How my father turned a Led Zeppelin song into a lifelong love affair with music
When I was pregnant, everyone had advice. Eat this. Don’t eat that. Sleep more. Walk more. Stay calm. Stay active. It felt like every person
When I was pregnant, everyone had advice. Eat this. Don’t eat that. Sleep more. Walk more. Stay calm. Stay active. It felt like every person I met had a new rule for me to follow. But there was one suggestion I actually loved: listen to lots of music. The baby can hear it too, they said. Finally, advice I could get behind. So I did! Read Full Story I spent months convincing myself that my daughter was secretly soaking up the good stuff—some Led Zeppelin, a little Crosby, Stills & Nash, maybe even a carefully measured dose of Nine Inch Nails. In my head, I was raising a future classic-rock connoisseur: a tiny human who would one day nod appreciatively at a guitar solo, debate the greatest rock albums of all time, and understand why turning the volume up is sometimes the only correct response. Life, of course, had other plans. Today, at just over a year old, her favourite song is APT, a stark reminder that children arrive with tastes of their own. But with Father’s Day and World Music Day being celebrated on the same day this year, I find myself reflecting on something deeper than the music my daughter listens to. My thoughts keep returning to the person who first taught me how to listen in the first place—the man responsible for the soundtrack of my childhood and, in many ways, the person who shaped my relationship with music itself: my father, Saurabh Kalita. My dad Long before playlists, streaming algorithms, and endless recommendations, there was my father introducing me to songs, artists, and sounds that would quietly become a part of who I am.
The music I love today didn’t appear out of nowhere; it was passed down, one song at a time. My father’s relationship with music began long before mine. He grew up in Shillong alongside his three siblings, in a city where music is far more than entertainment— it is woven into the fabric of everyday life. The four siblings carried that spirit into their own little band. My father played the violin, my pehi (aunt) was the singer, and my khuras (uncles) provided the rhythm and melody on the guitar and tabla. My father with his siblings performing in Delhi. Years later, I would end up there too. Because my parents worked in Guwahati and believed the schools in Meghalaya offered a better education, I was sent to live with my grandparents in Shillong. I attended Loreto Convent, while my parents made the journey every weekend to see me. I was a solitary child. While other children played outside, I found myself drawn to a different kind of playground. My grandmother kept these steel briefcase-like boxes filled with cassette tapes that belonged to my father and his three siblings. I would spend hours opening those boxes, pulling out cassettes, staring at the artwork, reading the names of bands I didn't yet know, arranging everything carefully before putting them back. I didn't know it then, but those boxes contained the soundtrack for the rest of my life. One weekend, when I was around 10 years old, my father was visiting Shillong. We had a small Philips single-cassette player at home, the kind of device that today would look more at home as a vintage prop than a music system.
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