y u lukin lidat

May 2012... 13 years ago to the day. I did a 600+ km  overnight motorbike ride across the country as I was on vacation and had just got a job offer confirmed - they expected me to start on May 28th. left Karnataka at like 6pm and reached home at about 10am. there was no network for the first 6 hours or so, and Google didn't have offline maps back then - I was riding in the dark along (and sometimes beside!) country roads in the hope of getting to a highway... which I did at almost midnight. I remember the sigh of relief when I pulled into the Kolhapur McDonald's, finally able to freshen up and grab a bite. 

From stert to finish, I listened to this song on loop and sang along - literally the entire night, to keep myself alert:

Inna - Amazing

When I got bored of the existing lyrics, I made up my own. Mostly funny and sometimes rude, some so rude I can never repeat them out loud. Not that it really matters what I sang though. It kept me going.

Y U Lukin Lidat!

leaving las vegas

yesterday was my last day at my job. I've only worked 3 full-time, corporate jobs in my whole life, and this is the first one that I quit just to change employers - for all the preceding ones, it was something else.

conventional wisdom says you shouldn't be emotionally attached to an employer. but in this case, I was - for personal reasons. if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have been in Belfast. unlike Shruti, who had to build her friend circle the hard way, I was surrounded by friendly, welcoming people at work from day one.

and so, changing jobs because I wanted to change employers is a strange feeling. specifically, it was not to change my work. I loved what I was doing. I even loved the people I was working with. It was all the other things. the pay, the policies. the fact that something someone did to me a while ago could have a long term impact on my prospects despite my best efforts. the fact that the management couldn't do anything to set right what seemed to me to be an obvious wrong.

anyway. enough about the past. it's time to look forward to the future! this is the first time an employer actually provided me coaching to help me succeed at my new job. it was supposed to be an hour but we covered so much in half an hour, that that was all I needed. i feel armed!

I planned to have a week off between jobs because I wanted to do a motorbike trip to clear my head before I start. Unfortunately, the motorbike trip seems unlikely - "Lisa" has been out of action for three weeks - she literally died getting out of the garden and into the driveway with an electrical fault that the mechanic has been unable to diagnose yet. My to-do list is never ending though, and though the initial plan was to take my time between jobs as "me time" and keep the to-do list for "business as usual" time, fate seems to have conspired to do the opposite. Time to mow the lawn!

As I cycled to work yesterday, Sheryl Crow's "leaving las vegas" happened to play. This line struck me:

"Such a muddy line between
The things you want
And the things you have to do"

the lightyears explode

the wife and I are both slightly unwell, so we both decided to stay at our respective parents homes. I couldn't sleep, so I played some music on the turntable. At about 1am, I realized I was playing it a little too loud for that time of the night. I turned down the volume to about 1/10, and dozed off while the record was still playing.

Earlier, I was having a conversation with Santosh, who was planning to buy a rather expensive set of speakers. I advised him to not make any decision until he had listened to my music system. I guess he was in a hurry to buy it, because he headed over that very night. when he arrived, I woke up mom and asked if I could play just one song. she was quite understandably irritable, but she agreed when I told her that santosh rode over an hour to get here to just hear the song.

the record was still on the turntable, so I just switched it on and dropped the needle two songs before the end. it was some western classical music record. he listened, and I explained the nuances of an audiophile grade system.

two songs later, the record was over, and we stepped onto the terrace to speak. I explained to him how the bass was clean and crisp, and how the wattage of the system didn't matter at all, since we were playing it literally at 10%.

as he was leaving, I noticed a white activa parked on the terrace. strangely though, the headlight compartment was open and the headlight was missing!

I fitted the cover back on, and was wondering how the activa got there. did it belong to my brother? that's when i noticed that it was a thane registered scooter. so it definitely wasn't ours. I went to bed, and woke up the next morning while my brother was leaving for work. as he was getting out of the door, I asked him whose scooter it was. he said it belonged to a neighbour who wanted to save on parking charges.

as I started getting ready for work myself, I noticed the record was playing again. I got back into bed and spent a moment appreciating the clean, crisp bass. and then, decided to take a nap.

when I woke up, it was dark. my watch said it was 1am. the music was still playing, but I was in bed at my own place instead of my parents'. my wife was bending over me. once she realized I was awake, she exclaimed "have you heard the lightyears explode? they're awesome!"

and went back to the living room and played the same song again.

finding old music

i have an obsession with old music. not just any old music, but specifically stuff i grew up listening to, and now can't, either because my turntable isn't working, i don't have an audio cassette player, the cassettes weren't labeled properly (yeah, pirated cassettes, lol), or some other randomness. and then of course, there's stuff i can identify but can't find, either because it's not online, or because there's new and popular stuff with the same name, and i get tired after clicking through 10 pages of youtube results (especially since there's also a chance i may have been mistaken to begin with).

i still keep searching randomly though, and as google gets better, more media gets uploaded, and maybe i get lucky enough through dogged determination, i sometimes meet with success.

it's hard to describe the feeling when i finally find what i've been looking for.

it's hard to explain why i'm such a memory junkie.

i think i've mentioned before, that my present somehow revolves in a loop of past music.

i don't know why i don't really care for new music any more.

someone told me recently, that you only get old when you stop looking for new things.

maybe, in the musical sense, i'm already old.

repeat

after listening to one song on loop for 2 weeks, I decided to give it a break, switched from "repeat track" to "repeat album". looped the album for a day, now back to looping the track.

I have some 5000 more songs on my phone, and my ipod hasn't been touched for a month.

I'm not sure why I'm even doing this. I think i have looped the song over 1000 times. I stopped estimating at about 450.

song: "memories from the future" by Robert Gitelman, on trance energy 2007.

breathe

it was the afternoon of my birthday. after a nice lunch, i was grabbing some much needed rest (it had been a crazy week, topped by a mad all-night party that i crashed out of at 5am, no less!). except that my phone would ring every few minutes with someone or the other wanting to wish me. and i had an hour to nap anyway, because i was heading out to meet a couple of friends later.

one of those calls was one of the said friends. she called to confirm what time we were meeting, and where. a quick, half-minute conversation. i spoke while lying down on my side, phone perched on my ear. too lazy to hang up, i assumed she would.

seconds after the conversation was over and she had presumably hung up, i realized i was breathing quite heavily. in fact, i could hear myself breathing. in fact, my breathing sounded different. almost like it was someone else's. but it seemed like the timing of each breath matched mine.

i held my breath, but the sound of breathing continued.

that's when i realized it wasn't me. it was from my phone.

"hello, hello? are you still there?"

no reply.

i closed my eyes and went back to sleep. i didn't hear the beep of the call being cut, but i was too sleepy to get the phone off my ear and hang up.

an hour later, i woke up. and thought back to the conversation, trying to remember the details of our meeting place and time.

i had in fact slept with my bluetooth on, and my phone was charging, in a place where i definitely couldn't reach from my bed.

and it was a dream.

to be sure, when i met her, i asked her if she spoke to me in the afternoon. sure enough, she said she didn't. she also said it's kinda freaky that i confuse my dreams with reality... but that doesn't alarm me at all. in fact, i love it :)

soundtrack for this post: breathe by telepopmusik

30

i turned 30 last week. thirty. three decades on this earth. when i was born, india was almost half her present age. the fastest computer was orders of magnitude slower than my phone (which, btw, i'm waiting to junk because it's too slow). but those big things don't mean much to me. the world goes on, its' mostly pre-determined path, save a few surprises (mostly nasty, sadly). i've been more fascinated with how i've changed.

a decade ago, if you asked me how i imagined myself at 30, i'd probably be further off than 50s sci-fi was from their prediction of the 21st century.

sure, there are few things i'd have gotten right:

• work wise, i knew i'd be doing something computer related. programming related to be precise. and that's spot on.
• my best friends then are still my best friends today.
• i still live in the same home that i lived in back then, true to my resolve of never changing cities or countries (my reasons for staying put though, are different).
• i still listen to (and love) the same music. so much so, that i'm acutally caught in some sort of musical time warp.

but then, so much has changed.

• i have gone from being a reticent bookworm, to someone who loves the company of people more than being alone. to the point where i'm actually called a social butterfly by some of my friends.
• i have gone from having never left the city in 20 years, to leaving it every weekend. these days, staying at home feels alien, and people are jealous of me for the amount of time i spend traveling.
• i have gone from having never ever trekked, or even sat on a bike (forget riding one) to riding and trekking every weekend.
• i have gone from writing apps and games in my spare time, to tweeting, uploading photos of my food, and spending entire evenings on facebook. the last time i had an IDE on my home PC was 5 years ago, at least.
• i have gone from never having anything more than a 4 digit bank balance, to earning more in a month than my parents spent on me in a year. from having never written a cheque, to having a flat to my name.

but these are all external changes. i feel i've changed more on the inside.

• i've learned, multiple times over, about the fragility of human life. from losing near and dear ones, to almost losing myself.
• i've realized that i'm not on earth for my own self-gratification, and that there is some higher purpose to my existence, even though i haven't figured it yet.
• i've realized the power of change, both positive and negative. and surprised myself many times over with how easily i can turn my life around, if i try.
• i've learned that i need to invest in relationships with the people around me, and that life is far more fulfilling when shared.
• i've gotten rid of many of my false assumptions about what it takes to be happy. and through trial and error, and a bit of insight, i think i've even realized how to make it sustainable.
• i have gone from being a skeptical atheist, to someone who has wholly (and vocally) embraced a pragmatic belief in god as a way of life.
• and most of all, i've learned to live in the present, to embrace surprise, and to stay permanently curious.

and all this, in just 10 years.

i can't imagine what i'd be like at 40. from what i've seen, it's going to be a crazier journey than my entire life so far put together.

i can't wait for every single day of the rest of my life.

falling anywhere

i love electronica because it lets me attach my own feelings to words. i'm currently listening to "falling anywhere" by kyau & albert, and this is the imagery it conjures:

cruising along at a happy speed, you watch the scenery change from desolation to light greenery. you slow down, anticipating a change. suddenly, the road peaks and then dips, and you find yourself riding downhill into the most beautiful meadows, a breathtaking valley like you've never seen before :)

music: it's all around us

halfway through my shower, I realized the water on this mug was vibrating to the beats of the music! not just the music...only the beats!

ps: re the previous post, option 2 it is!!! photos whenever possible, and maybe also option 1, "the week in photos" every sunday :)

trance

i was just randomly clicking around trance videos on youtube (more like songs with a still image in the video box, actually), when i chanced upon this beautiful track, and a comment below it that summed it all up for me:

ive thought about this alot, and posted comments about it, and the true listeners of trance music, a beautiful bunch, seem to be more in tune with their emotions, more receptive to the emotional quality of trance tracks. if all you hear is bass kick bass kick, of course youre not gonna like it. if you hear the deep, hidden emotional meaning in the subtle melodies and chord progressions, only then can you appreciate trance for what it really is! trance is the ultimate form of emotional expression
- anjundoobies89

that's the thing about trance. it's deeply rhythmic, and its melodies touch the heart and soul, but if you aren't in the mood to appreciate it you will just be carried away by the superficialities like the repetition and beats. i hope you all get to see beyond that someday.

ps: i also agree that like every genre of music, trance has its share of crappy tunes. what makes a song awesome? nobody knows. but there are tracks that take you to another level, and that's the truth.

the polar bear song

to the casual observer of my facebook/twitter, i may appear to be obsessed with polar bears. i'm not.

it's just that a certain track that i really really really love happens to have a sleeping polar bear in my favourite part of its (unofficial) youtube video.

btw, my description of the entire video is:

"trippy lights. polar bear. polar bear. cool sunset."

yesh, arctic wildlife will never be the same again.

alien music

i've already proven to myself beyond doubt that music influences my mood and my behaviour. but there are incidents that have made me realize, the relationship between the two isn't as simple as it would appear to be.

imagine a beach shack in goa after sundown. speakers blaring psychdelic trance at full volume. visions of acid and other illegal hallucinogenics.

and then the only patrons: a family sitting at the shack, enjoying their dinner of steaks and fried fish, smiling away at each other, passing the salt when required to.

they might as well be sitting at a quiet, classy restaurant if it wasn't for the seedy tablecloth.

sometimes music inspires the same reaction in me.

ever tried listening to infected mushroom while in a traffc jam? i have. and when the jam clears, the insane speed of the music feels so alien to me that i still don't feel like riding above 40.

i remember once listening to some slow, western classical music while riding on the highway.

it made me do freaky things on the road that even megadeth hasn't managed to push me to yet.

guess music tends to be part of my grip on reality. and when the music happens to be too far removed from my reality to act like a grip, it behaves like the exact opposite. like a wheel that's locked and is now skidding out of control.

i call it alien music.

i love the feeling, and fear the music.

my first mp3

we've come a long long way together...through the hard times, and the good. I have to  celebrate you baby...I have to praise you like I should!

okay, that wasn't it. but first, the story. and before that, thanks to @anishasharma10 for nudging me into this trip down memory lane :)

it was 1999. I was just out of school. I had never heard of mp3s before. and I had this cool, geeky friend joel who was ranting and raving about this awesome new thing called "napster". and consequently, music that was small enough to fit on my pc's (tiny) hard disk.

I'm not sure if the problem was that I couldn't believe him or that I couldn't understand him, but he took it upon himself to demonstrate what the hype was all about.

so one evening after our evening games of cricket (summer vacations were on), he brought his cpu over, and we sat down and figured out how to disconnect my pc's hard disk and connect it to his.

halfway through the adventure, there was a twist: my brother, who was fooling around with the electricals somewhere in the house (yesh, he was all of 12 years old, and messing with live wires. don't ask.) blew our mains fuse and plunged the entire house into darkness.

joel was kinda freaked out (he had taken his pc without permission, I'm sure :D), but my dad bypassed the fuse with some regular electrical wire, and we had light again.

so we then set about transferring stuff.

I remember, he was supposed to give me a c compiler and visual basic (I was interested in learning and vb), and finally my hard disk was almost completely full (I had a 500 mb hard disk back then!)

his parting gift was one mp3.

I didn't choose it.

I didn't even know which one it was till he left and I started browsing the stuff he gave me.

I know for sure that it didn't play the first time I tried loading it (my pic was below the minimum spec of most mp3 playing software).

but I do remember which one it was.

a live performance of eric clapton's "tears in heaven".

and that, ladies and gentlemen, was my first ever mp3.

erase and rewind

i just love my head. there's never a moment when i don't know what i wanna listen to...because there's always something playing inside!

-- kris, one saturday morning, on waking up with meatloaf playing in his head

happy music

a couple of days ago, i was in a terrible mood. i was just pissed and feeling like fighting/making others want to fight with me. i rode like a madman, cursed people on the road, was super nasty with my friends, to the point when i realised the only way i could prevent any further damage was to simply stop talking to people till this phase blew over.

i also realised that the songs that were playing in my head were megadeth and marilyn manson. and the only songs on my mp3 player were by eminem (i'm listening to my music collection alphabetically - it's taken me 7 months to get to halfway-through-e :D)

at the end of a long, sickening, aggravated day of training at work, i went back to my desk. as i unlocked my computer, a song started playing in my head. walking on clouds by dj tiesto. it wasn't in my phone/player, so i googled it, found it on youtube and listened to the audio over my office headset.

after listening to it 3 times, i had an almost 180 degree change of mood.

i just realised, there are no angry trance numbers - and there are way more happy trance tracks than in any other genre of music.

dj tiesto saved my day - again!!! :)

amazed by google

a couple of minutes ago i was listening to dj tiesto's "walking on clouds" (super-duper amazing song!!!), and i wanted the lyrics to go along with it. for some random reason, i couldn't remember the name of the song at that moment, and was feeling too lazy to check. as a random shot in the dark, i googled the first 3 words of the song: "chase fading moments". and the lyrics came up on the first page (not right on top, but it was 4th result - right in the middle of my screen).

best of all, i got the words wrong. it's actually chase faded days.

i'm not sure what's more mindblowing now, the song or google's ability to guess what i'm thinking. maybe both :D

too many times

too many times, you have been high
too many times, you ran away, in need to cry
too many times, your body lies awake
too many times, these pills you take
too many times, you woken up depressed
too many times, you put your life to the test
too many times, you've taken this trip
too many times, you have slipped
too many times, your body cant take
too many times, you made a mistake
too many times, you haven't realized
too many times, you mind became paralyzed

lyrics by kai tracid. almost seems like it was inspired by my life.

born to try

in a moment of need, a song was sent to lift my spirit when i didn't know that it was meant to fly...read on, it's beautiful...and if you can, listen to it too :)

born to try

Doing everything that I believe in
Going by the rules that I've been taught
More understanding of what's around me
And protected from the walls of love

All that you see is me
And all I truly believe

That I was born to try
I've learned to love
Be understanding
And believe in life
But you've got to make choices
Be wrong or right
Sometimes you've got to sacrifice the things you like

But I was born to try

No point in talking what you should have been
And regretting the things that went on
Life's full of mistakes, destinies and fate
Remove the clouds look at the bigger picture

And all that you see is me
And all I truly believe

That I was born to try
I've learned to love
Be understanding
And believe in life
But you've got to make choices
Be wrong or right
Sometimes you've got to sacrifice the things you like

But I was born to try

All that you see is me
All I truly believe
All that you see is me
And all I truly believe

That I was born to try

I've learned to love
Be understanding
And believe in life
But you've got to make choices
Be wrong or right
Sometimes you've got to sacrifice the things you like

But I was born to try

But you've got to make choices
Be wrong or right
Sometimes you've got to sacrifice the things you like

But I was born to try

- born to try, by delta goodrem

what it feels like for a girl

girls can wear jeans
and cut their hair short
wear shirts and boots
cause its ok to be a boy
but for a boy to look like a girl is degrading
cause you think that being a girl is degrading
but secretly you'd love to know what its like
wouldn't you?
what it feels like for a girl

madonna, what it feels like a girl

okay, i wasn't listening to the original, but the "above and beyond" remix. still, it's one song that i should never listen to when i'm riding...because it will probably make me do a suicidal 0-100 and crash into a tree :D

disconnected

For 27 years I’ve been trying to believe and confide in
Different people I’ve found.
Some of them got closer than others
And someone wouldn’t even bother and then you came around
I didn’t really know what to call you, you didn’t know me at all
But I was happy to explain.
I never really knew how to move you
So I tried to intrude through the little holes in your veins
And I saw you
But that’s not an invitation
That’s all I get
If this is communication
I disconnect
I’ve seen you, I know you
But I don’t know
How to connect, so I disconnect

You always seem to know where to find me and I’m still here behind you
In the corner of your eye.
I’ll never really learn how to love you
But I know that I love you through the hole in the sky.

Where I see you
And that’s not an invitation
That’s all I get
If this is communication
I disconnect
I’ve seen you, I know you
But I don’t know
How to connect, so I disconnect

Well this is an invitation
It’s not a threat
If you want communication
That’s what you get
I’m talking and talking
But I don’t know
How to connect
And I hold a record for being patient
With your kind of hesitation
I need you, you want me
But I don’t know
How to connect, so I disconnect
I disconnect.

- Communication, by the Cardigans