Actions, reactions

Communication has been SUCH a BIG deal EVERYTIME.

There are dozens of instances when you've tried to say something in a certain manner, out of fear of TONS of things, but it's always perceived differently.

I FEEL it's SO MUCH EASIER to just say what you have to say, in a nice, CLEAN, CLEAR manner, and all's good with the world. Everybody understands you, everybody reciprocates the way you want them to. Do not have to use the roundabout way.

Don't be scared.

Fools.

-V

Confused, bored and incoherent

I was reminded of this song, the first ever I wrote and composed for Quasar, today. The circumstances around which I wrote it were pretty chaotic to say the least. But it did make me understand what I REALLY wanted to talk about, or express.

"Getting There"

Just another phase, another moment in time
wasn't really worth that sorry little rhyme
Wanna get these thoughts out of my head
Being out of sync with myself, now I'm not dead

And suddenly the wave hits me,
Can't control this intensity

Now the pain's flowing through my veins,
Am I feeling all that you want me to.. is it the same?
Wanna get away from this feeling, it's never ending
Running until I find the real ending, I'm getting there.

Another moment when I'm drawn close,
The next thing I know, I'm on the road I chose
Wanna get past this misery and this confusion
You give me a tough choice, but I want a solution

And everything turns into darkness,
enter the demons from my nest

Now the pain's flowing through my veins,
Am I feeling all that you want me to.. is it the same?
Wanna get away from this feeling, it's never ending
Running until I find the real ending, I'm getting there.

Give me some time to think, I need to realize..
Need to understand what I'm going through,
Sitting here and I am thinking nothing..
Tell me how do I continue?

Am I blindfolded at this time?
Can I really see the light?

Now the pain's flowing through my veins,
Am I feeling all that you want me to.. is it the same?
Wanna get away from this feeling, it's never ending
Running until I find the real ending, I'm getting there.

--------------------------------------------------------

There ends my chagrin. Interpretations are welcome.

There are a couple of things which I've been keeping tabs on from sometime. I am in a position to almost make a decision about one of them, but I think it will require another month or so. Do not want to rush in at this moment and create problems.

Met some pals over the weekend, found a cockroach in a dish, almost ate non-vegetarian food, saw a movie, played Age of Empires, took a nice long walk, helped a couple of friends, out and out nice weekend. Not gonna ask for more :D

More stuff to follow.. keep guessing dolts.

-V

Conversations with GOD.

I have heard of that title before, I don't know when/where/how. But I've heard of it, and it made sense to use it here.

It's been funny how the past few days have been going. I have this habit of just standing silent in front of the prayer hall @ my place, talking .. yes, talking for a couple of minutes and THEN going to bed.

The funny thing here is, I didn't have this habit before.

So.. I talk, I talk about what I want, I talk about what I want to do the next day, I talk about almost anything and everything which might seem to be present in my mind at that point of time. It somehow eases the mind, puts it to rest, gives me a sense of calm which I haven't really felt before. It's not gay, don't even think about it.

To top it all, touchwood.. where's that desk of mine.. ah! There. Done. To top it all, the day goes like I want it to go, I feel in control of myself. I feel ready to take on the world. It's a "relatively" new feeling, and I am living it. It feels nice.

Another day will start tomorrow, and it will eventually end. Things will happen again, things will be nice, things will start to get better than nice, and it will be the best someday.

Before I lose track and get even more confusing... Over and out chaps and chapesses.

-V

How far are we taking Independence?

It's interesting to see the mindset of people these days.

It's very interesting to see that there is a general trend of westernization, a more conscious brand sense, commercialization.

It's also extremely interesting to notice, that the "Indian" in people generally seems to be going out of the window.

Take the Times of India publication for example. Nothing against you guys FYI, this is just my opinion. Bangalore Times has to be the joke of the century. Especially when it comes to the Page 3 section. Who the heck cares who these people are? How in the world are they even making a difference to society? By "Partying", "Letting their hair down", "binging" etc? You must be kidding me.

The above stuff means that I do read it, I do read Bangalore Times. I am not being a hypocrite here when I am saying this, but I read it because of it's mindless stupidity which gives me entertainment or more reasons to point out flaws and generally point out everyday to folks who think alike about how things are changing.

Which brings me to Independence.. how are we being Independent? Are we being "Independent" when it comes to making decisions? Are we being "Independent" when it comes to representing India and our glorious culture which has now almost been laid to rest because of these toddlers who'd do anything to get on to a newspaper? Are we being "Independent" enough to understand that Bureaucracy exists at grass-root levels and we do everything we can to counteract it everyday without realizing?

Representing "Independent" India, is by standing up and being counted, is to do something which will make a difference to society. I slowly am getting the feeling, that there's so much of "broad-mindedness" getting into our culture, ( it is good, but it's not supposed to be misinterpreted ), we are losing track of what/who exactly we represent.

The term : "Being Broad-Minded" is to accept all possibilities in life and make decisions based on the most practical/logical/feasible choices. It's NOT in anyway to become an alien in your own country/state/district/city whatever. Respect the culture, tradition.. the whole deal which comes with it. These are our roots, this is who we are. Let's not make monkeys out of ourselves by being somebody we aren't, and we are never going to be. Let's live and experience life originally, let's be tolerant. Let's respect our kith and kin. Let's show the true meaning of being Indian.

Reality people, feel mother earth. Get those feet on the ground.. life will definitely be more pleasant. Nobody needs to fake it.

-V

Random Rantings...

"The door is locked now but it's opened if you're true
If you can understand the me, then I can understand the you"

I heard these lines sometime back.. and it's surprising that I have actually never mentioned about it in my blog. For those who don't know where I got these lines from, I won't tell you.

There's a special emphasis on the definite article here.. "The" you, "The" me. Makes perfect sense. In short, the door can open only if there's a lot of understanding, and this isn't JUST understanding, but understanding "THE" essence, "THE" individual, "THE" person, what makes "THE" person what he/she is.

BUT, there's another side to this. I don't necessarily agree that this whole process is 2 way. For example, if you can understand "THE" me, then it doesn't necessarily mean that I can understand "THE" you right? :D. Wow, this is going from serious to funny :) You don't see the joke here? Fly a kite.

I am going to go for a long drive now. It's going to be fun :)

Not until I finish this though.

Heard some stories lately, lots of fantastic surprising moments, unexpected twists/turns .. lots of Masala. Thinking about this, no matter how serious the situation was, I tend to kind of laugh, so does the protagonist. The protagonist is cuckoo anyway. But for once, it had every ingredient of a Hindi movie. You know.. there might be tons of situations - for which there might be lots of outcomes. Almost all the time, you think of 3-4 possible outcomes and NONE of the 3-4 ever happen! It's always something different! It's like the big guy on top is orchestrating every single thing happening on this planet! This situation was one of those ..

Wayanad will happen sometime in the last week of August. The snaps look beautiful, a nice getaway for 2-3 days, though I will miss people here.

-V

PS: Not like I won't blog until I come back from Wayanad.

Words

I decided to pen down some words which describe me ( in no particular order), I will add as the years pass by:

1) Intellectual.

2) Smart.

3) Committed.

4) Frank.

5) Straight Forward.

6) Cuckoo.

7) Musically conscious.

8) Passionate.

9) EXTREMELY Ambitious.

10) Impersonator/Imitator - If I want to.

11) Values relationships.

12) Cares.

13) Expressive.

14) Humourous/Funny.

15) Emotional, about certain things. And no, it's not gay.

16) Narcissistic.

17) Gloat-er.

18) WINNER. Don't like to lose. IN ANYTHING.

19) Sportsman. You name it, I play it. AND DAMN WELL TOO.

20) All-rounder.

This is THE template to create ME. I am sure nobody will come quite close, but anyway.. this is for MY reference, the rest of you can suck an egg.

-V

So.. what's the deal?

I was going to write about these few people I've met/seen who come from outside Bangalore, who make this their place and crib about how great their city is. I figured, that there are a lot more people who are heavily putting these kinda people in their places and I didn't need to do that on my own, once again.

Instead, let's talk about a few other things.

Quasar's on an indefinite hiatus. So, there's a new band in the making, comprising all the members of Quasar ( except the lead guitarist who's off to the US ), and Shalini on the bass, and she is kick ass. One of the best in Bangalore. My role has slightly changed now, I am going to be doing a little bit of rhythm guitar work, and doing main vocals. We jammed for this first time today, and the fact that there was a sense of familiarity already with Shalini, ( since she had already jammed with Quasar and appeared on quite a number of shows for us too ), helped things fall into place pretty easily.. we jammed on Dream Theater's "As I Am" - a very "in your face" kinda song, complicated to pick up, and it just FELL into place... lots of work to do yet, but the signs are very good! We should be debuting @ the September Sunday Jam.

Little annoying character I met over the weekend, the things he did to get a woman's attention and upstage another guy while at it, he thought he was being extremely funny, I don't think the woman or the other guy concurred with that view. Although, the woman seemed to be laughing, a little too much, for things which didn't even seem "laughable". Bah, the things people do.

It's interesting sometimes, where I feel that I've actually developed a bond with someone, and from what it seems like, the bond seems to be developing from the other end as well. It's quite funny how people can just play down some of the decisions or some of their actions, which otherwise might seem surprising. It would never be easy for me to play down something which has led me to develop a bond for somebody. "Something" could be the duration of this bonding, the number of you're in touch, loads of things. But hey.. that could just be the way I function. I guess the world's weird on it's own, there's no need to complicate matters further.

Life's available as a challenge in so many ways, be it professionally or personally. It might be difficult to face these challenges, but that's life. You face up to it, or you perish. Survival of the fittest and all that .. ref. the Darwin fella.

-V

Waiting for the day to end..

Ever had one of those days.. where it actually starts with amazingly positive anticipation and ends up amazingly BROCOLLI-ish? Why am I saying that? Because the blasted day left a real BAD TASTE in the mouth!

This was supposed to be my band's farewell gig, our lead guitarist is moving to the US. We were preparing for this, from quite a while now. This = Freedom Jam.

We are all set to go, our slot's at 8:20 PM in the evening, the programme's actually 1 hour behind schedule - so our slot was GOING to be @ 9:20 PM.

We got there @ 5 PM sans our drummer, who had some personal matters to attend to. The whole place looks superb, 3 different stages and the ground's SUPERBLY muddy and sloshed, thanks to all the rain pouring down over the past few days..

We get a call at around 6 PM from our drummer saying that he met with an accident, ( nothing happened to him.. thank god ) and the guy who banged into him - who incidentally, jumped a signal, broke his jaw and was lying in the hospital AND he belongs to a clan filled with local rowdies who are out to make a quick buck.

So we rush all the way from Palace Grounds to Southend Circle, pay off the family, visit the cop's station blah blah blah... and all's supposed to be rosy? NO.

What now.. the drummer's servant maid tries to commit suicide because her brother apparently beat her up. And how does she decide to do it? She drinks surgical acid which is @ the drummer's place.. when his wife wasn't looking. Super eh? How BAD can a day get? Wait.. it got worse.

So, we didn't play @ Freedom Jam, we didn't have a send off gig for our lead guitarist. So, I am obviously depressed, and I want to unwind by hanging around with my pals. I give a call to a couple of them, who were still @ Freedom Jam, and they decided to get to my end of town to have dinner.

I got back home, freshened up, got out of the house, to the end of the road, I am about to get to the dinner place. So what now.. we were supposed to be having dinner and end the day on a high note? NO.

I got to the end of the road, gave one of my pals a call. Happily enough, 2-3 of them are drunk ( not the one I spoke to on the phone ) and they wanted to get to Lavelle Road to eat Pizzas and then come to dinner this side of town. 8:30 PM - very likely eh?

I obviously didn't go, so what am I doing? I am venting right now.

When I actually look back on the day now, and especially this last episode.. I don't understand this point of getting drunk. These so called "friends" of mine, who were happy having a laugh, living life nice and hard, playing a lot of sports etc. This CHANGE - smoking and drinking, something which I do not do, even though I play for a Rock 'n Roll band, and I am "SUPPOSED" to be doing this because I play for one - I just don't get the motivation behind this "HABIT" of their's.

What's the point? Getting drunk on 1 day out of 365 is just about ok, but 2 in 2? You must be kidding me.. has your life gone out of control THAT MUCH? What happened to the nice image around 6 years back? This isn't "COOL", it's absolutely DISGRACEFUL. Think about it, you guys are just screwing your own lives... in the name of being "COOL". Shit, I can't despise this fact enough!

Manchester United just won the Community Shield. Something to cheer about.. for me.

-V