My Present Area of non-professional interest...

Presently, my interest & research centers around Shanker-Jaikishen - a duo of music directors who revolutionized music in Hindi Films with some breathtaking compositions in the early fifties and remained the supreme duo till the untimely death of Jaikishen in 1971...This interest got re-kindled when I was on a recent visit to the Bay Area. While I was in a cab proceeding from the SFO Airport to Menlo Park, my phone rang - the tune was set to a song from a movie called Awara released in 1951. The cab driver - a white caucasian - immediately began humming the tune under his breath. Once he realised I had completed my call, he turned to me and asked if I was from India -& whether I know Raj Kapoor - the actor on whom this song was picturised - its incredible to imagine this scene - a white Russian emigrated to US 30 years back and still remembers a tune he had briefly heard when he would have been 10 or 12 years old...amazing...that set me thinking - what kind of geniuses could have created a tune that rests in the sub-conscious mind for 55 years and remains fresh?