THOUGH NOT quite the quintessential soccer mom, I do get roped in frequently to drop and pick my teenage daughter and her friends to and from school. I always look forward to these ’driver’ duties. These car rides provide me with small peeks into the world of the very young. It is on these drives that I learn about the latest trends in music, clothes, and books. I learn what is ’hot’ and what is not, what is ’in’ and what is ’out’.

Usually, the more I learn about their young world the more I wonder at how the world has changed since the days I use to peddle six kilometers to my school. Where we had the home stitched uniform and the simple, bought-once–a-year school shoes, while this lively group in my car finds new ways everyday to glam up their school uniform, has great hair styles and some make up too. They stretch the meaning of black shoes to include all kind of footwear that in my school days would have definitely earned me a detention.

When they ask me to increase the volume of the music on the radio, I brace myself for ear shattering blasts and wait for them to get tired of it so that my ears can have some relief. I marvel at the ease, with which they chat with their teachers and the easy informality that defines the teacher-student relationship these days. At such times I wonder if my own mother felt the same when I was growing up. Did my school days underline for her, the differences with her days of walking long miles to school with her siblings? Did my school skirts remind her how times had changed since her days of wearing the salwar-kameez to school?

Then the other day, something happened in the car that changed my thinking. On the way back from an art class we were listening to Hindi songs on FM channel. Actually, I was listening as the occupants of the rear seat were busy chatting about their school day. As the opening bars of Atif Aslam’s popular song Meri Kahani came on, there was a sudden silence in the car. Then all of them screamed together for me to turn up the volume. I sat in bemusement as they all sang the song together. They knew every single line, every word of the song. I was surprised at the enthusiasm, with which they sang the song, the intensity with which they identified with Aslam’s song about the days of childhood. I was amazed at how these young boys and girls, not yet past their fifteenth birthday, were identifying with the singers memories of his childhood.

As the song ended, I commented on how lovely the simple lyrics were and how they reminded me of my childhood. "What", was the chorus from the rear seat. "My childhood," I repeated( why does it always surprise children to learn that their parents too had a childhood once!). I went on to tell them about the song that used to make me nostalgic about my childhood days. "Woh kagaz ki kashti, woh baarish ka paani," in Jagjit Singh’s soulful voice was the song that used to do for me what Atif’s was doing for this bunch. I hummed a few lines for them and was met with a "whatever" ( must be my singing I am sure).

My mind went again and again to the near identical emotions expressed by the two artists. The references to the magical times spent with ’nani’ (maternal-grandmother), to the prized possessions of childhood, to the lazy days spent playing with friends, were the same in the two songs. The reference to ’nani’ made me think of my own mum, her childhood, her parents and the songs of her times. It came as no surprise to me that one of her favorite song has been, ’Bachpan ke din bhi kya din the, udtey phirtey titli ban ke…." The same images of the carefree days of childhood, of the absence of worries and the ability to experience pure joy in the smallest of life’s offerings are there in these three songs spread over three generations. They tie us, my mother, me and my daughter in a bond of shared feelings and emotions.

I spent the rest of the day lost in my own reveries. I came to the realisation that while I had been busy focusing on the difference between my young passengers and myself I had completely lost sight of how similar we all are. Times change, the outer trappings change, the hair styles and the clothes change, the music and the dances change but, sometimes, the more things change the more they remain the same