To be honest, in my youth I never enjoyed Hindi music as much as I enjoyed listening to Roxette’s Tourism… Er… English music, as it’s still referred to when you speak to people who are still devotedly (and rather quaintly) stick to listening to Hindi music of a by-gone era, so to speak. To me, it was just music… I liked the ‘sound’ so I listened to it… Yes, it was as elementary as that. The accent didn’t really fascinate me as much as did the sound of crashing guitars! But that was so long ago, when all things foreign were ‘chilled out’. However, over the last few years I find a regression taking place when it comes to musical preferences with the odds slowly moving (and still is ) in favor towards Hindi music. I consider rather characteristic of the fact that somehow it’s also been a time for me to get in touch with my roots as well. My earliest recollection of listening to Hindi music was when I used to visit Calcutta for the summer holidays (in the blazing heat) and my cousins used to bore me to death by repetitively playing cassettes of Kumar Sanu, Kishore Kumar and you name it and if that wasn’t enough, rant and rave about these singers until I could take it no more. Up until during this time, Hindi music was all Bollywood but with the advent of Indi-pop in the late 80s and early 90s (thanks to that nutcase, Baba Sehgal and ‘Thanda Thanda Paani’), the focus had shifted to pop and the use of technology in creating music as compared to its predecessor which focused on using folk instruments, composition that used the Indian structure of music (the ‘ragas’) with a strong emphasis on melody and harmony. It was exciting at first with the remixes being released in the market consisting of old Hindi songs performed all the way back during the 50/60s. But somehow it wasn’t the real thing… And I just permanently switched over to English music such as Classic Rock, Jazz-Rock, Jazz and even until now, Progressive Rock. Yet there always seemed to be something definitive that was missing… And in space of twenty years, Hindi music had changed so much that it was hardly palatable except for movies like “1942: A Love Story” and “Border”. However, the artform of ghazals had hardly changed (as it is a music genre that is rigidly traditional) and my uncle was a big fan of Pankaj Udhas and Jagjit Singh. We spent a lot of time over beer enjoying some really songs to tone you down after a hard day’s work. Here is one shining example of Hindi music (although it was from a Bollywood movie which I could barely tolerate during those days), titled ‘Kuch Na Kaho’ from the movie 1942 – A love story: Since, my interests are very Rock music driven (and not hypocritically, of course) it was not until ‘Rock On’ that I just felt ‘right at home’ with the change that has evolved over the past two decades. Although, the idea of Hindi Rock was repeatedly a failure, this movie has really laid that myth to rest. Go Farhan! And not only that, it isn’t hard to see that the quality of musicianship (with the likes of Karl & Keith Peters) along with experimenting with the musical style of fusion (such as A.R Rahman) has really moved Hindi music up a notch since I last gave it a mere listen. And just like Kishore Kumar came around and shook things up in 70s, I do believe that a time of change in Hindi music is rather evident as the scripts are based on more realistic themes rather than the rich-girl-meets-poor-boy theme that has plagued Indian Cinema for almost two decades now. All in all, I find that rather promising and with something to look forward to… and in closing I wish Russell Peters could eat his words about the mediocrity of Indian cinema. And soon too, for its time to take it up a notch with the next generation of musicians raring to go…