Whatever.....

For those of you who are reading this directly, I suggest that you read this before. This will give you a hang of my unneccessary ranting. :)
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Hardly had I fallen asleep, that I heard a weird scratching noise somewhere in the corner of my room. It seemed to come from the unearthly hollows. It was distant in time and distant in space. I knew I was dreaming. (Or I thought so). I was looking onto a site that made me feel giddy. I was standing on a cliff and on the plains below were thousands and thousands of ants. Their leader stood besides me. I was handcuffed and gagged. The leader was blurting out an inspiring speech. It reminded me of Morpheus giving that blasted speech on Zion. Or better Saruman giving those Orcs at Isengard. It felt like some morbid episode in life. The leader announced that he was gonna drop me from the cliff into the crowd to be hacked to death for the crimes I had commited. (I wish Kasab is thrown down like this). I could hear the millions and millions of ants shout out "YeeHaw" in their tiny squeky voices. So large was their number, though, that it souned like a death knell. But like Gulliver, I was huge. I tried to make a run. The ants swarmed up and covered me up. But braving the opposition, I trudged on. I made a run for the tap so that I could wash them, but LO & BEHOLD. The ants poured out of the faucet as if they were water. So I ran to the shower to find them pouring out of each pore. I was stunned. I guess it was a "Petrificus Totalus" charm that hit me. And I fell. I could see the ranks and ranks of ants marching towards me. And I lay there watching them move menacingly towards me wielding their ungodly scimitars, I could only do one thing. And I did it.
I opened my eyes.
As I opened my eyes, I saw that the sun had risen and it was day already. I was feeling weary after the exhausting dream. So as I rubbed my eyes and got up to brush my teeth, I felt some uneasy activity in the room.
Read on fellas..
The journey is far from over..

As I trudged along the lonely corridor to my room after a nice party, what I really wanted was to just fall on my bed and drift into a blissful dream. But fate, I suppose, had other plans. As I opened the door and switched on the light, the sight just stopped my breadth. My laptop was simply covered with red ants crawling all over them. The laptop looked exactly like those honey bee record holder people. The ants were just everywhere. On the keyboard, on the screen, inside the speaker, inside the cd/dvd - drive, USB port, just everywhere. I was shell shocked for a few seconds. It was 12.30 am and I was simply not going to get any house keeper to help me clean it up. And it looked as if no HIT would be available at that hour. Armed with a single rag to my disposal, I began mopping the line of ants to my laptop. Simultaneously I also started tapping the laptop to remove any more that may have ventured in. This seemed to take longer than usual as the ants had seemed to make my laptop an anthill. They were just pouring out. I got a bucket full of water and starting mopping and dipping till all the visible ants had gone. A few peeping out of my speaker holes were promptly crushed under my brutal wrath!!
Now this was not done in a jiffy. It was nearly 2-2.30 when I thought that the work was done. I must have killed about a thousand ants. 3 brave Ferrero Rocher's succumbed to the gruesome injuries. So after a horrendous post-midnight cleaning, I finally flopped on to my bed and fell asleep.
But this was not over..
So read on fellas..
Film abhi baki hai!!

Just last week I'd gone to Nagpur for a family function. For those who are unaware of the fact, I hail originally from Nagpur having lived for my first 6-7 years there. After that I've not been there quite often, my last visit being 3 years back, which I term decent.But I hate to say that everybody else there love to differ on this point. Now incidentally, both my parents had lived there for their first 30-35 years and my grandparents nearly their entire life.
So when you go to such a place where nearly 40% of the town is related to you, about 60% have seen you learning to walk and talk and approximately 80% think they can recognize you as you resemble your parents, you are at complete loss. Its like your made to stand in the middle of a circle of about 100 people all with fully loaded paintball guns. And so it was. I was standing in the middle of people/relatives (I couldn't figure out who's who) at my cousin's wedding. Another cousin who does stay in Nagpur was introducing me to these aunts and uncles and more aunts and many more uncles. Now if this looks ok to you, figure this out. The cousin is younger than me by 6 yrs and was getting atleast 60% of the relations wrong. If I were to be convinced by his A is B's son who is also married to C's third cousin. But C is infact D's granddaughter who in turn was married to A's nephew on her mother's side, I would resemble a Homer Simpson with hair of Albert Einstein. The family tree was so messed up in his head that he ended up making his own grandfather and mother cousins.
So I was actually alone in this whole mess. Lucky for me (??) there were no pretty lasses around to observe yours faithfully bewildered and lost. Once I even ended up asking the bride's only brother to get me a glass of water. (I thought he was MY (far fetched) cousin!!) But barring that the missiles were often mistimed and I was easily able to duck most under the pretense of some errand. I often found myself wondering if I would even meet these relatives again till someone else got married or died.
As I tried to remove this thought from my mind, something strange happened. I met my granny's sister. She is 80+ and as I knelt down, I suddenly realized that this was the real family. There was this glow in her eyes that said, "Rohit, its been really long since you've come to meet me. Its so wonderful seeing you!!" As I sat down besides her, we talked about me, my doings, my well-being, it struck me and it struck me hard, that these were the people who cared. It does not matter if you've met them only twice or thrice in your entire lifetime. It does not matter if they were there to see you successful. It even does not matter if their petty fights and arguments create a distance be tween the families for the time being. They will be there for you. It will be there faces that will light up if they see you after a long long time or even hear about you. If you do well, you will be quoted as an example or will be bragged about.
The hospital where you were born will then seem so familiar. The lane where you rode your tricycle will certainly be remembered and you will visit it in your flashy vehicles now. The local grocery merchant's crinkled face will crack a smile with remembrance and you will feel at home. You cannot stay there, you know, but you will linger aimlessly. You will loiter around your first playground even though there is a building there now. Why is a question you will not answer. They call it hometown not because you've lived there but because you will always feel at home there.
Bloody Old Hometown...
They make you all senti...

I have been pondering over this for the past few days and finally have decided to post it. Well as the title may suggest, its about the King Of Pop and the his passing at just 50. (I could never believe that). The long awaited "Return" shall be a forlorn memory and we shall never see The Moonwalker again. May his soul rest in peace..
I have often tried to make this point but somehow it often goes unnoticed. The artist is the performer on stage and not the person. The individual is often made as a complete artist. His every move taped and every breadth recorded. A normal person would go mad at this dogging but the artist has to endure this. And we often say this, "This is the burden a celebrity has to bear". But if we ponder, does he really have to?? Or is it just that we want him to?? And we've lost some of the best people in this world. Diana ran away from it and so did Heath Ledger. The world was shocked when Elvis did it and it is shocked again as MJ did it again. We killed the Kings.
Even as the doctors pondered over his already mutilated body for the second autopsy, the bees started buzzing. Marie Presley quipped in to say how he was in bed while Debbie Rowe broadcasted how Jacko was not the father of his own children. Madonna cried her eyes out or so she claimed but none realized what or who forced him to do this. They say he did not want to resemble his father or that he was a pedophile. I say, does it matter?? Does it really matter whether he had a drag before he did "Billie Jean". Or whether he did care about the kid when he performed "Remember the time". I mean, what is it that's so fascinating in their personal life that we waste millions of dollars putting them paparazzi behind these people for every nugget of their not-so-otherwise-amazing-lives??
Though some may criticize me, I am often a bigger fan of MJ's songs than his dance. Dunno why but somehow his dances are unreal and often seem nonhuman. My favorite being "They don't really care about us", maybe sums up MJ's life. People didn't care about MJ. The only thing they cared about was a news article. May it be a boy wonder gone to waste. A pedophile. A father dangling his own kid out of the window. The multimillion dollar out of court settlement. His idiotic surgeries. And last but not the least, his shocking death on the eve of a comeback. Whatever maybe the case, I am sure MJ knows these people really didn't care about him...
The last rehearsal for the comeback show were maybe his last thoughts indeed..

I am writing this just as the sky is getting really dark here. Its just 4.15 pm. And I'm listening to the wonderful Colonial Cousins singing away Rainfall Indian. And as I recall some of the wonderful rains in the past, I thought I'd share it with you. Some random rainy days that I vaguely remember..

The books would be soggy and so would our shoes be. But we'd jump in every puddle that would come our way back home.
:)
The media player has just switched on to Shobha Mudgal's "Ab ke Sawaan"..
A fast forward then takes me back to just last year and a few of us crazies went on this trek to Rajmachi. It was raining for the whole night prior to it. And it rained the whole day too. A hell of a trek and a hell of a journey. We walked from Lonavla station for about 4-5 hrs to reach the summit to find that we could not see a thing due to the heavy rain. A wind so strong that it blew the rain drops upwards. I remember being so wet that I didn't have a single square inch of dry cloth to dry my specs. What a trip it was...

When we came back, our legs were so stiff that we all walked out of the train onto the Pune Railway Station and walked to our vehicles like zombies
:P

Later the same year, I recall this ride back from Chinchwad, when the rain started pouring in and the highway was comparatively empty. And I was speeding on my bike at about 90-100 kmps. Excellent. My visor and specs were covered with water so couldn't see a thing. Back of the mind, I was thinking, "Speed thrills but also kills" but the hand on the accelerator probably got it this way, "Of all the things that kill, speed also thrills!!" I remember that ride when none believed that i'd reached home from Chinchwad in 2o mins.
No pic to share the wet highway..
Oh and the player was blaring out Iron Maiden's "Rainmaker" while I wrote this.

I slip back a few years, probably after my third year, an evening on BC. The wind was stormy and suddenly it turned all dark. I swear, I saw waves rising in the otherwise sullen waters of Mula river. I rushed back from the first steps in Shirke, I think to find Dattu mama all frantic at the wharf and BS hollering from his favourite corner. As we got the diamond out of the water, it started pouring. I rushed back to get the oars and when I returned to the BC office to get my clothes, someone (Saku or Shantanu, i supp.) was listening to Enigma's Rain Song just as I'm listening to it right now.
[For others, Shirke is one of the white diamond sculls at COEP Boat Club, Dattumama is our very dear boatmen there and BS is Balusheth, the foreman. The first steps is one of the signature lookouts when rowing in Mula]

Slipping back a few more years, it was probably my 12th and luckily Moogat had given us a rare holiday from the 4 O'clock class. I was peacefully lying on my bed reading my then recently coveted Lord of the Rings and probably everyone was battling at Weathertop while it was pouring cats and dogs outside. Mom got me this nice cup of tea and a plateful of "kaanda-bhaje". Radio Mirchi was playing Ghanan ghanan from Lagaan.
I paused very briefly to search that song in the playlist before continuing further. :)

Finally, coming to an end as the drizzling here has started and I hope it does rain a bit more today, so that I may enjoy my first first rain in Mumbai. The media player has reached the last song which incidently is one of my fav rain songs by Sandeep Khare and Salil Kulkarni, and which is सरीवर सर...
Enjoy it, while it lasts...
Adios...

I'm writing this immediately after listening to the Green Day's latest Album 21st Century Breakdown. The album is worth the wait. It is an excellent collection of songs ranging from the soft melodious verses that remind you of "Wake me up when September Ends" from American Idiot to "Good Riddance (Time of your life)" from Nimrod to some surreal kickass typical Green Day trademarks. But if some of you are thinking that it may be a repetition or resemblance to the old classics, you are in for a big surprise. The list of the songs is as follows:

Introduction:
1. "Song of the Century"

Act I: Heroes and Cons:

2. "21st Century Breakdown"
3. "Know Your Enemy"
4. "¡Viva la Gloria!"
5. "Before the Lobotomy"
6. "Christian's Inferno"
7. "Last Night on Earth"

Act II: Charlatans and Saints:

8. "East Jesus Nowhere"
9. "Peacemaker"
10. "Last of the American Girls"
11. "Murder City"
12. "¿Viva la Gloria? (Little Girl)"
13. "Restless Heart Syndrome"

Act III: Horseshoes and Handgrenades:

14. "Horseshoes and Handgrenades"
15. "The Static Age"
16. "21 Guns"
17. "American Eulogy" (A. "Mass Hysteria" / B. "Modern World")
18. "See the Light"

The album starts with a simple voice recorded “Song Of the Century”. Even as we wonder at what these guys are aiming at, the roller coaster ride begins. As we tumble down the rabbit hole, the feelings seem to come rushing towards us with a multitude of expressions.

Act I: Heroes and Cons:

The second song sets the mood with the over-criticism of the past and the frames that we’re being forced into. This has a similar tone to American Idiot but this time the band goes into the first person approach instead of mocking others. The lines

My name is no one
The long lost son
Born on the 4th of July

are pretty catchy. Maybe the reason is self-evident. The next song “Know Your Enemy” is pretty strong and actually has a clear warning call as a message. I’ve heard some calling it pretty brash on first hearing but it seems quite punk-ish to me. The next song is the real beauty of the album. “Viva La Gloria” gets us back into reality with introducing the girl, Gloria around whom the whole album is loosely revolving. The start is almost R&B but wait, the real mood sets in the third stanza. The beat is so catchy that you have to start beating it within the next 10 secs. This Viva La Gloria sure will be one of the highlighted songs of the album. The start to the next song, “Before the Lobotomy” reminded me of Limp Bizkit’s “Behind Blue Eyes” till the slow tune starts picking up. Many seem to have rated this as their favorite in the album but the repeated rise and fall can seem a little repetitive to some. The next song is unnaturally short. “Christian's Inferno” seems to be intended to introduce the second character Christian and maybe give us a little piece of his mind. The last song of Act I, “Last Night on Earth” is one of the most beautifully written romantic songs. The song is straight without any clichés. The best part of this song is the pace. It stays the same throughout the song and leaves you humming it long after you’ve heard it.

Act II: Charlatans and Saints

The 8th song of the album “East Jesus Nowhere” is quite similar to Jesus of Suburbia but more direct. The song has this nice marching tune that tries to signify the war between belief and faith in God. The “Peacemaker” has a tune that you would have you jive if you could. The sarcasm is wonderful and you can’t help but smile at the line,

Well now the caretaker's the undertaker
Now I'm gonna go out and get the peacemaker.

The next song, “Last of the American Girls” paints a pen picture of the ordinary contemporary girl. The dreams and fears, the fakery and the mockery are well crafted. The overflowing sarcasm is however more than necessary at points. The song, however, that follows, “Murder City” is the real delight to most Green Day fans. Those who’ve liked “She’s a rebel” from American Idiot will surely like this. Every time they utter the word, “Desperate”, the song adds another start in its rating. ? If you are still lost within the “Murder City”, “Viva La Gloria (Little Girl)” will simply blow you off. The masterpiece signals the start of the best part of the album. The song is so straight from the heart that it simply leaves you dumb struck and this essentially shows you how all songs in the Act II were tied together. The line “Stray for the Salvation Army” comes and you are like, “Whoa guys, chill!!” And all those who thought that Green Day was about the rebel and self-mockery, the last song of Act II “Restless Heart Syndrome” comes as a sweet surprise for them. The song has a rather compelling music. You wait for the rush to come after the drum-roll but it never comes. And when it does come in the end, it simply carries you away with the avalanche.

Act III: Horseshoes and Handgranades

And if you thought that you had heard it all, Act III brings you the best of Punk and Alternate by Green Day. The first song of this act, “Horseshoes and Handgranades” successfully creates the same feel and anticipation that is created by “Holiday”. It’s like Barney saying wait-for-it and if you do wait here, you are rewarded. The initial drum-roll and pauses with the strumming is exquisite. The kick ass style of Green Day’s lyrics is at its best here. This is one sure trademark Green Day from this album. And if you thought that it couldn’t get any better, you are mistaken. “The Static Age” is the most energetic song with the most original sound pieces. It reminds of none that you can have heard before but there is nothing non-Green Day-ish about it. The lines,

All I want to do is
I want to breathe
Batteries are not included..

and the chorus,

I can't see a thing in the video
I can't hear a sound on the radio
In stereo in the static age

are so wonderfully done that this is my pick from the whole album. You simply can’t get over this one. But this is not all fellas, if you were waiting the single where you seem to lose it all and bow down to the these Kings of Punk, then this is it. “21 Guns” is such a soulful track that you simply close your eyes and feel that this is about you. The lines

Your faith walks on broken glass
And the hangover doesn't pass
Nothing's ever built to last
You're in ruins.

seem so true. It has the same rendering that Linkin Park had in the “In Between” from “Minutes to Midnight”. It’s simply yet another masterpiece by Green Day. “American Eulogy” is the second last of the album of 18. The song has the so familiar multiple song combination that was in “Jesus of Suburbia”. This single has two pieces "Mass Hysteria" & "Modern World". The first part is so upbeat, that it simply brings you out of the “21 Guns” feel. Some may feel this to be against the flow, but then it’s quite catchy. The second part is the “American Idiot” of this album in this single. The criticism and proclamations are quite crafty. A good single but I somehow felt it out of place. The song is placed so maybe to bring the story of Christian and Gloria to the tipping point where they have seen it all and this song just shows how they are bogged down. The last song brings the Grand Closure to the album. It simply shows the world from the perspective of a couple (or youth) and the simply expectations from it. The song is non-clichéd with simple straight feeling asking for our reason to be alive.
And the best part of this whole album is that all songs are well interlinked with overlapping music so that album listeners like me can really here it for the whole 65 mins continuous and yet each single stands out on its own. This album is one top class performance from Green Day where each song is worth hearing. None seem unwanted or extra. This is definitely an album worth the 5 years wait. Thanks to all those who bore with me to the end. It was wonderful talking about each song. Hope you have liked it. If yes, do comment on your favorites. Any criticism will be graciously accepted (Unlike Rafa Benitez)….