I am sure many of you have a favorite genre. Mine, however, changes every fifteen minutes.
Between my grandfather’s harmonium, my grandmother’s powerful vocals, my dad’s band rehearsals, and the aggressively energetic club music my friends and I dance to on weekends, music has become less of a hobby and more of the language I think in. My brain doesn’t have thoughts. It has background scores.
One moment I’m listening to soft romantic songs, convinced life is a beautifully written coming of age film. Fifteen minutes later, Bollywood item songs take over. (I love the energy. Please don’t judge me.) By night, Spotify has somehow decided I’m going through a devastating breakup. The funny part? Half the time I’m perfectly fine. I just enjoy emotionally supporting fictional versions of myself.
Music has a strange way of repainting ordinary moments. My morning walks become movie montages. Grocery shopping suddenly feels cinematic. Even washing dishes can feel oddly poetic with the right playlist.
And when I have to avoid someone while looking effortlessly confident? Doja Cat and Cardi B immediately clock in for duty. They have successfully convinced me that walking past someone without making eye contact is the most empowering thing.
Classical music, though, occupies a completely different corner of my heart. It feels like home.
My grandparents have been singing since they were very young, and some of my earliest memories are of my grandfather sitting with his harmonium during his daily Riyaaz. As a child, I would sit beside him while he patiently taught me little pieces of the music he loved. Those mornings smelled of tea and somehow felt slower than time itself.
As I grew older, another world quietly opened up. Thanks to my dad, I discovered Pink Floyd, Michael Jackson, and an entirely new universe of Western music. My Heart Will Go On from Titanic became the first English song I ever learnt to play on the piano. Somewhere between all this, I slowly developed my own music taste.
Or perhaps I didn’t.
Because I eventually realized that I don’t really have a “type.” I listen to almost everything. My playlists are less of a carefully curated collection and more of an identity crisis.
Sometimes I wonder if this has something to do with how indecisive I am.
A few years ago, my mother told me something that has stayed with me ever since. She said that if I notice a pattern in one part of my life, chances are I’ll find it everywhere else.
She wasn’t wrong.
I’m a little careless. It reflects in my money management, in the way I handle things, sometimes in my relationships, and occasionally even in how seriously I take my health. In exactly the same way, my music taste reflects my constant curiosity. Every genre feels like a new room I want to step into.
Which, now that I think about it, explains my hobbies too.
I write.
I act.
I direct films.
I dance.
Every few weeks I somehow convince myself that I should probably pick up another artistic hobby because apparently none of this is enough.
Maybe I don't struggle with commitment. Maybe I'm just fascinated by possibility. By the idea that one lifetime is too short for everything I want to become, so I keep trying to become a little bit of everything.
So, please don’t ask me questions like, “What are you doing in life?” or “What’s your favorite genre of music?”
The answer to both is probably the same.
“I don’t know.”
True for so many things in life! Very beautifully expressed.