👀 South Asian Gothic
#400 | Spooky winter soundtrack
It's finally a little chilly in my corner of the world. Who am I kidding? With my low cold threshold, I am freezing. I’m perpetually bundled up in a blanket, sipping all sorts of hot beverages (a great passion of mine), reading ghost stories for research (another great passion), and living the #girlmoss life as I was always destined to. And I prefer to have mood music keep me company during sojourns into the land of the dead (and the undead).
Although there's no lack of spooky music from South Asia, when I searched the internet, I found little beyond compilations of songs from Bollywood horror movies. In the course of my research, I have read scholarly works on the centrality of music in early Bollywood Gothic, for instance, Lata Mangeshkar's haunting song, "Lag ja gale" in a movie with an equally eerie title, "Woh kaun thi?"Â
But then, there are other, less obvious candidates. For instance, the mellifluous notes of Asha Bhosle's "Aaiyen Meherban" hide just a hint of something sinister lurking beneath its playful invitation. Or, take, for that matter, Pakistani musician Mehdi Maloof's recent song, "Gandi si building", which, among other strange inhabitants of the eponymous buildings, the alcoholics and the addicts, mentions how there are ghosts on the "last floor," or the whacky "Dance of the Ghosts" from Satyajit Ray's Goopy Gyne and Bagha Byne (1969) which needs no introduction.
Thus began my obsession with a playlist that has only ever existed in my head. It covers a broad range of Gothic music from South Asia, reflecting the striking variety of Gothic cultural production in this region. And since I am a compulsive playlist-maker, I made the playlist.
This is not an exhaustive list, but I’ll add tracks as I find them. And you're welcome to offer musical suggestions, especially not-Bollywood and other languages.Â
Mahasweta
Just One Thing is a playlist filled with a broad range of topics - share it with a friend who needs to curl up with a new winter read.