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I chanced upon the song quite by accident. Or… perhaps there had been a reason behind that ‘chance’ like the fact that I had been listening to an absolutely cute little girl sing Japanese songs.

This cute little girl by the way, is young Murakata Nonoka who is a Guinness World Record holder for being the ‘Youngest Solo Artist to Release an Album’. No mean feat that, considering she was three days short of her third birthday at the time.

Hmm… that must be the exact age I was when I used to clamber up on to a steel trunk (Every artists or aspiring artist needs a podium, you see!) and tried to sing, (and dance!) Ajaa re, pardesi a la Vyjayanthimala in the iconic movie Madhumati.

Enough of me. Getting back to our topic, the question pops up here too, as to how I ‘chanced’ upon young Nonochan’s songs. There’s only one answer to it: Internet Gremlins.

Don’t get the wrong idea though. When I refer to the invisible busybodies doing all the work, like throwing up practically everything related (and unrelated) to what had been on your screen recently, as gremlins, I am doing so in the best of spirits. I love them. Tell me, without them how would I even know about the umpteen things available out there, which I obviously do not need, and which are a drain on my purse?

Anyway…

That’s how these things work. You watch something or listen to something, all innocent like and before you know it, the dear gremlins (or the invisible little busybodies, all one and the same!) jump in and start their act. Everything that’s remotely connected, or unconnected for that matter, are thrown at you from all sides.

So there I was one day, scrolling away for all I was worth when this video comes up on my screen. Normally I wouldn’t have paid any attention to it, but the volume button which is normally off on my phone, was for some reason in the ‘on’ position that day, and the song started playing automatically. On hearing the first couple of lines, my forefinger, about to move things along, stopped mid air. Such a pleasing song. Mesmerised, I paused to listen. Hmm… the tune seemed familiar too.

And then suddenly I went, “Hey! I know this song!”

I had last heard this song half a century ago. Gosh, I am so old. But like I said before this is not about me. But these things creep in. After all I am the one writing it. Alright, back to the song again.

Years and years back, there was this family who visited us. I am guessing they were father’s acquaintances and were recently back from a stint in Japan. As invariably happened in such occasions those days, the parents, whom funnily enough I don’t remember at all, had their daughter, a thin bespectacled girl in two plaits of around ten or eleven years of age, sing a song for the hosts.

‘Makkinaa kaaninge makineya kokoma…” she sang in a sweet voice.

Or at least it sounded like that. Total gibberish to me, but the tune was so catchy that it stuck in my head. Father was so impressed by the girl’s song that he even had it recorded using our old tape recorder the next time we passed by the school in Kannur where she was a student. That recording (on cassette) was played again and again over the next few days, weeks and months.

‘Makkina kaaninge makineya kokama…’ I sang. And more in that vein, along with the voice on the tape. The cassette eventually decided it had had enough of being played and bid us farewell, but the tune, and lyrics, had made their residence in my head forever. Years later, the L&M heard it when he became part of my life and so did the children when they arrived one after the other.

With the internet on the scene I had even tried to find the original Japanese song that went Makkina kaaninge. But no luck in all these years. And voila! Just like that in Circa 2024, the gremlins took pity on me and threw it in my face. It sounds quite like the old song, I thought on hearing it. But, but…. the lyrics are all wrong. Is this a new version? Is it the same tune in some other language? Questions ran through my head.

I researched the song and was thrilled to find it was the VERY SAME SONG! The lyrics obviously had been sung wrong and learnt wrong too. There was no makkina and no kaaninge either anywhere in it that I could see. Nor any of the words that I heard long ago bore resemblance to the original song. The tune though was perfect.

I was thrilled. Not only because I was reunited with an old song, but also because it IS such a beautiful rendition. I found that the singer, Ayumi Ishida (She’s so pretty!) was much appreciated in her times. This particular song ‘Blue Light Yokohama’ (1969) was a huge hit as well. Many others since have sung the song too. But I like her version the best.

And guess what’s the best outcome of it all? The gremlins, bless them, have opened the floodgates to a deluge of excellent Japanese songs! And that’s the reason you find me grinning. Well technically you cannot, but you can take my word for it 😉

Here’s the link to the song for anyone who is interested:

©️ Shail Mohan 2024