Inside the head

I’m not sure since when but I guess 8-9th would be a good guess. Yup. That has to be time when I started getting addicted to music. I remember my first Sony MP3 player and how I would plug myself in and jump around the house like a drunk monkey to mom’s fury and to everyone else s  general disgust. My fascination began with Punjabi R&B and Linkin Park. So you could see me crooning this or head banging to this at just about the same time. I had this weird habit(and still do) to ask people for their music and then sorta compare notes. At that point, any new music was treasured.

Like most teenage guys, I was drawn towards rock/metal initially. LP was an obvious influence but I soon got to know about Creed, Nickelback  and Metallica. Names like Iron Maiden ,Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd remained domains I wasn’t bothered to touch. Also, it was at this time that I developed my everlasting respect for Eminem. I know people love to diss rap as not being music and I have no intention whatsoever to take part in that discussion. He just makes sense to me and that should be enough.

Boy bands were the thing as well and I won’t lie about never stepping enjoying their tracks. Blue are still a personal favorite. Try this.

But I guess it is in Class 12 that my tastes finally evolved and a more mature sense appeared. I have always been an advocate of how important lyrics are. The tune might be great but if the words don’t match,then the song’s ruined. Till now I would listen to recommended music or stuff from my sisters collection. But now i decided to go on a music hunt. Discover stuff of my own and build my own collection. And even though that quest continues, I find it relieving to have finally unearthed stuff that had been sitting in front of me all along.

It started with Dave Mathews Band. Satellite had been a personal favorite long ago but I soon discovered how soulful the rest of their stuff was as well. Another personal favorite here . Then my favorite band, Poets of the Fall. Everyone had heard Carnival of Rust but stuff like Sleep went unnoticed. Plus, their Twilight Theater is the greatest album I’ve ever heard purely on basis of the perfect sync between the music and the lyrics. The Script and Coldplay are bands I love and respect as well. Iron Maiden’s Final Frontier was also great btw. Opera is something I never touched on before and things haven’t changed much. Over the course of the year, I developed a new found love for both the piano and the violin.

Like most things in my life,I picked up a lot of stuff from Chubba. Like Aerosmith , Billy Joel , Celine Dion , Michael Jackson and tons of others whom I frankly can’t think of now. She played a major role as well in diversifying my playlist.

So do I ignore Bollywood altogether? Nope. Though I would say it does get a bit too mushy for me sometimes.

So now I’m like a wayward soul drifting around looking for new stuff. The iTunes store has been helpful too,though cut a hole in wallet.

A few favorites then?

Flobots-Handlebars

Nickelback- Far Away

Free Bird (Amazing guitar solo)

John Butler Trio-Ocean

Johnny Cash- There Aint No Grave (Check out Hurt as well)

Plus a weird Chem Lab video

Let’s Write

I am finally here. Dinner in 13 minutes(yeah I’m that precise ) and then a engineering meeting in an hour(where i stare aimlessly into mid air). I’m tired I guess. I found this to be the only way to let go. I’m kinda inspired by a “nut” who finds it relieving to write daily posts. I already feel good. Premature?

So what’s been happening? Many things. Like someone reminded me recently,too many things have happened without me even realizing. Details are too boring. It seems awkward to write on the blog right now. I have ignored it for far too long. It seems weird to read my old posts. I guess I’m a different person when I write. Or maybe I pretend to be. Emo shit. Blah.

Oh yeah we won. World Cup obviously. It was one of those situations when you know you’re happy but can’t fucking feel it. I waited so long for the moment and when it finally arrived,it was so…lame? Apart from a bunch of crazy friends jumping around me, no one else seemed to bother. My nation. My people. All seemed well..non-existent. Facebook seemed to be my only solace. And that in itself is so depressing.

Exams arrive soon. Starting with CS tomorrow. I don’t think I hate it. Not yet. I guess I can’t be bothered too.

United seem on the brink of another victory. Sorta meaningless in front of India’s WC win.

Purdue got crushed by VCU. Sad end.

Wrote a bunch of crappy poems/notes on Facebook. Feel extremely stupid about them now.

I am extremely happy about Sachin though. Our leader,  our true king.

Guess it’s time to go. Feels good.

.

The American Diary-Part 2

It’s been long since I jotted down something personal totally randomly. That is how I started this blog initially but slowly yet steadily I seem to be losing track. I notice that Light was the last poem I’ve written in some time now. I remember when back in school I would write down poems when I would get bored in class. Butters would remember the poem I once wrote for her,but that’s another story. It’s been weird since I came here;that much is obvious. You see,I find myself in a similar state of confusion as that fateful day 8  months when I took my first step out of hell. Sometimes you expect things to turn out in a certain way but they don’t. You lose hope and start wondering about how good it would be if you had done something in a certain way. You regret. I personally I have an entire list of things I wish I could change from the past. The first and most obvious step in this procedure would be to make a Time Machine and that doesn’t sound that easy. I mean it’s like me saying that  I’m going star for United in the Villa game this weekend!(Or is it the next one?) Anyways,I seem to have realized something. Or maybe it’s something I’ve known all along? Everythin bad happens for a reason. So that one day you use it to turn the tide. That one day things actually work out the way they are meant to be. The most important lesson I have learnt from my stay here is that it ain’t bad to dream. That men who dream are not insane(though get ready to be considered that initially). So let’s see, what’s my dream list?

1. Estatblish World Peace(Weird eh? Few,or rather none,know how I despise violence. Sometimes I wonder how easy it actually is to respect someone else and give them their space. I have no problems dying but before I go down,I wish I get one shot at this one)

2. Write a book(Controversial because people closest to me will testify that I’m too lazy and restless to sit down and pen something. But most of them will get surprised..one day!)

3.Start a band(Stop laughing damned! I have thought of a name,”Agony of Fire”,and came up with lyrics too! And that too at the bus stop! I know that most of the lyrics were explicit but we can change. I think Chubba will be the lead singer.)

4. Make a kickass website! (This one’s pretty twisted because it has money plastered all over it! I swear to God I’ve tried learning Python a 100 times but either fell asleep after 2 pages or got bored and started playing FIFA! On second thoughts,Python does’t seem to have anything to do with web designing but that was the only computer program I tried my hand at. C++ seemed too..uhmm..computerish?)

Feels good now that I’m out of the closet!(Most retarded phrase of all time!) I must now return to NBA. And yeah,stop laughing!

Plus,another good song. I got it from the Fbk profile of another wayward soul with a great blog. Will not mention name because I don’t know her that well.

Indian Rock Music-My favorites!

Well-India isn’t well known for Rock Music.Honestly,most people outside might not know about it at all. Not many are aware inside the country as well! Jokes apart,the scene is apparently changing.Here is a compilation of a few songs which I’ve liked a lot. I admit I haven’t heard many.Just a few I’ve liked. Ranked in no particular order.

Some of you  might classify them as alternate-progressive-blah blah-useless morons! You obviously understand that argument over that is futile.

1) Zero-PSP 12

I remember listening to this song like 4 years ago. Naive as I was-I thought the guy was saying “Baas maare” in the chorus.(Weird interpretation eh?) Anyways-I’d say this is my personal favorite!

2)Pentagram-Voice

I never knew Vishal Dadlani had his own band.Stumbled upon this last year on YouTube and it’s been stuck inside my head ever since.

3)Avial-Nada Nada and Adu Pambe

Yes.KERALA has a ROCK BAND.The land of my origin.Biggest shock ever.Brilliant music.They sing in Malayalam though.Music worth trying out nevertheless.

4)Them Clones-My Life and Bomb Song

Delhi based-one of the best.My Life has been my ringtone for a year now. :/ Came to know of Bomb Song through Karma Man.

5)Indian Ocean-Bandeh

One word-Epic!

Light

A poem which came to me while listening to a song. Dedicated to wayward souls all over the planet..

At the end of the tunnel

You seek salvation

Savor the feeling

Drench yourself in light

Let the pain be washed

By the waves of grace

You were never alone

Cause I always watched over you

And as you drift into the unknown

Forget your fear

You are a creature of the day

There shall always be light where you stay…

The song in question is this one..

Movie Review-The Expendables

My first weekend at college! I must say I have never ever anticipated holidays the way I did for these.I mean-5 days into college and the assignments had screwed me up big time.So Friday night was like redemption! We went the Union Bash,the Purdue Glee Club performance(which we exited mid-way ) and played arcade games. At 11:45 PM we decide to end the day with a movie. I personally wanted to watch Vampires Suck and pledge my support to fellow Twilight Haters. However,everyone around me wanted to watch the- movie-which-has-every-possible-action hero-possible!!  And so we booked ourselves for the 12:20 AM Expendables . Also winning the arguement was the fact the IMDB(traitors) gave this movie a 7.4 in comparison to 3.4 to Vampires. What happened next was a complete mood spoiler..

Rating- 1.5/5

It almost kills me to give a movie with Sylvester Stallone,Bruce Willis,Arnold Schwarzenegger,Jason Statham,Jet Li,Stone Cold Steve Austin(Yay!),Mickey Rourke and people whose names I can’t remember-such a pathetic rating.And Stallone directed this himself. But I swear the movie thoroughly deserves it. When you see such a star cast-you expect better. Keeping in mind that most of these guys have “action” plastered all over their faces.

The story plot is simple. Stallone and his team are  hired assassins. Brilliantly skilled,these men are hired by Willis to kill a rogue CIA agent who has taken control of a remote island called Vilena.(or something similar) What happens next is obvious. The “team” fights the army of buffoons who I  believe were trained to die at the faintest touch possible. You have the Batista guy from Dexter(:D) acting as the head of state who later on realizes how wrong he was to sell his land to the “Americans”.  This is after he lets them torture his daughter.

Amigo,you’re weird.

At the end of countless minutes of lame conversations and unreasonable shooting-the land is freed and you are free to leave the hall and curse yourself over entering it in the first place.

Now let me explain why the movie sucked.

1)These guys must have like 100 action movies between them. How can they expect the audience to admire the same plot that they have seen countless times again? And that too in the driest manner possible?

2)Individual performances sucked. Stallone usually seemed to be trying to escape from the camera. Jet Li’s presence was a joke in itself.He seemed more confused than the audience at most times.  Statham was like the only one who held his own at times. I wish Steve Austin stop being the bodyguard at all times. Mickey Rourke’s performance as the “dealer cum tattoo guy” was disgusting.The part when he tells about how he let a woman in Bosnia commit suicide almost made me laugh.

3)Stallone falls for a girl almost 40 years younger to him.Love is blind but this actually dumb.

Final verdict? Big let down.With such a star cast-you expect something way better. Powerful guns and lightning fast reflexes aren’t enough.

If only I had gone for Vampires Suck….:(

Btw-another Owl City must hear

The American Diary-Part 1

I guess all of us must do something to remain sane in this chaotic world full of unavoidable circumstances and tough decisions.I guess this is my retreat.My self defense mechanism.Anyways..

I’m here. Yay!(Duh) It is actually really beautiful. I landed like 25 days ago and it already seems like it’s been ages since I’ve  been home.I hope I return soon(Stop crying kid!). The first 2 weeks were fun.I landed in Atlanta and man-it wasn’t anything like I had expected. I knew America had better streets than ours(understatement) but man was I blown away. The way these guys follow a particular system is absolutely crazy. Makes me wonder if India was actually so clean-wouldn’t that be awesome? I guess we like most of our streets sprayed with paan and excreta. People here are mostly independent. They do know how to survive on their own. An art apparently I suck at. I guess we are pampered jerks. Atlanta had a warm climate and it is there that I got my first dose of freedom. You know that feeling that comes when you wait for something you’re entire life and when you actually get it-you’re not too sure you wanted it in the first place. I could do just about anything I wanted for 2 whole weeks and I ran around like a drug injected orangutan. Anyways,after the initial euphoria wore off-I started settling into the American way of things.The language was the first barrier.Back home I think I can pretty much handle anyone. Here however,you can get very easily twisted inside the accent and stare blankly for hours wondering what exactly happened. My initial problem came in places where we went out to eat.I used to get a major heartache whenever it was time to order cause I was paranoid because I thought they wouldn’t get a word of what I was saying.Sample this conversation that ocurred at iHop.

Waitress-Would you like something for starters?(Imagine with weirdest nasal accent possible)

Me-Eh?(Wtf?)

Sis-She’s asking if you want anything now..

Me-Waderrhhh..(with a decrease in volume with each letter)

Waitress-What did he say?

Me-Please somebody save me.

Sis(snorting uncontrollably with laughter)-He’s saying he’l have water.

Waitress-Oh..ok.

Me-(When the fuck is the next flight to India???)

I can say however that I have improved drastically since that forgettable experience.(You never know kiddo..)

Finally-Purdue! Exactly as I had imagined.I had one hell of an orientation and one hell of a team leader.(You’re awesome Tyler!)Speakers like Josh Shipp and Michael Sterner gave us pretty cool messages.I mean it was like they were saying the very things I wanted to hear.Shipp “Don’t be average” thing was awesome while Michael own real life experience was heat-wrenchingly spooky(What does that even mean?).You must YouTube them.(Whoever you are).

Dorm life is odd.It’s damn hot here but in like  a few months they anticipate heavy snow. The fact that I didn’t make any sort of close Indian friends in the Indian group while I was whiling away time back home is having it’s effects but I guess things might get better/or even worse. Most people in my hallway are party animals spare a few asians. Yup-life’s weird-but doesn’t that make it fun?(Grim smile which shows the person writing this doesn’t know what grim exactly means but likes the way it sounds.)

It’s a choice right? You choose how things go.Make a decision.College start 2 days from now.Let’s see how it goes. Rough times ahead.As Josh would say-I’m positive bad things will happen to you.

Oh yeah-this instrumental is brilliant.

And I did some weird shit as well.

Home

Another long over-due post.But no use lamenting over it now.

I have reached.The Promised Land.The land where I’m sure my dreams await in some corner. Where I will finally attain salvation.Then why call this “Home”?

Ahh..cause I miss home the most.

Are these initial pangs of homesickness? Maybe

Will I be here for the rest of my life? Nope

Will I go back home? Hell Yeah!

Clichéd as this might sound-You don’t really know what you’ve got till it’s gone.This is not home.This is more like exile.I’m supposed to learn my lesson here.You have just about everything here but this will never be home.Love is missing.Now don’t get me wrong.I know I’m gonna have fun here.But as most mid 20 guys and 30 something’s will tell you-after a while-you will get sick of it.

I will return.To my parents.My friends.My city.My country.Home.

Dave Mathews Band

Dave Mathews Band (DMB) is not a band most people would have heard about. It’s not exactly mainstream. But as I love to point out, it’s the freaking music that matters. And these guys are real good. DMB is basically a group of instrumentalist lead by lead singer (Dave Mathews). I recommend anyone looking for new music to try these guys out. They’ve been in the scene since 1991 though. Most people heard about them when they won their first Grammy last year. But they do have other feats to be proud about. Like the fact that they share the record with Metallica to have had 5 consecutive albums debut at Number 1 on the Billboard.

Their latest album (which got them the Grammy) is titled Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King. It’s basically in memory of one of their founding band members who died a year before.

Track you must check out before you download the whole thing is “Why I Am”. This one has been heavily featured on radio waves in the Delhi circuit.

My personal favorite however is a much older song of theirs.

Dave Mathews Band-Satellite

Read more here

Mea Culpa

Well, this post should have been written a few days ago but as usual, the lazy part of me overtook  any remnants of common sense left inside of me.  The Boards officially ended on April 7. And man was it an ending! I literally crushed the last paper (read-will pass comfortably). The paper being ED and their being only 1 Set (cheating, obviously) helped matters considerably. However, this must not overshadow my 2 hours of hard-work before the exam (I had fucking 15 days for this one you know). Anyways this one did not bomb like its predecessors and I stepped out unscathed.

A small note about the Boards. They were a disaster. Period. No more queries. (Wish my relatives were reading this)

Have watched a couple of movies after the Boards.(Even before and during but they don’t count, do they?) Chief among them being a complete rerun of the LOTR series. My personal favorite however is Good Will Hunting. An old movie which I finally got to see completely.  A comprehensive review might come soon.

These days have been extremely emotional personally. You must have heard what happened at Old Trafford. How a bunch of German Bastards ripped off Manchester United’s valiant attempts at a Champions League Semi-Final spot. Someone kill Robben and Ribery for me.  Wayne Rooney coming of injury for the match shows you patriotism. That, my friends, is a Red Devil.

I’m thinking about adding Music as one of the categories. I’m sort of an addict so why not preach?!!

A few great videos I picked up while sailing through the Net.

This is Lost performed by  Coldplay  ft. Jay-Z. The song and lyrics are pretty awesome. But the best part is the performance. Chris Martin seems in a trance while doing it and it was simply amazing.

This great video showing Manchester United’s greatest comeback ever. The soundtrack is particularly beautiful. FYI, it’s   Hans Zimmer-Now We Are Free.

Till the Abiss.(Eh?)

Chi Chi (All Japs ignore-Courtesy Rhead)