My Heart Will Go On . . . In India

---

Travelling around India, I often have absolutely no idea what's going on. Each week, I try to post a new mystery - something I saw that I just don't get. You online readers may have a better chance discovering the mystery with your speedy online connection than I have while trying to communicate my questions here in India. Here is this week's mystery:

When I first heard it, I didn't think much of it.

Walking down a street in Jaiselmir, Rajastan, I passed yet another street tout, this guy selling flutes. He played a familiar song that I knew well - but I didn't quite place it, trying instead to ignore him so that he would ignore me (it's worth a hope).

By the time we got to Goa, the tune was inescapable. Walking down the beach in Arambol, dozens of touts roamed the streets selling flutes and drums. And all the flute sellers knew the same tune.

"That sounds an awful lot like that song..." I thought at first. "But it can't be." It seems so out of place in the warm tropical Indian city or beach, so far from the iceburg-strewn waters of the Atlantic Ocean. But eventually it became unistakable.

The Titanic Song - My Heart Will Go On, by Celine Dion.

I've heard it played on the lips of innumerable flute touts, as well as in CD shops playing Indian music. And tonight, I heard it played live at my restaurant, Brown Bread Bakery in Varanasi. Amidst a dozen or so traditional Indian songs on the flute, the unmistakale tune brought me back to that great passion that ended so heartbrakenly.

So is this tune a traditional Indian melody that got borrowed to put Leo and Kate's heartbreak into song, or an instantly recognizable tune by foreigners that Indian musicians use to relate to tourists?

---