India, Nov. 23 -- The year is 1996. It's a cold December morning, you are riding pillion with your hands wrapped around your dad's waist, as he rides his Rajdoot motorcycle to drop you at school because you missed the bus. Missed buses are a mini-calamity for middle-class households, as if they are the first domino falling which will lead to a failed career and, eventually, a distress-sale of the ancestral house. Your father is furious, and how your lack of morning discipline will lead to loss of shareholder value you create in life and other such rebukes come your way. You are a 10-year-old. "Jaldi subah nahi uthoge to yahi reh jaaoge (If you don't rise early, you will have to stay here)," you are warned - desi parents' worst nightmare is their kids not being able to emigrate. You swallow it all, immobile with guilt with your ear stuck to his back which allows you to sense the words ringing from inside him. You wait patiently for things to cool down. And they do. You are in the last stretch of the ride, which he has eased into - probably a bit guilty about all the harsh words said, but conditioned by society to not apologise. Yet, it softens him up and he hums: "Hai apna dil to awaara... (My heart is a drifter)". It was sung by Hemant Kumar in 1958 for the movie Solva Saal, well before you were born. Yet that song - seeded deep in your disturbed mind that cold December morning - subconsciously becomes your favourite. Even if your parents have nothing to give you, what you inherit is their music, their songs. Then, in your 30s - in a shower, weighed down by the thought of the work-day to come - you catch yourself singing, "Hai apna dil to awaara." Your parent's stressbuster has become yours. A song he probably inherited from his father. This inheritance was passed on for generations - never partitioned, no claimants, and no disputes. Just bad bathroom-singing. Songs are the cheapest time machine. I have picked a song for each year since the year I became conscious of the world around me. "Bahut pyar karte hai tumko sanam" (I love you a lot, my beloved) from the movie Saajan to remember 1991, "Aisi deewangi" (Such obsession) from Deewana for 1992, and so on till 2025. Make a playlist of all these songs, don your earphones/headphones, sit back and close your eyes. All the people, places, and memories associated with those bookmarks of time will come flooding back. Songs take you back in time, and also to places. Migrant workers from Purvanchal (East UP and Bihar) can barely function without Kumar Sanu crooning in the background. It reminds them of home and a non-existent lover -"Ek aisi ladki thi jisey mai pyar karta tha." (There was once such a girl who I loved). I have a theory as to why Purvanchali migrant labourers still listen to the same Kumar Sanu songs from 1991-1995. Migration data (1991 to 2001 census) shows this region accounted for the maximum out-migration. In 1991, the economy opened up. There weren't many jobs locally and law and order was so bad that the ruling parties of those times are still losing polls, thanks to the resulting PTSD. This was also the time when mix-tape was booming in India, with an audio cassette revolution led by T-Series. You could record all your favourite songs on a cassette at just Rs.2 per chartbuster. And with no internet and fancy FMs, cassette players were the only source of on-the-go entertainment in buses and trucks. My wild theory is that these migrants have since carried the music of these cassettes with them. They play, over and over again, these songs about heartbreak and longing. The playlists spoke to men living without love, away from home in cold and unforgiving cities. They faced hardships so that they could remit some money home, for dependents to buy livestock or seeds for the next crop. "Bahut pyaar karte hain tumko sanam." played on loop for years, with barely an update to their playlists for a decade. Free daily internet running into gigabytes was still a long time away. Thus were the songs of the early 1990s passed to their offspring, making Kumar Sanu and Udit Narayan immortal. The same set of songs across generations, evoking parental warmth. The same songs punctuate haircuts in salons in small towns. A haircut isn't complete if you haven't been irrigated with a randomised playlist of Diljale, Saajan, Aashiqui, and Deewana. Your hair carries the weight of that nostalgia. Songs will continue to be the best bookmarks of memory, taking you places, bringing you home, reminding you of people you shouldn't remember anymore. They are part of your muscle memory, too - whenever I wake up early, I somehow expect the faint melody of Hanuman Chalisa in Hariharan's voice wafting in from a distant temple....