The Full Circle of Trance

I have finally come full circle (I seem to be saying that about a lot of things lately..sounds kinda cool in a tantric, osho, zen kinda way). I started off in my early teens by listening to Trance/Techno. I always saw underaged kids drive by in their cars blasting trance from their newly fitted my-dad-spoils-me-silly stereo systems. Have to admit that I was influenced at that time and wanted my dad to do the same for me. But in retrospect I understand how obnoxious that whole scenario was. That said at the time, I was inflenced by that music.

Then there was metal. I can't say that I'm a metal fanatic. I do like the odd song from bands which are considered to be metallic in nature. But somehow I haven't really felt the loyalty to a single band (except Metallica) . My exposure was at a college festival. We had a band called Brahma perform for us and the performed all covers. It was pretty captivating to say the least. The power, the depth, the fact that these guys were in some way defying convention, rebelling, calling themselves sons (or neighbors or plumbers or whatever) of Satan all appealed to me.

I would try and listen to metal while trying to write code or do some assignments. A futile effort. I realised that I can't really hum along and think about a problem about algorithms at the same time. Thats the reason (I like to give) for my grades being, well, not the best.

So, I'm sitting at work (yes...I did get employed inspite of those grades) and I try and listen to rock and sing along. Well, it doesn't work again. And now its a little more than a bad grade at stake. Its my job, visa status yada yada yada. So i switch my attention to the trance/techno section of Yahoo! Music. I have subscribed to Launch (about time I gave back something to Yahoo! after the amount of free services I have used) and they have a decent selection of music.
And somehow, it just clicks. The trance plays and is heard by a seperate part of my brain which basically then zones me out from the outside world, the only effective external stimuli being the call of nature, the call of lunch and the call of my manager not necessarily in that order.

So from being the first cassette that I actually bought, to being the only online music service I have ever bought, I have come full circle ...

Beer

I apologise, I really do, I have been finding topics to write about! Stuff that excites me, that stimulates me! I have written about emotions and movies and actions and feelings and everything else that is more complex than a ball of intertwined thread dropped in super glue. The one thing that is so close to my hear, I totally overlooked.

I like to think of Beer as a pal I made somewhere in my Graduate School days at USC. I distinctly remember a USC vs Arizona State football game that I had gone to at the Colisseum (cause we had free tickets). There was beer everywhere. It tasted like crap (I thought at the time) but yet it was being guzzled almost like it would give men the power to become irresistible to women (or other men..whatever your preference). I did not understand that philosophy at all. How can people pay that much money to drink something that tasted so horrific and at the same time made you fatter and increased your trips to those make-shift excuses for toilets?

Then over the Summer of 2003 (doesn't have the same ring as Summer of '69...ahh 69...), I went to Chicago for an internship. There I had the distinct privilege of meeting a man by the name of Pratik, who opened my taste-buds to a whole new beer-a-lity! Although the stuff I drank with him, I wouldn't even use that to water my plants now (I have some grass and weeds growing in the backyard...wait...I don't have a backyard!) .

My taste in beer grew. I started liking stuff that was darker and darker! From the Urine coloured (and tasting) Millers, Buds and Coors' to the dark and flavourful Bass, Guiness and Gordon Biersch - my journey was complete.

Why people like beer is still a mystery. I for one feel that Beer is not alcohol at all. Ofcourse it has alcoholic content (and as Lord is my witness, the best highs that I have ever got have been because of Beer) but its still not a smash-me-out- tonight drink. Its a sip-n-slide drink. Its a lazy afternoon drink. Its a lunch-time drink...in Europe (in case my colleagues are reading!).

I don't know who discovered/made/brewed Beer for the first time, but whoever did May God Bless his/her Soul!

Swades...

I have been an admirer of Ashtutosh Gowariker's work. I think the attempt that was "Lagaan" was a true adventure. His foresight of taking two topics so closely intertwined into the Indian culture namely Bollywood and Cricket and making them actually converge at the horizon in a way that appealed to our melodramatic psyche was creditable.

With "Swades", I personally think that he has gone one step further. Challenging topics that so many film-makers so easily overlook. His movies are real, concise and they definitely make you think. According to me a movie that doesn't make me think could still be a good movie, but one that gets forgotten easily.

I heard mixed reviews about this movie. Some people felt that it was slow and dull and others felt that it made them want to move back to India. I don't think that there is a particular dialog, or a particluar scene that touches you to believe the latter. I think that people who felt that way even for a small part, just felt relieved that someone echoed their emotion and actually made a movie on that. India lives in you, you don't live in India. That familiar fragrance, a particular flavour, a special festival they all force your brain into calculating the various permutations and combinations of what would have been if we had been back home, with the same materialistic assets from this country that bring us here in the first place.

For once I think Shahrukh Khan was not over the top. Rehman was at his predictable brilliant self. The cinematography was contemprary, something that we have gotten accustomed to with movies shot in foreign locales and then movies like Lagaan which have rural India as a palette.
For me, apart from the refreshing storyline, was Gayatri Joshi...a breath of fresh air....ahhh... I think its love ...

Think ...

So I have been away for quite some time. Its not because I forgot to write or had no time but because I feel that I need something that I'm passionate about to write. More often than not a trigger in my life gets me into that passionate mode! But lately life has been to peaceful!

The fact that I haven't been in the "thinking" mode lately is what got me all keyed up to write this blog. I have been looking on the outside for some kind of prodding or stimulus to get the juices flowing...somehow I just feel that it shouldn't be that way! I don't have to be a parasite on triggers. In fact I need to be just the opposite. I need to trigger things off myself...