Those Were the Days My Friend - Mary Hopkins

It has been one song that I never heard the original ever for almost twenty years. The only time I heard this song being sung was when our good friend Ajanta Sircar sang it in 1992 or thereabouts, once. But she sang it so soulfully and so well that I remember it as a fine song with soul and rhythm and a melody that is not easy to forget. At about that time Ajanta had come to FTII to do a short course and I was working in Pune as well. We would frequently meet at Shobha's place those days, friends and cousins, for some weekend revelry and this one day we all met up, went all the way up, to the normally unused terrace on top of the second floor and sang songs over some wine etc till 3 in the morning. Milind sang his favorite 'Yeh raat bheegi bheegi...', Chhaya and Shubha sang a French song in tandem,  don't know what I sang but I must have because it was such an evening and Ajanta sang 'Those were the days my friend..' Of course there were so many more songs but I remember these vividly.

And so when I was thrilled at having located another favorite number of mine 'I'd die without you' by P.M. Dawn on a music site, I pondered over songs that have haunted me and escaped me. And that brought me to this song. I type in the words and Mary Hopkins appears. I listen to it and it's that magic all over again, the fragrance of some of the night flowers, moonlight, sweet wine, laughter and great company.

But of course, Ajanta sings it so much better than Mary Hopkins for me any day! Cheers to that!