The first LP

Live music is the music that never dies.

Some songs grow older, and yet remain forever young.

Let me go back to my school days. When I passed High School, my grandmother gifted me a Roamer watch. She also decided to buy for the family a record player.

My elder brother (my eldest maternal uncle’s son, and incidentally a good singer) and I were entrusted with the responsibility of procuring it. There were not many HMV stores then. There were not many models either. We chose one.

Some money remained, enough to buy a couple of records. We picked a 78 rpm Mukesh bhajan. On one side was Sur ki gati main kya jānū, and on the other Pitu matu sahāyak swāmī sakhā. To this day, I don’t know why we chose that record. Neither my brother nor I had heard those songs before. Whom were we trying to impress? Didima? She had no interest in Hindi, or in any kind of music, for that matter.

The other two LPs were completely out of our range—Tagore's Shyama and Shapmochon. Perhaps it was the Bengali folder, perhaps the old man on the cover clinched the decision.

Often, the best choices are surprise choices.