Just celebrate with me

Yesterday..28th of May 2009 was the happiest day of my life till date. Don't ask for reasons, it was. Just celebrate with me. One day this day might go into my biography or something...who knows? 

At 3.50 p.m. I was the happiest person on earth. Don't know why, but such a simple thing as that made me feel so. So just wanna announce this to the world via the internet. I don't really have best friends and all...just that every one is at the same level for me. So I got to share this with someone so I thought why not put it on the blog.

Our choices determine our life right? What if all our choices are 100% unbiased? Wouldn't it be great? We can actually design our life. Many a times I'm frustrated...i keep asking myself Y can't I do things that I actually want to do? I believe almost everyone reading this blog is bound by such stupid laws..but I don't know if it's me, but this whole disappointment happens to me in a lot of different ways. At one time, there is perfect contentedness and a big smile on my heart, and the next second...I'm broken into pieces. Then as usual, times comes into my life, and eventually brings me back to normal. I've yelled inside... why me always?! Or does this happen to everyone too? I keep pondering...

I want to talk about some social topics next, and try to justify for that from my point of view. So please keep checking. 

Bye for now... 

Taj Mahal's Beauty

Tourism is an interesting phenomenon... it makes or breaks some places in the world.Take the sleepy town of Roswell for example. It reached it's epitome of fame due to the rumour that there was a space ship recovered from there. So is India a noticeable victim of tourism. We have the natural tendency to just look at strange stuff in the name of tourism. I can't blame them...and it ain't their fault too. So I detest going on tours and that too on a bus with so many people around. My idea of an ideal tour has only me and my bike or my car in it. Solitude is what I look for in a vacation tour. I can just use that moment of solitude to breathe in deeply and even get myself some personal space. I can still remember how I suffered with headache during the last big family trip.

But there are places that I wanted to see. Like the Elora caves if I'm correct, has the cave drawings of old Indians and all. One more spot on my wish list was the Taj Mahal...not because I liked it, but to just stand next to it and feel proud about it. In my view point, it's a representation of Indian art rather than love. For love, you don't need hundreds and hundreds of artisans and workers. A rose or a sweet kiss on the forehead can do more than that.

My dad used to go on official trips to Delhi. But my mom was kinda hesitant to ask him to take us too. One fine day. however, she gathered the guts to ask my dad, and ya he said OK. So I started charging my camera batteries and was checking if I had enough tape for the trip. After a three day travel (I enjoyed that part more than anything), we reached Delhi. We were in a nice cozy room. I looked out of the window then...when I was 14 or so.. I could see air conditioners, and one more huge box hanging from a window. So I thought 'maybe due to extreme weather these folks are getting a big air conditioner or something'. Then I realized they are ingenious inventions called air coolers ha ha ha. They're basically simple, but very effective when it comes to cooling. So we took off to Agra finally...

There it was!!! Bigger than I imagined!!! Not enough adjectives. Till that moment, I had meagre respect for Taj Mahal. But after that moment, I was running literally to get a closer look at it!!! The carvings just blew me off! Such splendid workmanship...loved it. If that was really for a woman, then I say to her, mam, you've such a fine man for a husband. It was huge and no wonder it managed to get into the world wonders list. My dad and mom were posing like Pak president Mudharaf and his wife. It was kinda funny watching them like that. At that time, a friend of mine wanted me to compose a song praising Taj Mahal for it's victory. It was tough I tell ye! Coz at that time, A.R.Rahman's Ek Mohabbat he was a good hit among his fans. So I have to careful not to produce something that even resembles that song by a teeny bit. I tried doing it the non-conventional way. I called my lyricist, told him the situation, and he gave me the most wonderful lyric that I can imagine!!

Chocolate பேப்பரில் சுருண்டு கொண்டது பூமிதான்

water பாட்டிலில் தேங்கி கொண்டது காவிரி

நெற்றி பொட்டில் ஒளிந்து கொண்டது வெண்ணிலா

வானம்கூட நம்மை பார்க்குதே ஏனென்றால்

Taj Mahalin அழகு உலகை கவர்ந்து போனதே...

Then I sat with my keyboard for a tune, and as expected, it had the regular chemicals inside it to make it an agmark taj mahal song. It was nice. I like it. At least my friend Sashank like it when I showed it to him first. Then I thought maybe for the first BGM I'll make a humming and try making one singer sing it. It was a new effort that I hadn't tried so far. After a week the song was ready, and at last I sang my track, which is the main of course, and after many phases of pitch corrections, released the song in a local F.M. channel. But I still wasn't happy. Something was missing, cause i wanted to make this song big in one way or the other.

The next summer too I was in Delhi, same Agra fort, then Taj Mahal... was sitting near the entrance thinking about stuff when my phone rang. My ring tone, incidentally was my Taj Mahal song. I was happy that the Taj Mahal heard my song which was dedicated to her. I let it ring for a long time...and then gave Taj Mahal a friendly pat on her shoulder,as if to ask "Are you happy with my song?" then took the call.

Yaeee... my song reached the Taj... great. I wasn't expecting such a 'grand release'. ;-) Luv u Taj...

I belong...

It was during the last  few working days of my twelth standard that I started composing effectively  with softwares and more than that, I started composing based on feelings rather than on the flow.That was also the time during which I started taking my bike out for really long rides. As far 100 kms a day, during which I took pictures that would presumably give me some inspiration for my songs. Coz I figured out that during my holidays, I would have plenty of time and resources to compose many songs. I incidentally found out that there was a mini waterfalls in Tiruchi itself! 

One good friend of mine during my school days was Sharjeel. He was this extreme Pokemon fan and had (and still has) a good command over the English language. So here was the situation, both of us had enough and more liking for good songwriting, but that spark....that sync never happened till one day.Many interesting researches and awe inspiring tunes used to flood my brain only during my french classes. We even made attempts to disprove newton's laws LOL! Hunger too was one of the reasons that I used to sing during those classes. My friends enjoyed it too, or atleast said so to stop me from singing further.Our french madame was a very great woman. I don't remember her losing her temper at all. And sadly, Sharjeel was a Hindi student. So we never got to meet at all.

I believe good things come to only those who wait . And so it happened that an elderly dude breathed his last. Sharjeel was sitting on the last row and so was I. It was around 3 P.M. I guess, and so it was kinda boring. Atleast Sharjeel was bored a lot. So he took a piece of paper (actually the question paper of morning's exam). He started scribbling some lines on it. And he thrust it into my hand. I read it...and it was infact good... the lines read:

I belong to the siren's song unheard

I belong to the broken skies above

I realize that the many joys inside come from deep inside

Of all the things that happened to me

All these years

What would I give to be myself?

I just can't believe I'm finding myself.

My earth is taken away from me

I'm leaving my footsteps to help you when you lose yourself.

I was like...'man... this is great man!! May be one day we can fix a tune and make it into a tune'.

Pictures and music are like two eyes of human feelings..atleast that's what I believe in.I like to stare at a picture for hours and hours together just tryin to find out what the image wants to tell me. At the time Sharjeel showed me the lyric, I saw a picture in my mind...it was this girl...in angel clothing...walking in a field...like the girl in Wordsworth's Solitary Reaper. That mental image drove me to sit and compose for this lyric. And...

nothing happened... LOL.. I just couldn't fit a tune for it. Later I realized how stupid that approach was. Then one fine day I was browsing the net. And lucky enough, I found this one picture that just blew me away. It was in fact better than what I had in mind. Then this first line of Sharjeel's poem hit me. 'I belong to the broken skies above' .One thing led to another and the next morning I had my tune ready. 

In the following week, I sat with Sharjeel and made him complete the lyric according to the new tune. And what do ye know! He did a tremendous job. We went in for recording, Sarah did a wonderful job of singin' it, finally after a month, the track FINDING MYSELF was ready.

General...

Let me start writing.A blog cannot be empty so let me pour out something now. Yesterday was thinking about what an infinitesimally tiny, extremely ignorant race of evolved monkeys we humans are. I can see many faces frowning and eye brows shooting upwards, but I'm afraid this is it...can't hide the truth for long. No wonder people try to remain in their comfort zones and ponder about facts. They're pretty content with the seemingly true data that is stored inside of them. So...what are we gonna do about it?! Just go about nodding our heads and get involved in cult activities, or stand up for the truth and shout it out loud? Till very recently, I had a chunky amount of belief on Indian youth, but I'm sorry...things just haven't changed yet. I know I'm not alone...and I don't say I'm special. But people don't lose heart...start fighting.

Think Jai hind would be a better phrase than Jai ho...he he ...