Devangshu Datta: Music that rings a bell

WORM'S EYE VIEW

The first time I heard Ma Tujhe Salaam, the erratic Hindi-translator in my head rendered it as Ma Tujhe Challan. The song conjured up a vision of an elderly lady receiving a challan from a traffic policeman, who kneels, hands folded reverentially, as he offers her the ticket.

This image is as persistent as the tune itself. It has even blotted out the video tableaux. Anytime Rahman's signature jingles out on a passing mobile, "Auntyji" with her white hair and granny glasses wafts up in my mind's eye. It is a strong association, almost a consensual hallucination, driven by the power of music.

Using the structured sounds of music, poetry and chants to strengthen memory is an age-old learning technique. Kids have always been taught the alphabet and multiplication tables this way.

But since sound-memory associations are powerful and involuntary, they can also be strange. For example, all Brahmo Samajis inevitably become hungry when they hear the specific songs that are always sung at the conclusion of weddings and at festivals before everyone sits down to eat.

Other Rabindrik songs have darker associations because these are sung at Brahmo shraddhas and during the cremation itself.

Members of other faiths with a strong tradition of religious music "" and that equals most faiths "" develop similar associations. Black spirituals, Gregorian chants, Vaishnav bhajans, Bach concertos, Gurbani, Qawaals; music is associated with religion and religion is associated with powerful images and emotions.

At least, in the case of religion, the music is composed to fit solemn occasions. The popularity of FM radio has led to far more randomised associations.

It's quite common now for a happy love-song to be playing at the scene of a fatal road accident. I, for one, will never hear a certain number from HAHK again without recalling blood on a shattered windscreen one summer evening at the Dhaula Kuan crossing.

The proliferation of ringtones will lead to such associations getting progressively weirder. Every cellphone user personalises ringtones. Along with SMS, ringtone downloads have proved the best revenue-earners for service telcos.

There are practical uses for ringtones but most people fiddle with them for the same reasons that they download screensavers or put up posters in office.

There is a human need to personalise the patch of space each of us occupies.

In theory, ringtones make it easier to identify a given phone, when the subscriber is in a public space where many phones might ring. In practice, people generally select from small lists and this makes differentiation impossible.

Some set more sophisticated ringtones to mark different caller-lists, for example. Others accessorise for occasion by using Iqbal while watching the Republic Day Parade and switching to Bappi Lahiri when out dancing.

Unfortunately, we carry cellphones into all sorts of situations and a corollary to Murphy's Law guarantees that the cellphone will always ring when the user is in the loo.

As this happens, over time, the preferred ring tone becomes associated with popular brands of toilet paper and soap.

If the ringtone happens to be a religious hymn or patriotic ballad, this isn't particularly appropriate. It gets worse once the ringtone starts to trigger Pavlovian responses by actually provoking the desire to perform natural functions. Once users develop strong Pavlovian reflexes, they switch ringtones.

Thus, the build-up of associations with "physical downloads" actually contributes to ringtone download-revenues by encouraging switches. But no matter how often a given individual switches, every ringtone she sets is eventually associated with bowel movements.

As mobile penetration increases, so does the prevalence of irritable bowel syndrome. In public spaces, one man's ringtone must soon become another's Pavlovian bowel movement.

When the world becomes completely networked , life will come to a standstill because everyone will be permanently resident in the loo.