Take Me Home

Music and memories are tied so close together. Songs transport us to times in our lives and bring memories flooding back, some good, some bad, some sad.

I remember sitting with Mummy in the evenings when the radio program came on.  It might have been a weekly program where they played old favourites.  The theme song started with the refrain: ‘Just a song at twilight, when the lights are low. When the evening shadows, softly come and go.  Though the heart be weary, sad the day and long. Still to us at twilight, comes loves old song… comes loves old, sweet song”.  My sister Preethi and I both loved this song and sat quietly with Mummy to listen, when the program came on.

The radio was a huge part of our lives. Growing up in Sri Lanka our two forms of entertainment were the radio and going to the cinema to see the latest movies.  Television hadn’t been introduced yet in Sri Lanka. and this happened about three or four years after I migrated to Australia. The Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, a government body, was the only radio broadcasting station at the time. It broadcast in Sinhalese, English and Tamil. English radio consisted of the commercial station which came on at, I think, 6.30am, went off the air at 12.30pm or so, came on again around 5pm and finished at around 10pm.

Our mornings began with the radio.  On week days we had no option but to awaken at ‘the crack of dawn’ as my mother turned on the radio the very second the English channel came on.  Not that there was any such thing as noise control.  Noises in the neighbourhood were incessant; ‘pirith’ and ‘bana’ (Buddhist prayer) were invoked sometimes very late in the night at the temple that was not far from where we lived. Neighbours went about their business, sometimes late in the night, never pausing to consider that they were being noisy and quite often roosters would crow early in the morning.  Everyone lived close to everyone else and children crying, people fighting and radios blasting made up the cacophony of sounds that were part of any day.

Sri Lankans are a sentimental bunch and the songs that were playing when I was growing up are still played on the radio.  But now there are numerous stations including many FM stations, and the DJs (announcers we used to call them) are very slick sounding and for the most part it is not easy to detect a Sri Lankan accent among them.  In my growing up years Jim Reeves and Elvis Presley had equal popularity among locals and an afternoon program on Sundays called Housewife’s choice would play a range of oldies for all the requestees.  Usually a long string of names of everyone who had requested the song would be read out before the song was played.

Radio competitions were very common. One year my sister Indira, who was a huge Elvis Presley fan, possibly his biggest fan, set out on a campaign to make sure that Elvis won over Jim Reeves.  The songs to be voted for were Crying in the Chapel by Elvis Presley and something by Jim Reeves that I don’t remember.  To vote you had to cut out coupons from the daily paper.  Indira must have sent a hundred votes at least, probably much more.  I can’t remember how she sourced so many coupons but she was creative when it came to Elvis.  In the end Crying in the Chapel won by a small margin, much to her delight.

The songs of my childhood were sung by Elvis, Jim Reeves, Marty Robbins, Harry Belafonte, The Beatles, and other artists from the late fifties and sixties.  So many songs, so many memories.

And then there was Christmas.  Even though we lived in a predominantly Buddhist country, Christmas was a big deal. From December 1, the radio would start playing Christmas music; first intermittently, then more frequently and then as Christmas day was around the corner, it was almost every song or every second song.  Silver Bells by the Andrews Sisters was a favourite, as was Jim Reeves’ carols, Christmas Roses, The Hat I Got for Christmas is Too Big, Silent Night sung by a variety of artistes, Oh Little Town of Bethlehem sung by a variety of artistes.  You get the picture.  As we polished the floor, painted windows, made Christmas cake and prepared for the big occasion, in the background was this music which still brings back a host of memories, some good, some not good.

The song that most reminds me of my early days in Australia, when I felt so homesick and heartsick I would have rushed back in a heartbeat, is John Denver’s Country Roads.  Even though he sang about places I had never been to at that time, in my heart he was singing about my longing to go back to my home and my dear ones.  Country roads, take me home, to the place I belong. I would listen to this song and think about my mother, about Indira, Preethi and Tilak and Suzie and Sean and my heart would be in little pieces, aching for the familiar sights and sounds and for the beloved voices and faces I had left behind.  Even now when I hear this song I am transported back to that time and to the little girl who was so forlorn.

Four years ago I attended Catherine Deveny’s Gunnas Writing Masterclass and wrote this piece about that time in my life, during a 5 minute non-stop writing segment. I believe it captures poignantly my early experience as a migrant, the longing for people and places left behind.

http://www.catherinedeveny.com/longing-songs-ruki-b/