We Will Always Love You

For me,however,Houston marked a coming of age. She helped me create an identity,separate from my parents,allowing me to assert my choices. The music of the ’70s provided the background score to my early childhood. Simon & Garfunkel,The Beatles and Bob Dylan looped through our Maruti 800 journeys and across the living room,after homework . My father’s music was my music,because I didn’t know anything else. When MTV entered our Madras home in the early ’90s,when Houston starred in The Bodyguard,I found my playlist for the first time.

As 10-year-olds with no pocket money (and no internet),we would listen to the top 10 radio shows with increasing impatience and press the red record button as soon as the RJ announced “Whitney Houston”. In Class IV,while we exchanged stickers,in Class V,we graduated to sharing mix tapes,where the “thump” of the record button introduced every song.

She was the first singer I heard on Dolby. I will always love you,the piece de resistance from The Bodyguard,boomed through the house,bounced off the wall and scared our cat. I listened to her many nights on a Walkman,hidden below the sheet. With batteries proving expensive and with rewind and fast-forward eating too much power,we would turn the cassette spools manually,with a pen,to reach her songs. Pyjama parties were spent licking Nutella and howling “raaaacing with destinyyy” from the 1988 Olympics song,Give me one moment in time. She made us feel grown up and in touch with the grand scheme of things.

Posters of Houston and Mariah Carey were the prized birthday gifts for us girls,who read Nancy Drew,Hardy Boys and made orange-ice in the freezer. If we loved their vibrato-rich voices,we also thought they were utterly beautiful. My sister,older and wiser by four years,didn’t allow me to stick their pictures in our room,deeming the women all too well-endowed. We fought over it,pulled hair,pinched elbows,but (thankfully) my sister prevailed. Mariah remained rolled in the closet and Whitney flattened under the bed.

As MTV slowly crowded out parental influences,the twee music of Michael Learns to Rock,Boyzone and Roxette submerged us. My father would often ask me which of these bands would survive a decade,let alone three. Even as a pre-teen who could barely think beyond the next episode of MASH,I knew Houston would cross the bar. She gave our generation its own singer,a singer we could recommend to our parents,a superstar we could be proud of. We marvelled at her immaculate teeth and flawless tongue,which she played like an instrument,and a voice that rang from the core of the earth.

As she slipped in and out of rehab,as her voice lost some of its bite,I grew away from her. Her songs spoke to believers — those who vouched for love and faith and hope. For teenagers,who necessarily believed in nothing,her music suddenly seemed too upbeat,too optimistic,too earnest. We now needed Alanis Morissette’s irony or Black Sabbath’s fury.

But today,every time a female artist,from the diva Celine Dion to the iconoclast Lady Gaga,hits the high note,we know Houston is to blame. With her fierce smile and dazzling voice,she gave us hope when we needed it and when we didn’t.