An English-Hindi Romantic Song I Have Always Loved

This story is from when I just a teenager. I am writing it here because I have found out that I still like the same kind of songs as before.

Once my Pakistani friends (schoolmates) asked me to sing them a song and sing all of it. Reality is that we used to sing a lot; and, we also had assemblies in our high school where I used to sing with the rest of the youger women. So I started doing some research to find an easy song to sing. Of course! I knew many Hindi and Pakistani romantic songs; but, I was not willing to sing them because I couldn’t understand their words fully. Their words felt too bare and frank to me, something that I never fully understood. After reviewing some songs, I ended up finding “My Heart is Beating” from Hindi movie, “Julie” (1975). I loved it so it was easy for me to memorize it and sing it back. My friends loved it when I finished singing. The fun part is that the singer sings one of my nicknames, “Zu Zu”, which is short for “Arzoo”.

Now head over to the Poetry and Spoken sections and read or listen to some of my poems. You are going to notice that my mind still works the way it used to work when I was a teenager. I have learned to write more bare and open songs through experience. But the reality is that I avoided such songs when I was younger because I used to experience pain while thinking about these words. I did not realize what it was until I got older. Truth is that all poets experience pain when they create or sing.

Oh! Two other things that influenced my decisions to not sing are 1) a funny voice that comes in my head and asks me not to sing or to sing a particular song; and, 2) additional questions that just arise after hearing certain words. When I got out of my teenage years and started studying Philosophy, I realized why I keep asking more questions instead of singing certain songs. For example, when I used to sing the song “Pardesi Pardesi” of Hindi movie “Raja Hindustani”, I would get stuck on the word “Ishq” (love); and, I would ask myself odd questions like what this all means and why are they both crying. When I grew older, I found out that philosophers have actually dedicated years and years of thinking and research to the word “Love”. So my inner voice was actually challenging me to learn real Philosophy. It’s because such questions can only be answered through readings and research.

Please enjoy my favorite song, “My Heart is Beating“.