You Are the Song of My Life

At 6:47 AM, the radio crackled to life. Meera reached for the snooze button without opening her eyes, expecting the usual morning show chatter. Instead, a soft instrumental melody filled her Mumbai apartment. The music was gentle and unhurried, stirring memories she thought she had buried. Her grandmother’s voice surfaced, unbidden: Tu meri zindagi ka geet hai. Nani had called everything precious a song: the first rain, warm rotis, the slant of afternoon light.

Meera opened her eyes. The ceiling fan spun lazy circles, its third blade wobbling as it had for two years. She still had not called the landlord. Lying still, she let the music linger. Its notes wove through the sounds of Mumbai waking outside: the vegetable vendor’s call, a school bus’s brakes, Mrs. Sharma haggling over milk prices.

The thought of calling in sick flickered, surprising her. She dismissed it, but the music stayed with her as she stepped into the cold shower. She hummed a melody she could no longer place but felt deeply.

In the mirror, her reflection showed tired eyes, not from sleeplessness but from three years at a marketing firm where days blurred into one another. At twenty-nine, Meera felt anchored to a life she had not chosen. Her dreams of writing poetry or traveling remained tucked away like old letters.

The commute to Bandra took an hour and twenty minutes, as the trains were delayed again. Pressed against the window, Meera watched Mumbai scroll by. Billboards shouted promises, half-built towers rose, and slums sprawled wider than last year. At Dadar, a young man with a guitar boarded the train. His shoes were worn, and his fingers were calloused. He played softly, almost to himself, a melody that felt like a memory of home.

The carriage grew quiet. Newspapers folded, and phones dimmed. No one clapped when he finished, but a gentle stillness held them. Meera dropped a twenty-rupee note into his case as she stepped off.

“What was that song?” she asked.

He shrugged, his eyes warm. “Something I felt this morning. It’s different every day.”

She wanted to ask more, such as what inspired it or where it came from, but the crowd swept her away.

The office was its usual hum of fluorescent lights and instant coffee. The morning meeting focused on breakfast cereal. The client wanted “authentic” yet “premium.” Meera nodded, scribbling taglines, her mind drifting to the guitarist’s hands and how his music had stilled the train.

At lunch, in the small park near the office, her mother texted: “When are you coming to Delhi? Papa misses you.”

“Soon, Mama. Maybe next month,” Meera replied, though the words felt hollow. She thought of the guitarist, playing not for applause but because the music needed to exist.

Tu meri zindagi ka geet hai. Nani had said it three months before she died, on her Delhi terrace at sunset. Meera, twenty-two then, had laughed. “What does that even mean?”

“Life sings if you listen,” Nani had said, her hand sweeping toward the fading light. “Every moment has its own note.”

Meera had not understood then. Now, wedged in the evening train, she wondered if she was beginning to.

At home, she made tea and sat by the window. The city played its evening symphony. Children shouted over a cricket game, vendors called, and neighbors’ voices carried across balconies. The radio hummed Bollywood tunes, but beneath it, Meera heard something else: intention, presence, the act of listening.

The next morning, she let the radio play through its instrumental. No guitarist appeared at Dadar, but she noticed a woman humming softly to herself. The woman’s voice threaded through the train’s rhythm. In the cereal meeting, when “authentic” came up, Meera said, “What if it’s about morning music? The kettle whistling, spoons clinking, a radio’s hum. Breakfast as a feeling.”

Her boss raised an eyebrow. “That’s different. Keep going.”

At lunch, Meera walked to Dadar station. No guitarist was there, but college students sang an old Hindi song. Their voices blended with the platform’s chaos. Strangers paused, forming a loose circle, then drifted away, carrying the moment with them.

That evening, Meera stopped at Marine Drive. The sea was gray-green, and the promenade was alive with joggers, couples, and families. Her mother called.

“Beta, you sound lighter today,” she said.

Meera smiled. “Maybe I’m listening better.”

They laughed. Her mother teased her about selling “things people don’t need.” Meera did not argue, but the words stayed with her.

She called Arjun that night, trying to explain the music she was noticing and how attention changed everything. He listened, then shifted to his lease troubles. She realized she had been speaking to herself, not him. Their half-relationship felt like another thing she had outgrown.

In the days that followed, Meera noticed more. The receptionist hummed quietly while sorting mail, a colleague’s voice softened when he mentioned his daughter, and rain tapped the office window. Even in meetings about toilet paper, she thought of the guitarist’s melody.

One Saturday, Meera took a train to Lonavala, unplanned. The carriage was quiet, except for an older man reading Marathi poetry aloud. His voice was a soft cadence. She rented a motorcycle, rode into the monsoon-damp hills, and stopped at a viewpoint over the valley. Near the parking area, musicians played tabla and harmonium. Their music rose like a prayer. Travelers gathered, listening in shared silence.

Tu meri zindagi ka geet hai.

Meera understood now. Life was not like music; it became music when you paid attention. The vendor’s call, the train’s rhythm, and a stranger’s song were all part of the score.

She stayed until sunset, then called her mother from the train. “I’m coming to Delhi next weekend,” she said, meaning it.

On Monday, at 6:47 AM, Meera let the radio’s melody fill the room. She thought of the guitarist, whose music was perhaps reaching someone else now. At work, the cereal client had rejected their pitch. Meera tried again: “Make it a morning song: kettle, spoons, voices, radio. Breakfast as connection.”

Her boss leaned forward. “That’s good. Write it up.”

For the first time in years, Meera felt excited, not for the campaign’s success but because it felt true.

That evening, she walked home slowly. She noticed the flower vendor’s careful hands, the cricket calls in the lane, and a woman singing as she hung laundry. At home, with tea in hand, Meera opened her notebook and began to write. It was not an ad but a poem, the words falling like notes.

The city’s night symphony unfolded: traffic, voices, and a distant guitar wove through it all. Meera listened, her pen moving, her heart lighter.

“You are the song of my life,” she thought, letting the words settle into the quiet.