Looking back at the inconsequential posts of the past I have come to realize that I often start them by saying that 'I feel like writing...but I don't know what to write on', or something to that effect.

That is so bloody lame. I really need a new line.

Any suggestions?

Hmm...

There happens to be a truckload of work waiting to be finished on an urgent basis and yet I'm getting this terrible itch to blog.

But I'm clueless on what though.

Conundrums, conundrums.

Music and My Life: Part I

I was reading this blog of a friend of mine whose life has been shaped by music. He writes very well..draws you into his world but not necessarily his beliefs. But that is not a post for today.

This guy made me think of what music means to me and what's it done to my life. Frankly, it has not been much of consequence, but that still does not take away my love of music. Its not like I am hugely aware of musical history or possess a great collection of music, but I believe that I do have a good ear for music. A lot of the people around me have "got the blues" and it has sort of influenced some of my preference in music today...but I would like to start from the beginning...at least from the place where it all really started out for most of the people I know.

School Days
In school I started out as any school kid does...listening to Bryan Adams, Bon Jovi and moving onto the "cooler" music of Pink Floyd and The Doors. And like any precocious seventeen year old brat I was smug and pompous with my knowledge of music. But I did get an exposure to a lot of music not generally heard by the average 16-17 year old, upward middle-class, urban Indian. Looking back, I feel those days I didn't really listen to music...it was more about the image you projected and the coolness quotient that went with it.

A major influence for me back in those days was the music left behind on my brother's computer. Being far older to me and not having him around throughout my teens, I felt his music was the only way for me to connect him. It exposed me to music that I would never have ordinarily listened to. I got to hear a lot of Smashing Pumpkins, Blur, Nirvana, Radiohead, Elvis Costello, Jamiriquoi, Beck and assorted music of a genre that I still sometimes find difficult to reconcile my tastes with. It also provided me my first exposure to South Park and it's wonderfully vulgar songs which still run in my head once in a while. While I never really enjoyed the songs too much, I sort of forced myself to like it because it happened to be my brother's music.

Being the youngest in my extended family, I had access to lot of music that my cousins' listened to and was not ordinarily heard by our generation. I got my first taste of what I still feel is Real Rock with Woodstock 69', Grand Funk Railroad and CCR. Although, CCR came from a different source. my cousins often went to a little pub on Park Street called Someplace Else...a dark, smoke-filled pub, choc-a-block with people listening to the strains of bands playing The Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Doors, Dylan, Dire Straits and most other icons of Rock from the late Sixties to the Eighties. Among these bands was my uncle's band Hip Pocket, with their own cult-following. It was from them that I learnt about CCR.

But Someplace Else meant something else to me. For me it was more about the illusion of being a grown-up...a kid, who by virtue of hanging-out with the college-guys became a man. I was too dazzled by the environs of Someplace Else too really soak in the music of CCR and Company. That only happened once I got to college, which again is a story to be kept for later.

However, the best music that I got from my cousins was my first taste of Indian fusion music. I found it one lazy Sunday afternoon in my Mama'r Bari (maternal uncle's house) after a heavy lunch of mutton curry and rice. I was sifting through a huge stack of dusty cassettes when I came across this album called Remember Shakti with Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia. Out of sheer curiosity I played the cassette and was mildly disappointed to hear the strains of classical music coming from the speakers. I left the cassette playing and slowly I found my self getting entranced by the sound of the John McLaughlin's acoustic guitar coupled with the flute and the Indian classical arrangement. It surprised me because I never thought I'd be a one for the Indian classical sound...but this album got me hooked.

I went through this long phase in class 11 where all I listened to was fusion music. I got myself the entire Shakti discography and went mad listening to it. It was during this phase that I also discovered Indian Ocean's Kandisa album. For me, these two albums have been instrumental in developing a liking for not just Indian fusion music but also a love for the sound of the acoustic guitar in all genres of music.

In class 12, on a whim, I got my mother to buy me this album of 50 hits of Elvis Presley. I loved it! Initially, the music combined with the fact that it made me stand out in comparison to my peers' taste in music that got me hooked..but after a point it was his voice, his inimitable sound, his mannerisms, HIS VOICE! Damn!...he was The Man.

That's it for now. I've run out of steam I think. Part II will follow later on.

My Missing Swing and its Implications

Oddly enough as Shamli pointed out to me, my red swing has disappeared. I still look in that direction hoping that it it will be put up again. But I know it is just wishful thinking.

Although it has made me realize something. Nothing lasts forever (yeah I know that sounds corny). It was on one of these bus rides when the bus was making its way through Bolarum that I was thinking to myself what a lovely, sleepy village it is with it's quaint bungalows and houses. It then struck me that this might just be one of the last times I would be making this journey in my life and in all probabilty I will never know whether Bolarum will remain quaint and sleepy as it is now.

In the same vein, the newly developing houses outside college will totally destroy the view of the lake as I know of it. And this process of de-beautifying the lake is irreversible.

So I guess I was wrong in my last post. There are no constants in life. My assumption of the so-called constants are just vignettes of life that you tuck away into the recesses of your mind, believing that they will remain the same forever.