The sound of music !!

The hills are alive, with the sound of music,
With songs they have sung, for a thousand years...
The hills fill my heart, with the sound of music...
My heart wants to sing every song, it hears.

My heart, wants to beat like the wings of the birds,
that rise from the lake to the trees....
My heart wants to sigh like a chime that flies,
from a church on a breeze...
To laugh like a brook when it trips and falls over
stones, on its way..
To sing through the night, like a lark who is learning to pray...

I go to the hills, when my heart is lonely...
I know I will hear, what I've heard before...
My heart will be blessed, with the sound of music.....
And I'll sing, once more..

I hold this song very very dear to me..like the movie itself- When my mom was a teenager,she watched this movie for the first time..and like every other adolescent girl,she fell in love with it-With the songs,with “ I’m sixteen,going on seventeen “,with the soft yet passionate chemistry between Fraulein Maria & Captain Von Trapp…

When I turned 10,my mom brought this movie from the store ( those were the times of big fat black video cassettes ) for us to watch it for the first time..I guess she must have waited eagerly all these years to open my eyes to the aspects of deep love, soft romance and intense passion...which could all be found beautifully in this movie. 

I was mesmerized with everything,just  like my mom had been in her teenage days.Such is the character of this movie,I believe..that through the generations it has created the same  kinds of feelings in all the girls of a certain age..That was the time I fell in love with Christopher Plummer , the romantic moonlit night in the glass house,when Maria and Captain Von Trapp confessed their love for each other …that delicately soft love and deep passion displayed in the  most gentle manner !!  

And I fell in love with the idea of love..and started to understand the meaning of the word “ romance “ – romance in the ripples of a lake,in the gurgling sound of water-when it flows over the rocks…in the moonlit nights and in the leaves changing colours during fall….I fell in love with Julie Andrews, and her voice…So much was the love,that I went back to watch this movie innumerable times till date,and I always felt the same charm and joy…The movie itself, to me ..stands for everything positive- love,respect..for each other,for your homeland ...

I’m madly fond of the prelude and the song ( the one which I started this post with ) – It gladdens my heart when I can relate to the lyrics of a song with the feelings of my heart-and this is one of such song which I can relate to,every word of it ~ ~ 

Something’s doesn’t change with time and I believe,there should be some such things which will always be beautiful and remain unchanged with time & create the same magic  for all ages....For  moms and daughters to cherish,enjoy and treasure,individually and together……

The story of olfaction !!

 Again, a memory flash-more so of the sense of smell than of sight-A hazy evening, darkness drawing close, dad returning from work, local market bustling with their evening produces,smell of samosa frying in the sweet shops,smoke rising-and my sense of smell tells me it’s from the clay furnaces or the “ chullah “...People who use them are lighting them up,getting ready for the evening’s cooking fare !! The smoke mixed with the dust and the pollution creates the haze,that has a peculiar,distinct smell-which is stuck deep inside my nostrils,perhaps for my lifetime…I love those hazy evenings,specially during those durga puja,when they combine with the smell of “ dhoop ( incense ) n dhuno ( a special variety of powdered incense which Bengalis associate with every kind of pujo- A earthen pot,with a handle,a funnel shape base with an open top- burning coal, charcoal or coconut husk is placed inside it and then the powdered incense mixed with camphor, is poured on top of it,which creates an aromatic white smoke )- Oh,how I love those engulfing smells and those hazy,smoggy evenings…And with each passing days,as they seem to move away farther and farther - I tend to keep pulling them closer to me,tighter to me….never to let go !!

And it’s strange how you can actually seem to long for things,for memories which you might have never created,long for a place you have never been to , long for a smell you have actually never inhaled…Something reminded me again of my haunting love for Wuthering Heights,of those Yorkshire moors,of those rolling valleys,of Heathcliff and Catherine-their consuming love,passion,dedication,longing …for each other.I was reading  Julie Andrews’ memoir..and I was aroused by how she described her first visit to the moors- “ North Country” she called that part of England…And I could relate to everything she said and described,as if I myself have been there so many times and belong to that part of the world-although I have only been there,only maybe a thousand times,in my mind,wandering the moors,filled with heather and gorse…sitting on the rocks,overlooking the thin-steepled churches,the low stone walls,the sleepy villages full of tiny cottages,the stone houses mightily braving the forceful biting winds…which keeps howling through the nights,in the haunting barrenness of the moorlands…. And as if I can smell all those foggy,dampness of the air in those vales
and hills ..and long for that intense passion that can come ,perhaps only,with those sights and smells.. …