Kahin To Milegi

Sometimes you hear a song a couple of times. You then unintentionally lose track of it. It stays in your memory somewhere, you yearn to listen to the song, but it fades away over the years not being a popular item by any means. You make half-hearted, feeble attempts to locate it knowing very well not many have heard it nor would be interested. You know deep down you really cannot find it after all these years. In fact, it would be embarrassing to even go to India and inquire about it. But then one fine day, most unexpectedly you end up issuing a Google query for that very song. Finally after over a decade, you do locate it. I have to bow to Google's spiders, their Page Rank algorithm(s), their clustered boxes working overtime. Held together wonderfully and made my day.

I refer to the year 1995 and the movie called Milan. Not a movie to remember, honestly. But man, was that song good (at least to me). You know how it was in those days. One of your buddies (that is more resourceful than the rest) buys a cassette. The whole gang of friends would then pounce on it like a bunch of leopards on the same prey. We used to be quite fascinated by the cassette releases. Borrow it a couple of times amidst fierce competition. By the time it could come back to you for a second listen:

"Yaar, woh Milan ka cassette to de".

"Oh..abey...woh cassette to ghis chuka".

Shit! Damn! For some reason, cassettes were still an expensive buy for me and my friends in those early college days. It was also not inexpensive to record such a song in one of the cassette shops that would throng Rashbehari Avenue in the then Calcutta. The cost of a khaali cassette followed by the price to record about ten songs in there would always elicit a Baap Re. Ironically, I remember being ready to dish out upto 30$ USD for this song when I used to be in San Francisco. You can argue that the reason for my apparently foolish stance was my conviction I wouldn't get that CD/song in SFO. I leave it entirely upto you, unwilling to question my dedication to the songs I love ;-).

But in spite of the economic factor and the bigger risk of time whisking the jewel away into oblivion, I guess my memory won this battle for me.

Here is that song. Hope you enjoy it. Even if twelve years late.