And then we sang....

The day - 31st of December 1999 ; the time must have been anywhere between 6 to 8 pm when we started to sing . Nervous ?? A bit we were for sure, but then it never did matter because we believed in ourselves and we believed that we sang well and rightly so cos we did sing well that day.Music has always run through our veins and we have pratically lived on it all our lives.

The new year party was amazing ...and me and ritu being a part of it and actually singing in front of such a large audience with full rehearsals was even more exciting. Dola Dola, Chanda Re, Sunta hai, we sang them one by one much to the surprise to a major lot who did not quite believe that we could pull them off so well !!!!

Everyone patted our backs for our performance ...for the last time.....

That was the last time we sang together. I flew to bangalore to pursue engineering while Ritu completed hers at Xaviers, Kolkata.We never could think about anything else part from our routined life.A lot of things happen to our lives....Ritu finds her soulmate...I face ups and downs in college life.A huge heartbreak follows...Music is out !!!!

Ritu comes to bangalore ;stays here for 2 years;completes her course and gets ready to leave for Kolkata.

In this mechanical IT life , there is hardly any time to indulge yourself and listen to your heart and dedicate a part of your life to something which once used to not only be a part of your existence , but also a way of life !!

Music was still out .....

The day -6th April 2008; the time somewhere around 8-9 pm ; Oasis Centre Bangalore, Amma and Sashi drag us on stage and ask us to sing !!! There was a karaoke session going on and we were suddenly holding mikes !! Nervous ?? A bit for sure ,but then it never did matter because we believed in ourselves and we believed that we sang well ..... And then we sang ......."Main Agar Kahoon"

The audience was enraptured !!! Claps and more claps !!! We were the centre of attention, suddenly..standing tall..feeling proud..

It took 10 years for me sing in public, and it gave me hope,it gave me confidence, more importantly gave me peace.. and as Ritu rightly put in that amongst so many changes that we have been a part of there is something inside us that is still the same .. Something which is stagnant.

Thanks mom and thank you Sashi for the confidence !!

I think I am a changed man, I sing to myself each day,and make a conscious effort to near perfection in my renditions, each time I hit a note....

I dont know how to conclude this post , maybe I will close my eyes , take a deep breath, look skywards and say Thank You...

PROPHESY

Technology is a drug ..

We cant get enough of it .

We feed it to our kids , to our friends and to the society and watch them grow on a forced diet of desinsitization.Switch on the t.v and someone will tell you 50,000 people died in India. Two seconds later you are watching a comedy .Technology can do that.It gives us simulated realities that make us oblivious to the real world.Grass and Heroin do the same thing !!So do most class A drugs.Basically we are all addicts---addicted to the comfort and convinience that technology provides--addicted to the notion that progress is directly related to the size of our computer screen. Of course it is , isnt it??? We must be right....We come from a developed world..We are already developed.Sure. Then again , there are wealthy kids in America who shoot each other. Many Scarlett Keeling s from accross the globe fall prey to human savagery,get raped and killed .

So who's developed???

I met a little fellow in the town of Tumkur and asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up.He said "Insaan"...!!!

When I look in front of me, I see two paths - spiritual or material . Two worlds- developed or developing.You decide which is which .We are still in the wake of millenium paranoia -earthquakes,floods,end of world scenarios, cult suicides, viral deseases that eat into our computer realities. This is our developed world.

Then as Nelson Mandela says"We are free to be free"

I guess we make our own prophecies.

The rose and the girl ...

I was taking a casual stroll down mg-brigade road last Sunday , the 13th of April ; one of those carefree citizen walks that I religiously take when my mind spins thoughts. I was excited of course as I was holding the prestigious "Rolling Stone Magazine " with the cover photo of rock gods Led Zeppelin.

Sundays can be boring ,especially when on the rare odd weekend day all your friends have something or the other to do.

So, I crossed Nilgiris, and headed straight ahead when I saw her standing right across the red formidable Levis building holding a bunch of red roses,wearing a maroon kurta and a tattered denim jacket.A girl , not more than 10 , one of the prettiest creations of the Lord, left behind , to earn a living by pleading men and women to buy at least one of those flowers. Her face bears a withered look unlike the other children of her age who love frolicking around in company of their loved ones.

I had seen her earlier .I reminisced , how well she had managed ,on an earlier occasion ,to have a lad buy roses so that he could impress his lady.
Hah!! Life is after all impressing pretty maidens isn't it???

I continue to walk, but she keeps on coming in my mind...I try to shoo the thoughts away, but she had already gained the focus.In a country like India its sad that we still have girls who have to tread on their innocence and at such a tender age sell flowers to earn bread.
Ya,ya we have NGOs ..they are all there ...They are there to take care of them..Why should we bother?? Look how pretty the lady next to India coffe house is..She is wearing such a provocative dress..Woooooo .......

In the backdrop two motorbikes collide- the riders roll on the road-a mob gathers-no one is hurt-...Its all happening..

Right,we are great..We lead "meaningful" lives.. What a pity !!!!! It takes a "Taare Zameen Par" or a "Peace Tree" for us to resolve to show responsibility towards the underprevileged...and mind you the spirit evaporates much before the movie hangover dies out !!!


There are people who take actions on these, they are people who give a damn, there are a few who want to help but are too lethargic to move forward and lend a helping hand, and there are yet a few who will do nothing but sit back and type the keybaord and be "proud" bloggers of an elaborate article.

I go back to the place I saw her, I couldnot find her ....She was not there..I wait for her, she is gone....probably to some other dark corner where she can find someone kind in the heart willing to spend a few bucks buying a rose...

Next time you see her, standing across the red formidable levis building wearing a maroon kurta and a tattered denim jeans,,, buy HER a rose.....

It will help her buy a piece of bread and in turn will help you BUY a piece of PEACE !!!