One of the greatest things about being an immigrant is that you start with a clean plate. It is not something they tell you in books or in manuals. It just happens. Slowly and surely – you paint a brand new life and identity. But somewhere in your heart, you carry a bit of the old country. Whether it is a movie, a book, smell of the curry, thwack of the bat, sound of a film track wafting through the thick summer night. There are lost loves, a cherished friend now lost in a mist of time and occasional thought — what if I stayed back.
For me, whenever I take a trip down the memory lane, I have had one constant companion – Jagjit Singh – who kept me company with his sonnets of loves lost, being separated from the homeland and sometimes, very rarely, songs of joy. The velvet voiced singer of classical style of singing called ghazals passed away yesterday in Bombay. He was 70. I don’t really have an obituary or any profound thoughts, except that every single time cupid got the better of me, I turned to Singh’s records. Every time I felt homesick, I turned to him. I still have a lot of Singh’s records. I will listen to him, again and again. Voice, they say, is eternal.