‘A flight of fancy on a windswept field
Standing alone my senses reeled’
-Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
I think I was in 8th std when I heard this song for the first time, that is, when I was consciously aware that I’d heard it. (My father’s interests in bands like the Beatles, Queen, Dire Straits and Floyd guaranteed that I would be subjected to music that had foundations built with guitars and percussions; not just plain showbiz and pretty lads). Back in the days when Bryan Adams used to be a favourite and when my music choices thrived on certain other boyish bands whose names I won’t even bother mentioning now, Pink Floyd was evolution thrown at me with a huge thrust. ‘Learning to Fly’ was the second song on ‘A momentary lapse of reason’, which was this rusted old TDK tape that my dad had recored in Dec, 87 in one of those shops that you could record music in for just a little dough and time (the latter being available in decent quantities and hence canceling out any lack of the former whatsoever)
(From here on, you, my dear reader will, in all probability, experience an undeniable sense of déjà vu. The sentences in inverted commas are mostly from my favourite posts written by you. It shouldn’t, honestly speaking, take a bloggiversary to hand out credits but such is life and a spectator can hand out a thunderous applause only when the curtains drop and it’s the end of Act 1. )
Maybe the year and the month had chalked out this brilliant plot amongst themselves, maybe there is something remarkable about being able to hear a cassette that had the unmistakable buzz of age and time or maybe, I just needed a change from the drab, stark, empty music that I’d been listening to. You’ll know that you’ve heard a good song, if whenever you type out the words of the song or try to remember them; the music comes to your head along with the words. Lyrics never sound complete without the rhythm.''There's a distinct nip in the air and the gentle breeze rippling the lake, sets its waters into a steadily rhythmic movement, in parallel with my thoughts.'' Leads.Bass.Rhythms. Drums. Sound Effects. Vocals…
That’s probably one of the reasons why I don’t fancy the idea of mixing poetry with lyrics. Poetry, in most cases, is this abstract structure of words…lyrics, on the other hand, have this pact with music. I’m strictly talking about bands like Floyd here, not instrumentals. ''Accompanied with the growing up is the inevitable sense of loss. A sense of having left something precious behind''…but why regret when there is so much more before us…when ''there’s a full day of possibilities'' and ''it’s a magical world, Hobbes, ol’ buddy.''
But, this is not about how my choice of musical artists has changed in the last few years. No… it’s about marking things. You see, I have this maddening desire to stop for a while and catch my breath…to survey words that were written…to recapitulate thoughts that were thought…to acknowledge discoveries that were initiated/discovered and to put a book mark in the book I’m currently reading; not remember the page number or fold the page end or anything book-vandalizing and silly of that sort but to actually put this nice looking book mark in the book so I can open it anytime I want and catch hold of some of the strings that were lost, forgotten…so I can have this radical conversation with ghosts from the past.
Q: So are all these substitutes, or is this amalgam the real thing?
It’s almost too crazy a thought sometimes, how words can make such a big difference to your life. An interwoven land of personal touches, moments captured on a url and before you know it, reading words here is even more gratifying than reading them somewhere else. ''It's not true that we live only one life; if we can read, we can lead as many lives, and as many kinds of lives as we want.''
There are times when you wake up from a dream and it takes you the night’s silence and a cursory look at your bedroom’s ceiling fan, rotating periodically as if it has been doing just that from time immemorial to decipher that what you’ve woken up from, was a dream and not the other way round. The line demarcating the boundary is but a thin one. If life is about experiencing then isn’t that what we do even in our dreams? The most blissful sleeps are those that you have after having this absolutely excruciating day. Dreamless…quiet sleep. But there are others… when you wake up after having a nice dream and don’t feel the difference… you carry on with life as if it were a continuous, spontaneous package.
A: Certain things are inherent in the life that I’m living now. This amalgam is maintaining a balance between things and I’m grateful for that…
Because… ''I do exist. How you ask? Well, when you ask the question, refer to me by name, and I'll exist. I exist in the minds of my friends, of people I've met''
''And it is palpable to most that life is naught but strife and that the human spirit needs a beacon to guide it onwards.''
What a comfort to be able to learn from other people’s mistakes and not your own…to be able to walk in the stars and let others walk in the pot holes for you…to have a catcher in the rye in handy…and I love the visits but there is no need for any undue concern, doc…
''Together, temporal and spatial separation help you cleanse your doors of perception, so everything appears as it is. Time and distance are like a burst of fresh air that dispel the smokescreen formed by jumpiness, excitement and anger that are a residue of the turbulence in your life.''
Most of the time we love things because of comparison, relative grading…retrospect.
That is why evolution is such a fascinating process…from cyano bacteria to man…
From Backstreet Boys to Bryan Adams to Mukesh to Kishore Kumar to Pink Floyd to The Beatles to Vai to Satriani to Mclaughlin and then to Shakti.
(I do have the rule of the thumb and guitar pro, you know:-) )
''This morning, as I walked along Penny Lane, listening to Penny Lane on my discman, Penny Lane was in my ears and in my eyes. And for a few minutes, when the sun was shining, there I was, beneath the blue suburban skies.''
And so I looked at the pictures…felt like I was the one who’d been to Liverpool…
''Impressions.... they creep in, unnoticed, unannounced. They make us what we are; they make us believe what we believe. Perhaps it is only for the best.''
''I have always wanted to experience frenzied pleasure, one that inspires you, fills you with a million words for the while that it lasts. Like violets. Electricity. Caramel. Champagne. Free fall. Dizzy.''
And so when we were having this lovely time together…us and them… and the bulb decided to blow a fuse, I decided to replace the bulb with a custom made lamp shade, with a 15 Watt Bulb (As Rincewind told me, candles are distracting…such a beautiful blue flame…always the last to go out) so that it looked prettier…(Yeah, we care for ambience…sure we do…us philistines)
''I have one-second images flashing before my eyes, which I observe and ignore at will. They are enough to trigger a million memories, which lead to a million more. And when I get sick of thinking, I switch to playing songs inside my head.''
So this is it…the end of a tribute. I will now raise a toast to the blogs I’ve known…(spoon tapping glass) to the people who have been reading my rants and commenting on them, to those who still read them, to some of them who don’t, to those who do but don’t comment, to those who are reading them now, to quotes, to seasons, to enthusiasm, to mutual back thumps, to dedications, to acquaintances, to friends, to brothers, to love, to life, to death, to pleasure, to time…to happiness being a warm gun…
''That’s the thing about beauty. Sometimes it just rushes at you with so much force that you don’t even have time for thought. You just let it fill you up and suddenly there is no room for anything else.''
cogitated thoughts
Some posts are best written on the other side of 21st March 2005. In the month LONG, excruciatingly painful process of writing exams that were pretty okay, if not bursting with brilliance and breezy scores, there have, of course been innumerable instances when thoughts could have been cogitated and some others when the areas of ‘physical’ or mathematical woes could have been cautiously treaded on. But, fortunately the author of this blog firmly believes in establishing the fact that the 12th std Board Exams for the academic year 2004-05 are things of the past and on no account, can any queries/solicitude regarding the aforementioned issue expect any thing but a severe shake of the head and a hard, long frosty nosed stare.
As you may have observed, most of my posts over the last year have been written after a couple of academic pursuits and about the celebrations that followed. It is but natural for me to thus, embark on this journey by presenting a narrative of the course of events that followed 6:30 P.M on the 21st. After taking down a small list of some of the books that I should read with recommendations from my dear grinning Mephistopheles, my foremost desire was to go and park myself in Select but on discovering that it closed at 6, Blossoms it had to be. I rummaged around for a blissful two hours there and then met my dad who suggested we take packed dinner home. It was, an enjoyable day to say the least.
It’s a great feeling – having to do nothing at all unless I want to (Woo Hoo for Shamanth). I think, that there is nothing but concrete, satisfactory, heart rendering joy involved in being able to hear Joe Satriani on my lovely computer once I’ve come back from the exam hall, flung my bag in the most farthest corner of my room and am turning the pages of a somewhat ancient and dilapidated looking Catch-22 that my aunt has kindly lent to me for the 3rd time since it takes a while for blundering buffoons like me to get used to crazily out of the world writing like that. The deliciously scrumptious icing on the cake has the following ingredients:
1) A strangely pleasing knowledge that in all probability I don’t have to write a Boar-ing exam tomorrow or ever again.
2) I’m finally going to complete reading Catch-22 and have full confidence that it’ll manage to find a place amongst some of my favourites.
3) Joe Satriani is coming to Bangalore on 17th May.
Almost all the time, we tend to anticipate events and things, attaching higher happiness quotients to them than they truly deserve; But, Calvin’s dad has something to say on this subject and I heartily offer him my assent, “You know, Calvin, sometimes the anticipation of some things is more fun than the thing itself once you get it.” (Things like Knopfler, of course, are anomalies in this well-planned scheme of things).
I could have planned it all out more thoroughly, waited for the right company, the right frames, the right scenes and the right celebrations but there are things that are best done at the spur of the moment. Reading Catcher for the first time, playing Dear Prudence in my head when I was sitting in the auto that was taking me home from my exam hall with special emphasis to the lovely bass and feeling the yayy-exams-are-over-ecstasy that I once mentioned, closing my eyes while listening to Al di Meola’s Mediterranean Sundance, feeling happy for Father Stone for seeing Him in the fire balloons, discovering the book I’d been looking for in some corner of Blossoms after I’d been searching for it for about an hour, feeling sad for a dead raccoon in a modified comic strip sent to me in the form of a card ; because the one time that the beauty of any thing really hits you is undoubtedly the first time. Even going through the sequence of events again, trying to narrow down its effect to words or trying to reproduce it for the benefit of your blog isn’t the same. There are feelings, that are deeper than the written or for that matter even spoken word; provoked in you so that you can experience them in a particular way, completely only once and so I may be forgiven if I tend to be a little capricious in doing things some times.
When you bungee jump, there is this part right after the initial horrifying, ear splitting, oh-hell-my-intestines-are-finally-giving-way-to-gravity screams; when you bobble up and down and can see the sky stretched out infinitely, beneath your feet. All your screams come to this stagnant, abrupt stop and you are reduced to a overpowering silence; the sort of silence one experiences when he/she is suspended by a cord in mid air, with the sky beneath his/her feet. You see, its about clouds, losing yourself, free fall, gravity, feeling cool breezes hitting you at high velocities, room for space…. space for you.
Technically speaking, the time when I can actually sit back and view life with a Van Gogh-esque, ‘aha!’ is still a far way off. The closely spaced entrance tests, scheduled to take place stubbornly in the next two months, guarantee that I shall not get a full fledged bite of the ‘aha’. But this is now and I’m content with just the aroma.
''For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed''-Gibran
As you may have observed, most of my posts over the last year have been written after a couple of academic pursuits and about the celebrations that followed. It is but natural for me to thus, embark on this journey by presenting a narrative of the course of events that followed 6:30 P.M on the 21st. After taking down a small list of some of the books that I should read with recommendations from my dear grinning Mephistopheles, my foremost desire was to go and park myself in Select but on discovering that it closed at 6, Blossoms it had to be. I rummaged around for a blissful two hours there and then met my dad who suggested we take packed dinner home. It was, an enjoyable day to say the least.
It’s a great feeling – having to do nothing at all unless I want to (Woo Hoo for Shamanth). I think, that there is nothing but concrete, satisfactory, heart rendering joy involved in being able to hear Joe Satriani on my lovely computer once I’ve come back from the exam hall, flung my bag in the most farthest corner of my room and am turning the pages of a somewhat ancient and dilapidated looking Catch-22 that my aunt has kindly lent to me for the 3rd time since it takes a while for blundering buffoons like me to get used to crazily out of the world writing like that. The deliciously scrumptious icing on the cake has the following ingredients:
1) A strangely pleasing knowledge that in all probability I don’t have to write a Boar-ing exam tomorrow or ever again.
2) I’m finally going to complete reading Catch-22 and have full confidence that it’ll manage to find a place amongst some of my favourites.
3) Joe Satriani is coming to Bangalore on 17th May.
Almost all the time, we tend to anticipate events and things, attaching higher happiness quotients to them than they truly deserve; But, Calvin’s dad has something to say on this subject and I heartily offer him my assent, “You know, Calvin, sometimes the anticipation of some things is more fun than the thing itself once you get it.” (Things like Knopfler, of course, are anomalies in this well-planned scheme of things).
I could have planned it all out more thoroughly, waited for the right company, the right frames, the right scenes and the right celebrations but there are things that are best done at the spur of the moment. Reading Catcher for the first time, playing Dear Prudence in my head when I was sitting in the auto that was taking me home from my exam hall with special emphasis to the lovely bass and feeling the yayy-exams-are-over-ecstasy that I once mentioned, closing my eyes while listening to Al di Meola’s Mediterranean Sundance, feeling happy for Father Stone for seeing Him in the fire balloons, discovering the book I’d been looking for in some corner of Blossoms after I’d been searching for it for about an hour, feeling sad for a dead raccoon in a modified comic strip sent to me in the form of a card ; because the one time that the beauty of any thing really hits you is undoubtedly the first time. Even going through the sequence of events again, trying to narrow down its effect to words or trying to reproduce it for the benefit of your blog isn’t the same. There are feelings, that are deeper than the written or for that matter even spoken word; provoked in you so that you can experience them in a particular way, completely only once and so I may be forgiven if I tend to be a little capricious in doing things some times.
When you bungee jump, there is this part right after the initial horrifying, ear splitting, oh-hell-my-intestines-are-finally-giving-way-to-gravity screams; when you bobble up and down and can see the sky stretched out infinitely, beneath your feet. All your screams come to this stagnant, abrupt stop and you are reduced to a overpowering silence; the sort of silence one experiences when he/she is suspended by a cord in mid air, with the sky beneath his/her feet. You see, its about clouds, losing yourself, free fall, gravity, feeling cool breezes hitting you at high velocities, room for space…. space for you.
Technically speaking, the time when I can actually sit back and view life with a Van Gogh-esque, ‘aha!’ is still a far way off. The closely spaced entrance tests, scheduled to take place stubbornly in the next two months, guarantee that I shall not get a full fledged bite of the ‘aha’. But this is now and I’m content with just the aroma.
''For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed''-Gibran
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