/Music is Magic

I listen to everything

I think over the years, I’ve developed this inseparable connection to music. Its largely inexplicable, but the people who get it, get it. It’s why I get offended when someone doesn’t like what I’m playing on the aux, why I scream SICK SETTTT to every DJ who plays something I appreciate, why I instantly click with people who share my music taste, and why I’m writing this.

It’s 8:26pm, a Sunday, it’s raining here in Bombay and I’m lying in bed. Listening to one fred again set after the other. After watching his tiny desk set, I wanted to cry. I think if I ever get to see him live, I’ll faint from the sheer surrealness of it.

I wake up and the first thing I do is put on music. The last thing I do before going to sleep is listen to music. I’m always listening to music. I can’t commute anywhere in silence. Whether it’s a three-minute auto ride, or an eight-hour flight, my playlists come with me. I had a crush on this boy in my gym only because he played drake songs on the speaker. He wasn’t even that cute. The ungodly amount of playlists I have, the half-hearted rekordbox attempts, the multiple music posters in my multiple rooms, whether it be delhi or bombay, music is always there with me, and for me.

If you know me even a little bit, I’ve probably sent you a song, or two, or ten to listen to. I remember getting really mad about the DMs feature on spotify, because I wanted my music listening experience to feel isolated from the rest of the world. But then Vinayak said “music is a shared experience amrapali”. That’s true, but I switched to apple music anyway. Music is social. Music is personal. Music is medicine.

It’s a little hypocritical, considering I just said I want to listen to music in isolation. But I do love bonding with people over music. I feel like, if someone can fully understand how music makes me feel, they can understand pretty much my entire self. Because it just means that much to me, and shapes my personality to such a massive extent. If I can geek out about music to a friend, it feels like unlocking an entirely new and improved level of friendship. Like Anaahita, she gets it.

My love for music comes from a lot of different places and people. I can’t narrow it down. But it certainly runs in the family. My dadi used to host these music bhaitaks, to champion upcoming Indian classical musicians. I never thought I’d be interested in something like that: who listens to classical music- but after she passed away, I decided to go for one, in honour of her memory. I was hooked. I didn’t look at my phone even once, instead, 17-year-old me just sat there listening. And I would do it again and again and again. My brother Aadi is studying music production in college, and I absolutely adore him for it. I don’t have the will or to be honest, the guts, to mix professional and personal like he does, and pursue something that actually invokes so much in him.

That’s another thing I love about music. It means so much to people. It makes people feel so many different things, but at the end of the day, what unites all of that is the sheer ability of music to just make you FEEL.

I started learning how to play the piano when I was 8. No one ever pressured me to learn an instrument, or take up music as an extra-curricular activity. I remember accompanying one of my friends to her piano class in the building, and on a whim I asked the piano teacher if she could teach me as well. “I also want to learn.” I had never even looked at a piano properly before that. “What?”, the teacher looked at me in shock because I was probably the first kid who was coming to her without being forced by their parents. “I want to learn the piano, can you take classes for me also?” I played it (not so) religiously till I was about 13 but ended up losing interest because of the exams. It felt like a chore, and most of the time my anxiety would get in the way of my passion. I don’t know if that spark will reignite like it ever was before. Till then, I’ll probably be mixing one house track into the other. For fun. And for my friends to have another reason to brag about how cool I am to their other friends.

My first semester of college, I felt so deprived of a proper way to listen to music, I ordered a speaker from blinkit during my exams. I think it actually saved me, in so many ways. That little speaker gets me through so much every day.

Whatever it may be, if you’re in my house, we’re listening to something. Whether you like it or not. I try my best to accommodate what everyone in the room likes listening to, but let’s be honest- my music taste is probably better than yours.