Let me provide some context first.  I was born in 1976, so I’m a child of the 80s.  But there are some scraps of memories that keep floating back and one thing leads to another and become something you want to nurture.  There was a time when I took most of my cues from the guys who weren’t just older than me but also wiser.  I remember at that time Disco music was all the rage and a homegrown version of pop music was taking root in the country.  Once I heard somebody mentioning a singer called Nazia Hassan and how she was becoming so popular not only in India but also in Pakistan where she belonged.  I was dimly aware of her all the time and then I got to know to know that she was dead, but no more than that.

     A few weeks ago, my younger brother was watching a video on YouTube, and since the computer monitor was facing the opposite direction I could only listen to the voice.  It was the voice of what I presume must be a young woman who was having a bit of a friendly banter with her audience.  More than anything, what really hooked me was the voice and the way she was using it to interact with the audience.  I felt as if I wanted to drink that voice because really, it was oozing with a kind of lilting sophistication that was mischievously charming.  When I asked my brother who that is, he said Nazia Hassan and that made me start thinking about her.

   Even though one part of me knew that she was dead, but there was also a kind of vague hope that it not be the case after all.  Next day I googled her and there it was in the Wikipedia entry.  Born on 3^rd April 1965 and died on 13^th August 2000 at the age of 35 because of lung cancer.  Now all of the vagueness had evaporated.  Then I looked up the YouTube for believe or not I had no idea what did she look like though I was certain that she was good looking.  And I was not wrong.  She was the epitome of elegance and poise, a kind of charming grace that was enough to smoothen the rough edges in any human being.  I caught an old video in which she was introducing some Pakistani cricketers on stage and I watched transfixed as she uttered their names.  I’m not by nature given to waxing lyrical about the way somebody looks, but let me say this; you wouldn’t mind someone like her as your girlfriend or companion.

  I kept thinking about the monumental unfairness of it all.  That I am 37 and still living, and she was 35 and dead and almost on forgotten.  A lot of things were going on in my mind like what kind of morning it was in London when she breathed her last?  How did she spend the last night?  How does someone at that age even comprehend the dread that cancer induces in us.  In the midst of these morbid thoughts, I went off at a tangent and started wondering what was it like to be in the prime of her youthful singing career in the 80s.  It was a time when religious fanaticism in Pakistan was making serious inroads in society under the Martial law administration of Gen. Zia-Ul-Haq.  If I had my may, I’d have said ‘suck it General! She represents everything about your country that you never will!’

  In the end, it doesn’t matter.  Nothing ever does.  I am probably the only nut who’s remembering her.  But it’s amazing how small scraps of memories can set off a train of thought that once it gathers momentum, doesn’t know when or where to stop.