The Playlist of the Past

When we look back into the past, we divide our lives into phases. Be it a life of 25 years or 70, we phase it out. Certain things trigger the memories of these by gone days in a way that the nostalgia denies to move on till we have revisited the romanticised version of the then reality. It can be a morning bus ride to college. It can be a walk down the street. It can be a phone call. It can be a random thing that screws our mind up in an otherwise perfectly sorted present. It can be anything.

Songs. Music. Lyrics. I let a couple of years of my teenage life be defined by these. Lyrics, for the most part. But it wasn’t about relating it to my life. Those years were about sharing the songs one liked, with the entire gang. Those songs meant nothing to our lives back then. They were good music and good lyrics put together and reached out to a bunch of kids who loved it. When it was time to grow up and move on, when the group began to disintegrate with distances, those songs too found an unused folder in the music section of one’s laptop.

They remained unused till one evening in a cafe I happened to hear one of them. After years of not listening to it, one probably would not remember the lyrics. Quite contrarily, I knew every word and every pause and I sang along. I kept saying my companions on the table, how much I used to love this song. I told them how it took me back to the time when I was fifteen. I am not very sure if they understood. But that night was something of a roller coaster ride of memories for the cafe decided to play more from my playlist of the past.

A couple of days later, I woke up and found the tune still playing in my head. So finally I decided to reopen my ‘thrown into the corner’ folder and listen to every song that I shared with my friends back in the day. I did expect a mental fuck up for I am no longer in touch with any of them. I stopped listening to them for they revived unresolved emotional issues. Time finally band-aided the damages because this time they just revived the memories; the memories of a crush, of an infatuation, of an unrequited love, of a betrayal, of every drama that one goes through at fifteen. The memories that might end up being embarrassing if spoken out loud. The memories that might seem immature and silly in one’s head. The memories that are shared by people who no longer share their lives.

I never quite understood music. I still do not.  What I did understand was the lyrics. Perhaps it paved the way of the next phase of my life which was all about words. Given the person that I used to be, I would have texted every friend of mine back then about the memories or probably made a Whatsapp group. But now I know better. The thing about being fifteen doesn’t exist anymore. Also, it won’t revive itself over virtual reunion.

Yes, I love the memories. Yes, I love those people. Yes, sometimes I wish things hadn’t changed. But then, it was just a phase of life. I know those names but I do not know the people anymore. And that’s okay.

What I know today is that, groups of teenagers are going through one such phase of their lives thinking it will last forever, just like we did back then. What I know today is that, someone somewhere is hovering over such memories that were triggered by an unusual turn of events. What I know is that, each one of us looks at the past with the nostalgia of something better than today. What I know is that, we make a fuss about perfecting the present without hovering over the past and thinking about the future. 

What we forget is that... In the end, it doesn’t even matter.