Chinmayee Manjunath

When I was growing up, a lot of my time was spent writing song lyrics down. You played a tape – and later, a CD – paused it every few seconds, and scribbled the words on a sheet of paper. You tried making sense of things. You compared notes with friends. And eventually you wrote it down neatly in a book expressly dedicated to preserving lyrics. Ideally, you had it all categorised and you decorated each page. What do kids do with their time these days, I wonder.

Did anyone else have these notebooks? All of mine are packed away. I also used to write down lines from books or articles or movies, and snatches of poetry. I still have those diaries with me and turn to them often. There was something beautiful and cathartic about writing these things down. I would spend hours doing this and it brought me so much joy.

It was the act of discovery, and the element of serendipity. These days, when all you have to do is ask Google, are we losing that slight touch of magic that comes from trying to solve the unknown?

I went down this route today because I watched – and loved – The Morning Show over the weekend. The song that plays with the opening credits had me captivated but for some reason, I couldn’t find the name of it online or on the Spotify playlist. So I finally had to “ask” Google, and it turned out to be Nemesis by Benjamin Clementine. Mystery solved in 10 minutes. I am immensely grateful because I have been listening to the song non-stop, but I also miss the days you had to work a little bit harder for everything.