I have a very particular taste when it comes to music. This is the effect of getting conditioned to listening to a particular genre of music during my formative years, mainly influenced by my father. We are now both fans of songs from the golden era (1950-70) of Indian film music. With time, I have come to appreciate the reason for his rigidity in choice of music which in my opinion has to do with the timelessness of the music created during those decades. This, of course, does not discount the quality of music created now but like everything else, I feel that there is an inclination now to take the shortcut to popularity which eventually has resulted in the products being short-lived in the minds of the masses. I like songs with good, meaningful lyrics and prefer melody over everything else.

 

My favorite singer is Manna Dey, a pioneer of introducing elements of Indian classical music into film songs who I believe is highly underrated given his versatility. Besides him, I love the songs of Mohammad Rafi, Kishore Kumar and Hemanta Mukherjee. Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhonsle and Sandhya Mukherjee are my favorite female singers. Amongst music directors, I like Sachin Dev Burman and Salil Chowdhury most. I was introduced to S D Burman very early on by my maternal uncle (Chhotomama) and while I did not quite appreciate the beauty of his voice at that age, I have come to realize its uniqueness and folksy melody which is unparalleled in the Indian music scene.

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I had always wanted to learn Indian classical music, in particular the instrument called Sitar which I developed a fascination for during my college days. Due to lack to support from my parents and also because of circumstances, that desire has not materialized so far. However, the possibility is still alive and I am hoping to learn the instrument sometime soon from the best person I could hope for, my wife. Amongst Sitar players, I always liked Pandit Ravi Shankar as a performer but over time, I have developed a liking for the playing style of Ustad Shahid Parvez who can make his Sitar "talk" while playing and this is something that seems mesmerizing to me. Pandit Budhaditya Mukherjee is also another Sitar (and Surbahaar) player who I admire a lot.

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Besides film music, I love listening to light Hindustani classical music specially Thumris by the great Begum Akhtar. Mehedi Hassan is my favorite Ghazal singer and his rendition of Ranjish hi sahi is in my opinion the best ever. Collecting audio CDs is one of my hobbies and I have amassed quite a collection of original discs since childhood. While this seems archaic in this digital era, the tangible delight that they offer is something that is precious to me.

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I also love singing which naturally came to me through my mother who although untrained herself, can also sing very well. I never had the courage to sing at a public stage but I sing only for the special people in my life. Amongst my favorite songs to sing personally are the beautiful songs created by Rabindranath Tagore which are also known as Rabindra Sangeet. These songs are very special to me and capture all possible moods and situations that life has to offer. It is extremely difficult to choose favorites from a list of 2000+ songs in this category but one Tagore song that I like singing, in particular, when I am in a poignant mood is "Amar praaner pore chole gelo ke". Apart from the songs by Tagore, the ones by Kazi Nazrul Islam of Bangladesh (erstwhile Bengal) are also something that I like to hum quite often. Finally, we have a huge collection of Bollywood songs from present and past that are a part of our lives and which I like to sing whenever I feel like doing so.