the decision among punjabi songs in your brown boy playlist marks the beginning of a 45 minute drive. the choice is sacred because you’ve been reminded that you become what you listen to, and surely, it must be the right pick to block out that same religious hymn your father chooses to play every morning. some times he feels a little more inspired and chooses a more modern rendition of a 400 year old prayer elaborating the fundamental principals of the sikh faith. you take your time to choose your poison. other times, he listens to a monotonous recitation, taking you back to the days when you lacked the autonomy to pull out your airpods for a different invocation of punjabi words. moments like this, it doesn’t matter what is being played. you’re just grateful for the background noise cancellation function of the latest airpods. i wonder if my dad hears the dhol thumping in my ears the same way noise cancelation is no flawless endeavor; the tablas seep past my defenses.

it’s day forty seven of taking the same route, but you’ve heard this same chanting for twenty one years. your mouth cannot help but mould into the same configurations as your father’s, a silent mime of the ritual he performs with a bellowing voice often revealed within the perimeters of his Kia. he sometimes notices the gentle movement of your lips for the few seconds he manages to play the youtube video before you lose yourself in a more vulgar rendition of the same language.

where dads played music by artists i can’t seem to name, my father’s jam was an other worldly genre. the same tunes plastered into the gaps of my childhood memories: arguments about abortion and the sanctity of life in the name of god, silent drives to the temple furthest away from our home, and unsolicted lectures about what he learned from religious school that week. but finally, i refuse to spin records of the same harmonies. i choose to purse my lips, resisting the natural mouthing of the words from my childhood. the strings of the rabab will not weave their way into my consciousness, i will bounce to the beat of the same drums that the inebriated lose themselves outside the safety of my family car.

some days, however, i still put in my airpods, push them in deeper in an assertion of my choice. i don’t choose any song. i let it be, the silence and the gentle ebbing of my dad’s hymns, a whisper of all that he is.