Fourth August

The music remains.

Friends leave. 

Mates forget. 

Memories dim.

Brick, mortar and plaster is broken down and replaced by more brick, mortar and plaster. But this time the silhouettes are unfamiliar, sepia deficient.

Old camaraderie finds it hard to spark joy, stilted as it is by ambition and by life's nagging demands.

Even nostalgia turns tedious, unless lubricated by a generous helping of Old Monk or some spirit, stronger.

The music though, remains.

Deccan Queen hums Carpenter's "Such a feelin's coming over me" under a monsoon soaked Lonavla sky. 

Someone's Sony cassette player croons "Careless Whispers" on a tawny afternoon after Dissection class.

Two naughty young women sings Lionel Ritchie's "Hello" behind a Cunningham placed strategically to duck Attre Ma'am's disapproving gaze. Sylvester, the hurly-burly cadaver smiles his eerie, cute smile as he listens to them sing of summer skies and warm Julys.

In the dimly lit reading room an HMV LP's Barbara Streisand renders Memory over and over again in her powerful bass. 

Occasionally I sit inside Chow's forever topsy-turvy room all alone and try to decipher the method in its madness aided by Farida Khanum's Aaj Jaane ki Zid Na Karo.

On some enthu evenings, Dire Straits has a field day, thumping, throbbing, thundering from Nikhattu's room on the ground floor and reverberating round and round the quadrangle.

On certain lonely weekends, EssESS lounges on the low-lying armchair outside her room as  Bacardi white rum and Jon Bon Jovi lulls her to sleep.

And on Social Nite, Deccan Queen ditches her boyfriend for just that night and links her arm in mine: "Chal, let's listen to the music."

So we sit away from the old Insti on the steps of the Parade Ground and watch the dancers who look for all the world like writhing ET's on a charsi high. To pass time we give and take a few stars of the Orion constellation and then sit back to listen to the music: Smokie's song of love and regret 'Living next door to Alice', the scandalisingly sexy " Oh Carol", Scorpion's beautiful epic "Winds of Change", Laura Brannigan's "Self Control" (my personal favourite), Bryan Adam's nostalgia agonist "Summer of 69"........

Our summer was Fourth Term but the memories are fading fast, becoming inconsequential with each day......

This Fourth August, I'll place all those songs back to back on my iPod. Then dim the lights and let it be yesterday once more....

For only the music remains: strong, loyal and true.