Daybreak

Sun in the earth.. sunflower
Bird in the air …rain
Eye within eye… daybreak

Streets we have never walked on
Windows we have never opened
Hands we have never held
Dreams we shall never ..never see again

Lives we have never lived
Hopes ..we have never realized
Fires we have never lit
Loves… we shall never .. never make again

Sun in the earth sunflower
Bird in the air rain
Eye within eye daybreak

I hear those strange whispers again…..

– Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi

And believe me, it sounds even better.

Image Source: http://www.deviantart.com

This is the end, beautiful friend!

This is the end

Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I’ll never look into your eyes…again

Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need…of some…stranger’s hand
In a…desperate land

Lost in a Roman…wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah

There’s danger on the edge of town
Ride the King’s highway, baby
Weird scenes inside the gold mine
Ride the highway west, baby

Ride the snake, ride the snake
To the lake, the ancient lake, baby
The snake is long, seven miles
Ride the snake…he’s old, and his skin is cold

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

It hurts to set you free
But you’ll never follow me
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die

This is the end.

-The Doors

What could be the muse, was it just the drugs, was it the woman, was it depression, was it the quest for meaning, was it the restlessness of his youth, the exuberance of the eternal source of power, was it some ‘chemical locha’ in his head, was it sheer exhalation from a timeless creative lunatic. Or, it was a hybrid of it all. James Douglas Morrison.

This is one of the most depressing songs I’ve ever heard. It will still play second string to heroin, which is the ultimate sedative or I should rather say a truck load of sedative injected in one go. I wouldn’t have become such a follower of his, if he had not been so drunk or high or whatever to write this particular piece of prose.

There isn’t much I feel like writing about this wonderful line of ‘code’, one can go over and over many times and read or listen to this song and feel tranquilized. What else, this is the end, beautiful friend. I hope the beautiful friend somehow gets to read this. This is the end!

Ghalib

I have to now find out the real drivers that force me to write. Last time I blogged, it was kabir and now I can’t stop myself from typing a few lines about Mirza Ghalib. Thanks to the few songs sung by Jagjit Singh, I can say that I have some idea of the all time classic shayar Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan, or as we all know Mirza Ghalib.

Har ek baat pe kehte ho tum ki tu kya hai

tumhee kaho ke ye andaaz-e-guftagoo kya hai

Ragon mein daudte firne ke hum naheen qayal

jab aankh hi se na tapka to fir lahu kya hai

jala hai jism jahan dil bhi jal gaya hoga

kuredate ho jo raakh, justajoo kya hai!

I must mention that this guy is simply amazing. Almost all of his work was his depiction of love and his poetry was driven by the explanation of the beauty of his beloved, the pain of infidelity and the similar feelings. Of all his stuff that I know, this is the one I rate very high:-

Unke dekhe se jo aa jaati muh par raunak

woh samajhte hain ki beemaar ka haal achha hai 🙂

sabko maloom hai jannat ki haqeeqat lekin

dil ko khush rakhne ko ghaalib ye khayaal achha hai

In one phrase, he unfolds such bewildering truth of life, this mere achievement of packaging the reality with such subtleness and reality does amuse me. And it has been over-used after he wrote it down.

Hazaaaron Khwahishein aisi ki har khwahish pe dum nikle

bahut nikle mere armaan lekin fir bhi kam nikle

mohabbat mein nahi hai farq jeene aur marne ka

usee ko dekh kar jeete hain jis qaafir pe dum nikle

There isn’t much I can say about him. He is a legend.

Hai aur bhi duniya mein sukhanwar bahut achhe

kehte hain ghaalib ka hai andaaz-e-bayaan aur

Bhatak Maro Mat koi

“saat janam ke saat pher hain…saanp seedhi hai bhai….yam ka dand mund mein laaage, dharee rahe chaturai”

These are lines from a song called Kabira(Agnee) .From last 10 odd days I have been listening to Kabira and Sadho re from the same band and it just doesn’t leave me. After I have heard the song kabira for some 20 times I realize that I am not getting all the words, let me find out what is the media player singing. And I noticed this line, specially the second half of it – ‘yam ka dand mund mein laaage, dharee rahe chaturai’, and it gave me Goosebumps, I listened to it again and again and again, as it was constantly pulling me towards itself.

What is there in this one single line makes me feel so twitchy? Is it the words, is it the subject, is it the music that runs behind the words, is it the voice, is it the death scare, what the hell is this? While writing this I am still pondering over the possible answers to these questions. And the closest I can get is this:-

I feel that in spite of the ‘self-defined’ heights we reach, irrespective of the mammoth size we attain and the amount of achievements we grab, steal or earn, the inherent reality of our existence hides itself in the fact that we are still miniscule components in the over all scenario. Miniscule, when compared to space and to the time line on which we exist. Do we even need to give a thought to this, I can’t say.

The other song ‘Sadho re, ye murdo ka gaaon’ speaks about all this. It laments over the whole concept of death and it does it with eyes settled on the roads, in a market, in an office, in an apartment. It sees them all, walking, dancing and drinking fresh orange juice and vintage scotch. The song says it all, and the whole ambiance speaks it as well, only if one decides to convince his mind to open up for it.

‘kahe kabeer suno bhi sadho, bhatak maro mat koi’

Bhatak maro mat koi! The whole wail is not actually a wail. The meaning is clear, absolutely plain. The whole game of life, death and existence isn’t mechanical and meaningless. The noetic quest is the fuel, understand it! As long as one can fuel it with the urge to know about it, life is on, else, innumerable species of mammals, birds, reptiles and other creatures also respire, everybody got their mechanism, you have yours. And the famous 1960’s dialog ‘It’s all about the choices you make!!’.

Bhatak maro mat koi!

I found one more missing part of the jigsaw, Thanks Kabeer, you rock!!

People are strange!

Lately I been sitting idle, workless most of the times, quietly knitting my own stories all the time, finding more music and perhaps less people. Feeling ecstatic as I look back on my grand discovery, finding a pc on LAN which has a great music collection. Wow! It has all of ‘The Doors’, and a few more. I feel so content with these little music collection of mine, and yea internet of course! But how long would I survive this latency, Ah! Forever, can’t say. 

There must be around sixty people sitting around me on the fourteenth floor of this flashy glass building and I don’t know a single person, no colleagues so far, no acquaintances, and no friends. Me and my machine. My 10 GB song collection, Pagalguy, TotalGadha, Tenaday, Satanic Verses, Google-Wikipedia brothers, Pentropy, Penthegame, WordPress, Blogger, Cricinfo, Goal and my dearest friends in my Gtalk list, and thus sun completed one more visit to earth. 

I think I have attained this state of tranquility, which people say is the most difficult position to reach ;); we always read stories about sadhus doing tapasya to get this. I would say that I have been a lot luckier to attain this without much of beard-growing and Himalaya-climbing. It just came like a post, a normal courier. ‘Diwakar Kaushik, haan! yahan sign karo, aur phone number likho’. It was as simple as that. But unlike all those other things which came easy to me and I didn’t value, I truly respect this one. I believe that I have been lucky, hmm, no, very very lucky 🙂 

While you are already thinking that why am I actually bothering you by writing all this, you must realize it by now, get the essence of what’s written so far and quit reading. It means that it’s a workless guy, with a blog post pending with no one online 🙂 

I still find absolutely no fault in this semi-lament, semi-mirth tomography of my today, as anything else written would also leave you with a pretty similar feeling, ‘What hell! Does this guy ever make some humane sense, EVER?’, and believe me, I take it as a compliment. 

Back to the eternal calm, now, I am out of this habit of punching the keys for more than 10 minutes. Till then remember James Morrison and read this. 

People are strange when you’re a stranger

Faces look ugly when you’re alone

Women seem wicked when you’re unwanted

Streets are uneven when you’re down

 

When you’re strange

Faces come out of the rain

When you’re strange

No one remembers your name

When you’re strange

The Gods of an atheist – Indian Ocean

It’s been a long time it seems and I would keep my promise of writing a post on my favorite Indian music band, the Indian Ocean.

I remember the first time when Chetan gave me the jhini cassette, I skeptically took it and kept it in my drawer for a good long week before deciding to remove the dust and give the band a try. It must have been 4 years now, and since then nothing, being it music or movies or food or etc etc etc has come close to the amount of sensation that music has provided me time and time again. I found as many Indian songs I could and started gulping them one by one. I remember kandisa was in my play list for a record 12 days and then I realized that there are more songs left on the planet.

Of there five albums so far, which are Indian ocean(1992), desert rain(1997), kandisa(1998), jhini(2003) and lately, black friday, I am personally a big fan of the following songs and I seriously recommend all those people who love to explore music to listen to them once, you will get addicted that’s for sure irrespective of how strongly you can resist your temptations. I personally resist a lot of temptations, but to resist this one, a person needs heavenly strength. This is my must listen list:-

Kandisa, Khajuraho, Jhini, Hile le, Ma Rewa(Favorite song of my college love Lucy!!!), Torrent, Nam myo ho(If you find better non-lyrical music, kindly take the pain of letting me know), Bharam Bhaap ke and many more.

I find myself very lucky to watch them perform live on two occasions. Coincidentally at the IIMs both the times, Ahmedabad and Bangalore. And those two evenings are surely listed as one of the most electrifying experiences of my otherwise a very boring laid back life. They have their own niche in the contemporary Indian music and I believe that even when they are not so popular on the commercial front and still a big music listening population is unaware of their presence, they must be proud of the kind of audience they attract (and mesmerize and hypnotize) and even more proud for the kind of work they have been doing for years.

On this blog, I generally mention my existential confusion and the over all meaning of life and blah blah. I am always confused about the overall ‘why’ of life, but at times when I just sit back and listen to Indian Ocean; I find a lot of answers. They are perfectionists, and at the same time, the work that they are doing and the kind of music they produce makes mere and unimportant souls like me feel really feasting on at least one of senses, which is so difficult at most of the times. And at the same time, it makes me feel that may be this is the kind of life I may like to live one day.

Read a lot more about them on their official site and on wikipedia.Indian Ocean

Thank you so very much Indian Ocean.

Fête de la Musique

Given a choice I would like to celebrate my birthday on 21st June rather than on the normal unimportant 23rd September. Day before yesterday on my way back home (that tour de bangalooru from Whitefield to BTM) Radio One told me that this Thursday we celebrate the World Music Day, and I felt deep disgust! How come I didn’t know about it?

Wishing all those feed-me-on-music companions, a very happy world’s music day. Get stoned by all your favorite music the whole day today, don’t miss a minute on this day. This morning also the same source, Radio one, played some great tracks in bus (Smriti’s ipod is broken and it’s all agony for me, does someone know how to fix it, the green and orange lights are twinkling and no sound output! Help!). Javeda Zindagi, Jhin min jhini, Nusrat-tere bin nahi lagda, Albela sajan and a few more vellicating treat for the listening sense.

I have decided to keep this post short and simple J and would just pen down some random songs that my player is playing. Here it goes

1. (I can’t get no) Satisfaction – Rolling stones.
2. Is mod se jaate hain – Gulzar/R D Burman/Lata/Kishore
3. Karma Police Unplugged – Radiohead
4. Haath Chhute to Rishtey nahi chhoda karte – Gulzar/Jagjit Singh
5. Jesus don’t want me for a sunbeam – Nirvana MTV Unplugged
6. Pale Blue eyes – The Velvet Underground

Soon I will be back with a post on my favorites Indian Ocean, till then roll on!

Music is life.

Merry-Go-Round!!!

Its been some time when I actually wrote something on Pentropy(actually I felt I must mention that it’s time when I wrote something meaningful, but I felt that my definition on ‘meaningful’ would be deceptive and would create a hell ambiguity, so I decided to cut the crap, ahh shhh dk!)

It’s been a strange period of time for me, I tried working hard for a change but to my surprise it works in the other direction! My productivity falls if I direct all my energies in one direction. May be not doing anything else but work makes my mind think that I am doing nothing else but work and hence I don’t try to do even work and that concludes in no results and a lot of surprise(Oh my god, what did I just say?). It’s getting complex I know, but yea when you have not written anything for some time you obviously tend to produce random gabble and not a distinctive and defined speech.

While I write or plan to write, I spontaneously try to think a lot of things. On paper they could sound (read) like this:-

• Hmm, let’s write something!

• Oh, yea it’s been so much time I decided to write on music, what hell, Music is my spiritual and mental nourishment and how come I can’t think of anything to write on music! Yea, I will write on my best 5 songs of all time, 5, ahhh a small number….ok 10!

• oh wow, I just love Khamaj(a song by Paki band Fuzon) its such a drug, I must write and tell the world that destroy all cocaine, its the best drug!noo, not music, nobody will like reading a story on a song or an album or a band…they all have their tastes in music..i have mine..ahh…may be i will..or..let me wait another day!

• I must write something yaar, what the hell is this mental block, sobs sobs!

• I wrote ‘can u imagine‘, people liked it (perhaps, at least they commented not realizing that I didn’t put any thoughts on that!) so let me write some random shit yet again and make people think (ahh, 4 of them, 5 of them!)

• Oh, if i don’t find any other thing I will post some of my lost poem stuff (which I feel is great, is mine, and is not so understandable for anyone but me and a few more people!)

• Forget it, i am not writing it today! no one will read it anyways! Let me just go and have a hot chocolate fudge, I will love my life.

 

I am too confused in my writings as I am in my life. But the fact is do I want this confusion to end, I don’t know! May be I can just live the rest of my life fiddling with this confusion, fondling with my brain, flaunting the fake imaginations and hiding my garish reality, our mediocrity and the helplessness! Let’s live on!

By the way, my dear friend Rahul Bapat took this amazing pic which I loved and wanted to show on my blog, cheers Rahul, teach me some photography, i think someone said that life can be decoded by photographs(if no one did, I am saying it!). Ahh..enough, seems I am lost!

 

Hope to write a sane post next time. Amen!

The song pours serenity in my soul through ear doors

On my long one hour journey to office this morning, I picked up Smriti’s ipod shuffle and kicked off my morning. It played abhi nahi aana by Sona, followed by Imagine – John Lennon, Coldplay’s let’s talk and Pankaj Udhas’s Ahista and I was happy like a kid with handful, pocketful and mouthful toffees.

 

So content, yet so uncertain I never know what I want and what makes me happy, but it’s been a mystery for me how these songs make me serene and fill me with tranquility every now and then. My lust for music has increased exponentially after I started work. And with constantly dying desires, the only hope rays come to me through dot m p threes and dot w m vees. But, unarguably music addiction is bliss, a real sense of equanimity.

 

Such a long life, so little to do. So much to hear and so little time, beautiful ironies making up life. For most of us, it’s just a stress buster, or just a little rhythmic hymn dragging on some radio, but people who live on it, know the importance, ah wrong word, the temptation of this alcohol. May be I belong to those who are overwhelmed by the beauty of this art and the ugliness of their mediocrity to feel so great about something which is perceived by most of the world as a leisure for times not good for anything else. But this desolation is accepted as far as we keep getting the sense massage from these beautiful songs.

 

Genres and moods, variety of humans and varied tastes of life conjure up everything. From the velvet underground to Lata, from the doors to Jagjit Singh, Coldplay, Fuzon, Radiohead and Norah Jones, the stretches in music are longer than any other latitudinal and longitudinal magnitudes. And this is my luxury, for every moment I get something to make me feel intense about the current situation. Sometimes it’s the words, otherwise the strings or the voice, and sometimes amazing totality of it all, but I agree that it has some voodoo involved in it. This is the most sufficing topping of them all!

 

God rectified its error of making human by making music. Thank you god, very much!