Ajnabi - This Melody is a Time Machine

https://youtu.be/iXosmnvL2js?si=hkUP2OFz56Qmmhuc

This tune demonstrates how a melody can stir us to not only recall our past but also drag us bodily into those late evenings of childhood by tapping into memories of life events that remained buried in our subconscious. How a melody can evoke memories of the people then present and of the then prevailing circumstances.

Hearing this melody for the first time since it played in Doordarshan in the mid-90s triggered an irrational longing to relive those moments one more time. Faces materialized – not just images, but presences. The presences of people who are either no longer alive or have transformed tremendously. A longing to have those people back in the way they were grips the mind. But the more we yearn for those old days, the more we despair, confronted by the reality that the circumstances will never be the same again. Gone are those days of the past.

The past endures only in our memories in an intangible and unalterable state. Sound, smell, or place are mere instruments that help carve out a momentary window into the past, through which we can gaze back to the time long bygone and relive them for a few fleeting instants. A few droplets of memories from the ocean of the past splatter our mind before quickly evanescing.

We start understanding life better through experiences. And we gather these experiences over time. But with time, we age. By the time we begin to grasp what life truly means, much of it has elapsed. Those who surrounded and supported us—who made it possible for us to stand on our own and live a life no longer tethered to theirs—have faded into oblivion. The ones who brought us into existence, protected and nurtured us in our helpless times, held us from hurting ourselves, and taught us worldly matters—for whom we are what we are—are no more than a fond memory residing in our mind, like the faint, warm afterglow that remains in the cosmos for some time of once glorious stars that went out.