Let Go

“Dude, I recovered 11GB but nothing really from your iTunes folder. Sorry man. Hard-disk is fried. Can’t do much.”

I heard and swallowed. But couldn’t digest.

Back then, I had just got a job that actually paid. After taking parents out for dining, throwing some bounties at brother, buying shirts for dad and starting FD because mom asked, I lived on miserly to save up for my baby…iPod classic.

“Aare, tell me what you want engraved.”

“Engraved?”

“Check it out on their website. I am picking up from the store from SF, I could get you engraved. Your brand new first iPod.”

“Wow, that is awesome. Will write you soon.”

Still remember that conversation as if it happened yesterday. Like a mediocre, school kid I wanted my name engraved on the iPod as if it would be mistaken for somebody else’s notebook or water-bottle. It was going to be my iPod. I did come up with something, something that would always remind me of what I need to be reminded of right now.

Travelling and back packing in Europe, travelling in metros with my head rocking to the music and then suddenly checking if I still have my wallet or someone flicked it on the metro, sitting awake in the freezing, chilly nights by the sea or lake, riding on a bicycle on a sunny morning in the Black Forest, sharing one ear piece with a total stranger because the person liked the music, travelling on local trains in Mumbai hanging out on the doors and adjusting ear-ins to hear the songs, lazing on a hammock at the sea face while listening to music and wondering what if one of those coconuts decides to fall down, wondering if I could take my iPod underwater or while I swam for hours in the pool, buying two size bigger helmet so that ear-in find way inside while I ride on…all this while it was my iPod. Became like extended part of me.

May that be sharing that song with her, or may that be listening to music on full volume to escape from the world around or putting it on while I tried to study or learn something, it was always there.

And yeah, like Mr. Jobs had said, “You’ll never have to delete a song.” I didn’t have to.

German, Spanish, Russian, Marathi, Hindi, English … rock, alternative, pop, classics, trance, instru all of that is gone. Just gone.

Of the few things that I’ve lost in the last few weeks, this one pinches me the most.

Well, I still turn my iPod around and read, what I need to be reminded of,

“Life will never be prettier than it is now.”

Neo

It is not letting go that hurts but otherwise.