Praise: A Devalued Currency?

The concept of “opinion” is again creating havoc in my life.

When somebody praises or criticizes, I very well know that that somebody is just expressing his/her opinion. It doesn’t make anything right or wrong, good or bad, higher or lower. One should not get influenced by such opinion beyond certain extent. But when the opinions and the ways of expressing them of the majority of people around you tend to be drastically different than you, you do tend to feel terribly out of place.

Many talent shows aired on TV often end up in controversies. Many of my friends, relatives, acquaintances – who are good artists themselves and whose opinions I respect a lot - do express their frustration (less in public, more in private) about how the artists these days are given disproportionately greater credit compared to the skill they actually possess. And I feel that this phenomenon of over-hyping somebody is not just restricted to the reality shows, but it has widely spread among various other fields and at different levels of the society. Be it painting, poetry, literature, music, intellectual discussions, anything!

Lately I have started to get sick of it. Evaluating something has just become a social trend. Just because x number of people judge something in a particular way, the other x number of people also tend to judge it in a same way. (I don’t want to go into the examples of this, since that will start a new debate. I can just hope you understand my point based on the above thoughts.)

And what is even more depressing is that “praise” seems to have become an extremely cheap commodity. Anybody can buy it. Here I am not referring to a generally positive feedback or a simple pat on the back. I do believe that it is absolutely necessary to encourage the artist to perform better in future. But to what extent should this positive feedback be? Should one not talk about the negatives at all? Sticking only to positives and trying to glorify them – is this the modern definition of evaluation?

Basing my behavior on the above attitude, I myself do not praise people so often. If I seriously find something of a very high standard, I do not think twice about absolutely worshiping it. But if I honestly feel that something was not of a fantastic quality (of course, taking into account various factors such as the age of the person, his socio-economic background, his experience in the field and so on), I may convey my positive response by a simple “well-done” sort of comment, but that’s all. Because of this way of dealing with things, I do get a feeling that some people around me tend to think of me as somebody who thinks of himself as better than everybody around. (I have actually been told this by a few people: that I come across like this!). But what to do - That’s me. Somehow my mouse doesn’t click the “like” button on Facebook that often!

Earlier I used to feel that the reason of me not praising somebody so much could be that my standard of a good performance may be extremely high, somewhere in my subconscious mind. Or may be by nature I am not the kind of person who can openly compliment somebody. But through my experiences in the recent years, I have realized that it is not the case at all. I do have resorted to verbal diarrhea when I have seriously liked a particular poem/painting/film – so here my nature is not at fault. Neither do my supposedly high expectations seem to be the reason. As I said in the beginning, some of the people I know – who happen to be really brilliant artists (do not mistake these for popular celebrities – here, I am just talking about somebody who understands the art very well and who has proved it through his/her work) – have said to me that the person x was not exceptionally good and did need more practice to improve. But then my question is: Why not tell this to that person on face? You can give him an encouraging response but at the same time also highlighting the necessity of more practice.

Sadly I don’t see any such dialogue happening at all. Many times one just keeps on praising the other one, totally irrespective of the level of output. One of the possible reasons could be that one feels that when he/she praises the other one so much, the other one praises him/her in return and eventually everybody is happy irrespective of the quality of their work. Then they don’t necessarily have to increase their level of skill to earn the praise. Another reason could be a plain follow-the-trend mentality where you don’t dare saying something against public opinion. Yet another reason could be purely marketing-oriented, where because you are praising that other person, that other person will feel happy about it and may recommend you to some other useful contact as a return. The chain reaction will continue and you may land up having more and more lucrative opportunities. Also, this praise-game could well be an eliminate-the-competition strategy, where you make the other person more and more complacent by praising him heavily.

Here I would like to confess one thing. I myself have experienced some over-the-top praises some times in the past. Even though I very well knew that I had made grave mistakes in whatever I did – I did get on the seventh heaven even though only some random person had praised me – that too some times for such ridiculous achievements that it can be a great case study for students of social sciences! Thankfully I have realized it now; better late than never. Thankfully I have managed to meet and get to know a few people whose set standards are sky high. Thus, however hard I try, there always remains large room for improvement when I compare myself to those standards.

(Just another related thought at this moment: I think even the greatest of artists must not be giving too much importance to opinions of the random people they come across. They must be having their set of friends/gurus whom they respect a lot and whose criticism/praise will play an important role in honing the skill. And even beyond this, they must be having their own personal standards against which they quietly keep on improving their work, irrespective of what people around them say about it.)

Here, one thing I can definitely do is to stop worrying about such thoughts any more. You can not take multiple paths in your life. You can only take one and you should ideally stick by it. Apparently I have chosen one where I do not express something unless I honestly feel like to doing so. May be that will restrict my opportunities in the so-called success-ladder of the society. But at least I will be happy that I have stuck by my own opinion.

(All of the above is just a result of my experiences so far as a simple 25 year old Mumbaiite. Any sort of the discussion on the above is something I highly look forward to.)

Music: A Musician's Scorecard

It’s approximately 2 a.m. I am finally realizing what my friend Abhir always says about the stock market, financial analysts, traders, investors etc. Often I ask him about how an investor enjoys his profits if all he thinks is how he can invest the money back in the market to make it grow further. Abhir always tells me the concept of money for an investor is like that of a growth chart. An investor doesn’t make money because he just wants to spend and enjoy that money. He simply makes it just because that acts as a standard against which he measures his own performance in the financial markets and thus, gets a great pleasure when he sees his return on investment has increased from Rs. 5 crores to Rs. 10 crores.

Not that I never understood this concept whenever he told me. I genuinely agreed with him. But the crux of it did not strike me as hard as it just did 5 minutes back. I think a concept hits you real hard when you understand it in a familiar language.

Many people consider music as a way out of daily routine and tensions. For them it’s an escape route to have some time of relaxation. But for a musician, it isn’t exactly just that. Let’s explore this idea.

Sure, just like the investor would want to have good money at his disposal so that he can lead a good life, once in a while the musician also would like to play some melodious tune which will soothe his mind and take it away from daily tensions.

Yes, it is almost every musician’s dream to achieve that moment of ecstasy when he is simply happy. Nothing more, nothing less, just happy. Some people may even consider this moment as their oneness with the god. At that point, the performer doesn’t care what audience is in front of him, how much money somebody is going to pay him for the performance etc. He is just simply plain happy enjoying that moment of satisfaction when he is hitting absolutely the right notes and his heart is nodding at every one of those. A similar situation can be observed with an investor when he finds out that while everybody else in the financial market has declared a loss, he has made a double profit.

But that doesn’t come too often, does it? That moment of magic and ecstasy comes only once in a blue moon. (And I think it should be that way only, otherwise it would not be so special for the performer any more, would it?) Most of the times, music is just routine practice for the musician. Different exercises, different ways of dealing with various rhythms, adopting different styles, deciphering various songs etc. Just another day at the office.

For the musician, the music performance is more than just a way of having an escape route from routine life, I believe. Let’s take an example. You start practicing a musical piece. You achieve fairly good amount of skill in it. Do you just stop there and keep enjoying that tune, playing it over and over again? May be for a while, yes. But then that itch inside you doesn’t let you enjoy it anymore. Having become restless, it just makes you acquire more and more skill. Like the investor’s case, for the musician the song is not just a stand-alone piece of joy, it is a scorecard. He prefers working towards improving against his past score every single day.

I believe that is a part of the deal. You may be a George Soros, but all you are thinking is how you can outperform the market the following year and in better quantities. You may be an A. R. Rahman, but all you are thinking is how you can make an even better composition next time.

One might say that all this just renders a truly magical experience useless for a musician. Well, I don’t think so. For me, personally, every small step – however basic that might be – towards learning something is a great joy in itself. As the rock guitarist Guthrie Goven said in one of his workshops: Play every single note on guitar as if it is the last note you will ever play in your life. Try to make that single sound as perfect as possible. And then you will truly realize what the real joy of music is!

SWAT Kats

It simply was one of my favorite cartoons on TV while growing up. The main reason for that, now that I think about it, might be that it was one of the rare real cool action animation series that time for me. Sure, there were fantastic animation series like good ol’ Disney cartoons, Popeye, Bugs Bunny and so on. There were also action animations as He-Man. But I guess SWAT Kats was one of the early entrants in the category of kick-ass action animation genre.

From whatever exposure we kids got to the American action flicks through The Terminator, Predator etc, back then I had set certain parameters for a good action movie in my subconscious mind: Some fantastic visual effects, guns blazing, cars & airplanes getting exploded, bike chases, a little romantic interest for the heroes, some supernatural powers and so on. And for a boy whose action-entertainment values were highly influenced by (unfortunately - only by) Hollywood, SWAT Kats proved to be something which perfectly captured all these features. Their jet fighter Turbokat, Cyclotron (my personal favorite - a motorcycle built into the jet) along with some other vehicles were super brilliant. Every episode also had quite engaging nice little story which entertained me thoroughly. Despite the fact that it used to be just an half an hour cartoon episode, the personalities of the characters were given quite good attention too, as I started finding T-Bone & Razor pretty big-hearted, cool & friendly dudes; absolutely hated Commander Feral; and somehow found Callie quite pretty, although she was, after all, a cat!

Another reason which refreshed SWAT Kats in my mind was its music – especially the title track. I now realize that the effect of this music was so profound on my mind - even as a boy who didn’t have much exposure to western music back then – that when I thought of SWAT Kats yesterday, my heart immediately drew a rough sketch of the title tune in my head and told the brain: dude, please go and listen to it as soon as possible - I want to enjoy that rock piece once again! Back then, as a boy I didn’t even care about what sort of sound that was being played at the background. But today when I saw the intro on youtube after so many years, I realized how rocking even the intro was! Of course, one can not compare this to the rock music of the likes of Joe Satriani's, Steve Vai's and so on, but the nice little title tune was a kick-ass piece of rock in its own right - nice start with the drums, pumped up by amazing guitar sound with distortion and good old rock guitar solos building up towards a nice end – setting the scene perfectly for yet another adventure of the SWAT Kats!

Hail T-Bone and Razor!

Thank you for the music!

As far as my relationship with music goes, I have gone through and going through different phases. The phases have lasted for different periods, some as short as a week, some as long as 3-4 years. Sometimes I have been obsessed with some heavy metal song for a few days, while sometimes artists like Kishor Kumar, Eric Clapton have ruled my music system quite prominently.

There was a time in my life, when music was just around. I mean, there was my mother pursuing her vocal music, father enthusiastic about collecting different music cassettes, my brother Amod dada and cousin Manasi tai actively taking interest in different cultures of music, my grandmother having sessions of bhajan at our house and so on. There were classical music cassettes, gazhals, bhajans, pop, little bit of rock, lot of Hindi music, lots of old classics. But the music was just there. Around. I myself had not taken any effort to understand and/or excel at it.

Then there came that time when my mother thankfully realized that I had some talent in music too! She made me take harmonium lessons, which I hated from the bottom of my heart at that time. I made every effort to run away from them. But thankfully she stuck by it and I finally developed an interest for it in some time. From then on till possibly my early college days, I was generally learning Indian classical music as interest. Well, little more than just an interest, but not something I couldn’t live without. It was just one of the fun things I was doing along with studies, playing, watching films, reading etc.

Somewhere around my 12^th standard examination, I became more exposed to the Hindi film music and understood how the modern Hindi music was being influenced by western music traditions - different chords, harmonies and so on. This was something I had never ever thought of till then since the Indian classical music is strongly based on melody rather than harmony. It was probably this time that I slowly started opening up to other diverse genres of music and tried to imitate the songs on my harmonium and keyboard.

But still, I was strongly influenced by the Indian style of music. I was finding great joy in trying to learn more ragas, different styles of playing, music from different Indian regions on harmonium. For some reason, instead of keyboard, I always had harmonium closer to my heart and spent hours practicing different compositions made by some of the greatest Indian musicians. The following may sound as an Oscar speech, but I got really great guidance from many friends and gurus I was fortunate enough to have in those 3-4 years of Degree College – mainly due to the participation in different competitions and musical programs. I do have some regrets about my inability to strive for musical excellence in my early college years, but I am very grateful for the music I performed and enjoyed with my friends during some later-years of college.

And just when I thought that I was slowly settling with my taste in music (being largely Indian classical), the guitar happened. Actually I was greatly impressed by the guitar performance in the song Rubaru from the film Rang De Basanti. It just hit me somewhere in the heart. A voice inside was telling me to learn guitar, but I just ignored that voice. I thought that having spent last few years in learning harmonium, why should I now try to learn a seemingly difficult instrument right from the scratch? But then I suppose learning guitar was just meant to happen.

While hanging around at a friend’s place, one day I found a guitar lying there. Having been quite curious about it, I simply started plucking a guitar string using a 50 paisa coin. And boy o boy! I realized that it was not at all an impossible instrument to start learning! I said, well, alright, the technique is difficult, but then, hey, I am at least able to produce rather decent musical sounds through it without having any knowledge about it at all!

I was sooo not aware that that moment was going to start a new hurricane in my life. First I forced my parents to buy me a guitar. I started doing some R&D (actually I prefer the Marathi expression for it – kide karne) on it. I started looking out for teachers. I started discussing my doubts about western music with my friends or any new acquaintances I made. Pop, rock, blues, jazz, blues-rock, classic rock, metal, heavy metal, flamenco, western classical…oh my god! Those zillions of genres never seemed to end! Something which started as a light attempt to be able to play common Hindi/Western songs ended up being an obsession which accompanied me throughout all the other things that were happening around.

But somehow I stuck by it. However confused I became after knowing different styles of guitar, however frustrated I became due to contradictory suggestions of different gurus, however annoyed I became due to my inability to prioritize my music, studies, career; I just did not stop practicing the guitar. Now that I think of it, it seems to me as if it has been like that phase in Forrest Gump’s life where he just ran. He ran, he ran and he ran more.

I was trying (hell, I still am trying!) to find my way through my musical interests and passions. I wanted to play Indian classical music on guitar, but then sometimes I spend hours and hours watching Eric Clapton videos and trying to learn something from that. Sometimes I try to decipher some excellent Spanish guitar music while sometimes I just love accompanying my friends on some contemporary Hindi songs. Then again there is that sweet aroma of jazz in some back corner of my mind while the classic rock styles still try to make me lose myself in their sea.

Now that I am thinking of all the above, I think how less exposed I was to music when I was in my early college days! I wasn’t even fully exposed to Indian classical music and I was already trying to make myself restrict to it. The more exposure you get about some thing, the more you realize how less you knew about it initially and how insignificant your so-called-achievements were at that time.

Not that I have a fair idea of world of music right now, but now I have got the taste of its diversity and I am totally hooked on to it. Given the probabilistic nature of our life, I don’t know whether I will become a professional musician somewhere down the line. But one thing I know for sure, that this musical itch inside me is never going let me settle at one place – somehow managing to push me into one more magical experience – just like Alice in Wonderland! :)

Approaching the dream...

Relativity influences so many aspects of life.

We always say how things appear so different than they actually are when we look at them from a long distance. I just happened to experience a very simple example about the same quite recently.

I was traveling in a taxi after having a fairly good day at office. I was feeling quite alright, having had a tasty afternoon snack. The weather was nice; it was indeed a pretty pleasant evening. Feeling nice and happy, I started observing things outside. While passing by the Marine Drive, I saw a beautiful formation of clouds in the sky. The sky was blue with a pretty interesting design of clouds in it, as if they were arranged around each other by the King of Sky. Grey and white were the clouds, which seemed to have a good communication between them so as to appear as aesthetically pleasing to viewer’s eyes as possible. The sun had placed itself quite perfectly behind a bunch of such clouds. It was appearing in bits and pieces every now and then from behind the chunks of the clouds, but the sunrays always came out of the clouds very gracefully, somehow creating the illusion of the sun stamping its authority of being the one who was ruling them.

It was indeed like a scene that we all must have heard about in the fairytales or experienced in a painting that we once admired. If not that, surely most of us must have noticed a similar description in some romantic songs, especially when we had had our very first crush on a girl/boy. Walking in the clouds, may be hand-in-hand with somebody special, looking at the colorful world from above like a free high flying bird, trying to savor every glance at the never-ending horizon….

But after a few minutes of admiring this beauty, I said: Wait a second. Here I am, enjoying this moment, trying to write a poetic scene, but something seems to be missing. Its pretty ok to write about a dream scene when I am coolly sitting in a cab, living in pretty decent conditions, able to breathe fairly fresh air (despite Mumbai’s pollution), having access to some more facilities if I really need them.

What if I were actually there? I mean right there! Thousands of kilometers above earth, in those clouds. What if some scientist actually manages to create a thin10x10 feet platform, just for me, right there, just to enable me to actually be in that dream-like situation? Would I be feeling the same things I am right now? Would I be living my dream?

I probably would not. For starters, I would really need to find an oxygen cylinder to stay alive. I mean, up there, with air so thin, I would surely have trouble breathing. Also the temperatures would run far below zero. Plus, who knows, I might just get very scared because of the height and me being standing on a thin 10x10 feet platform. Who knows how the wind will behave up there, it may just blow so violently that I may fear losing my balance and fall down. The sun will be closer, so I may have to have additional protective gear with me. Protective cloths, eye-gear, gloves, may be some good shoes and so on. Basically, I would no longer be the cute little boy with a cute cartoon-shirt, dancing around, singing songs, and chasing butterflies as described in our childhood stories.

In fact, even after getting all the necessary equipment, I would possibly enjoy the moment of being there just for an hour or so. If I happen to have mobile network there (what an opportunity for the service provider to market its network!), I might call my family or friends to describe the view. I will take some snaps for my Facebook album or may be a few more things like that. But soon I will get bored. I might get hungry and would crave for Vada-Pav. I might get irritated since I forgot to start the washing machine because of which now my mother would probably nag me. I might want to get back to earth at the earliest, so that I can practice some guitar before my Tuesday class, so that my sir doesn’t beat the hell out of me.

Leaving the exaggeration aspect aside, the point I am trying to tell myself is that the dreams that I see might be wonderful for a moment and from the a place where I am standing and imagining. But having actually reached that point, it might not be that great at all. It may be good, but may not be worth leaving all the other things in life behind. So why not just try to enjoy every small thing that I still am able to enjoy?

For the record, I request you to take the above descriptions purely in a symbolic way – something that I used to get my point across. I know that to achieve one’s dream, one must give up lot of other things and it is worth giving all that up once you achieve that special something.

All I am trying to say that there are sooooo mannnnyyy different factors – some of which can’t even be thought of until we actually get there - that matter to us. It is simply not wise to compare one situation to another, just in isolation. There are so many things that we should take into consideration. Many of those are just taken for granted by us. Only after leaving them behind, we come to know about their importance. In fact, we realize their existence only after they cease to exist!

On a personal note, I need to tell myself once again that I should also focus on smaller things in life while trying at the same time to achieve a dream. Like one of my friends recently said: Let the journey also matter - not merely the destination!

Meaning: A brilliant distraction

Through his humorous, sarcastic yet very interesting and thoughtful way of telling stories, Woody Allen has had a tremendous impact on me. He has simplified many complex concepts for me.

I do believe in what Woody Allen said in one of his interviews: Life is meaningless.

One takes birth, lives life – happily, sadly, brilliantly, disappointingly etc, and dies one day. It is as simple as that. Humans do it, ants do it, dogs do it and so do many others. Only thing we humans might be doing different than the other animals is that we use a lot of distractions to make ourselves believe that life is something more than just a birth-death cycle.

For the record, I would not like to call myself a pessimistic. I am quite grateful for lot of things in my life. I need not necessarily be in an amazingly depressing situation to think like above. I might just be sitting in an arm chair in a nice warm room during a beautiful rainy monsoon afternoon, having a cup of hot coffee, looking at the huge tree in front my house rustling around crazily while I am thinking how my life has absolutely no meaning, no meaning at all! :)

Coming back to the point, to distract oneself from this pointlessness of life, the man invents lots of things. Some are outright funny, some crazy, some interesting; basically something that gives your mind a way to find a meaning, or possibly an answer to some of the eternally unsolved questions. It may be money for some while involvement in a relationship for others, sense of achievement for some while god/religion for some others. (Please, o please, let’s not get into the discussion about the existence of god. If you think god is/gives the meaning of/to your life, you are free to have your belief. I respect that. But please let me be free to have my own belief.)

But ultimately, it all goes to a point where everything comes to an end and you are just dead. Finito. All the interesting things you were doing all this time – whoosh – they are not there anymore as far as you, my good ol’ dead friend, are concerned!

So, like others, I too want something, just to sway away from the pointlessness. Some thing which will keep this thought at some remote corner of my mind while replacing it with some other interesting stuff. (Of course, I will visit that corner some times, just like that, to have an interesting discussion between the two opposite forces.)

If I am lucky, this new-found thing might just make me believe that what I am doing is indeed the purpose of my life making it all the more meaningful. That sort of thing would be an ultimate drug, but till then I would be happy even if I find something that at least creates an illusion of giving life a meaning.

…and finally my Alien series is complete!

(Warning: This post might give away certain information about the Alien movie series and may ruin the fun for some of you if you haven't seen the movie yet.)

It’s been about a month now, since I have got obsessed with the movie “Alien”.

Actually it all started about 9-10 years ago. I was probably in school then. A much publicized movie “Aliens” (the sequel to the original movie “Alien”) was about to be shown on TV. I still remember how much we all were excited about it!

I saw that movie that night with my elder brother, saw it a few times later too, when it was shown again. I was so fascinated by the movie… That idea, the action, the creatures, the guns, the spaceships, everything…It was the thing of discussion for some time.

But yes, only for some time. Soon they showed its 1^st and 3^rd part also. Now these other movies were not as action-packed as the James Cameron directed 2^nd part. So naturally we kids got bored of them, and soon this “Alien” topic faded away.

And it all suddenly came back around a month back. I happened to glance through a few scenes of Alien: 2 while switching channels (to avoid confusion: let’s call these movies as Alien: 1, 2, 3 or 4.) and all the childhood memories of that movie came back. I almost re-lived that span of time when we were all obsessed by the movie. And I said to myself: Man, now I have to watch it again!

But when it came to actually planning to watch it, I realized that I have now access to all four parts of it, now that I no longer am a school kid with the TV being the only source! So, why not start from the scratch and watch all four of them? I had heard a lot about the original Ridley Scott directed 1979 movie – the 1^st part. I said lets give it a shot. Let’s see if I like it, now that I am exposed to a little wider range of movies over the years.

Weekend 1 : Alien: 1

So it happened. It was a perfect rainy Saturday, accompanied by a nice pizza and Thums Up. And by the time I finished watching it, I was so glad that I thought of giving this movie a try! As against an action-packed Alien:2, I found this to be a better movie from horror point of view. The movie gave a good background to what was going on. The director took good time to establish the plot. It was nice and slow – and quite some time too – till the Alien actually appeared, yet it was very interesting! And even whenever it did, it came and went off quickly, staying on screen for short durations. All this created a greater fear by inducing the mind to fear the unknown rather than showing the creature attacking the humans again and again. The entire movie went on quite smoothly, with the visual effects of year 1979 still looking amazingly good in the year 2010! Overall I felt the movie totally deserved the critical acclaim it had received, truly brilliant. (It was this time probably, when I had slowly started to fall in love with the character Ellen Ripley played by Sigourney Weaver. :)

Weekend 2: Alien: 2

Then came the second Saturday: - yes, another nice rainy weekend – a time to relive my school days of Alien fascination. Time to watch Alien: 2. No particular extra explanation needed other than the things I described in the beginning… Damn entertaining movie it was. A trademark James Cameron movie: great visual effects, kick-ass action, entertaining characters, lots n lots of aliens, space ships, futuristic rifles, nice twists-n-turns in the story and yes, my favorite Ellen Ripley once again! :)

Weekend 3: Alien: 3 & 4

Now comes this third weekend – believe it or not, a third rainy weekend in a row. (The Mother Nature really seems to have a thing going on for the Aliens, I believe!!) On Friday, after a nice little nap in the evening after coming from work, I start Alien: 3. I had heard that it wasn’t as great a movie critically as the first two were, but it was directed by David Fincher – the director of Fight Club: one of my all time favorite movies, hands down. But sadly, I have to say I was a little disappointed. The overall situation / surroundings where this movie takes place were kind of depressing for me. Moreover, I did not like the way Fincher has chosen to tell us this story. (No offense to the director, just that this was not the type of settings I generally like to watch in a movie. My personal interest, that’s all.) This old-factory-like-facility-turned-into-prison thing did not work for me at all. Plus, I thought the editing was quite poor, as the alien attacks seemed quite erratic and twisted the story far to often. The aspect most disappointing though, was the visual effects. Although not completely quatsch, they were nowhere closer to those of first two parts. All-in-all, it was not a bad movie, but one expects a lot more from a David Fincher movie, especially the one which has had such a great background of the earlier movies.

So finally here I was: two great movies, one ok movie and the last and 4^th part of the series ahead of me. I have to admit, based on whatever my friend told me, or whatever reviews I had read earlier, I expected this 4^th part “Alien: Resurrection” to be a rubbish movie, probably due to which I ended up liking it. (In the words of Raunak: When you expect minus, getting zero makes you happy! :) Now, it was not as great as the first two parts obviously, but it had some new thing going on about it, which I am not able to describe exactly. Well, of course, my favorite Ellen Ripley was back (Oh, yeah! :)). But this time her character was different. A hybrid of an alien and human, her character had some different shades, which were not present earlier. The new android was again a surprise, nicely portrayed by Winona Ryder. Some quite ridiculous – yet interesting – concepts about the alien-human hybrid, some good, some yucky-yet-innovative action sequences and some really funny (dark humor though) dialogues made this movie quite a fun watch for this nice lazy Saturday afternoon.

But by now I had started to miss one thing. Where is the fifth part? If you can stretch the story to the ridiculous extent of creating an alien-human hybrid, why can’t you make some fun movie when the spaceship is actually about to return to earth? Come on, some kinda Alien outbreak on earth, some good ol’ US Military attack to “preserve the humanity” stuff… come on, a whole13 year gap since Alien:4 and not a hint of 5^th part yet?

But then I thought: it is O.K. May be Alien is not that kind of series. (I am ignoring those Alien vs Predator spin-off movies here.) May be they want to keep it a little different than other sci-fi movies as they did with the original Alien. And although they stretched it till 4^th part, my favorite Ellen Ripley was still the same kick-ass yet graceful and lovely character as she was in the 1^st part. And I am quite happy to move on with this!:)

Guitarist: Am I one?

Very recently I happened to hear Ms. Shobha De speak in an interview. I frankly don’t know much about Shobha De. I have not read properly a single piece written by her. I even saw the interview in quite bits-n-pieces while doing some other things, but the last thing she spoke about in that interview was extremely sensible and made me think about it.

She was asked what she would advise young writers to do. She simply said: to write! Writing is just like any other art, where a daily riyaz is absolutely necessary. Around 500-2000 words have to flow through your pen every day. Just like a musician practices every day, irrespective of whether he is performing or not, a writer also must do it. Otherwise he should not call himself a writer.

That made me think about a comment I had heard around a year back. One of my musician friends, let’s call him Mr. A, had commented on another common musician friend of ours, let’s call him Mr. B. Mr. A had said something like: “Hehehe…yeah, he plays guitar, he can decently move his fingers around some chords, but he is not a guitarist!”

Now that I think of it, I don’t remember what Mr. A had in mind when he said that. I had agreed partly on that comment that time, since although Mr. B loves music, Mr. B is not a musician by profession and cannot devote as much time to practice / learning music as much as he would like to. Frankly, I do not know more about priorities of Mr. B, so I am not the right person to comment anything further on it. But that remark surely had made me think about myself as a guitarist.

I am quite a beginner level guitar player, if not complete novice. I was like that a year back, I am like that right now – with of course whatever improvements I have managed to achieve in a year. But I used to wonder quite often whether should I or should I not call myself a guitarist?

But now after listening to that interview of Ms. Shobha De, I am quite proud to call myself a guitarist. Having said that, I must clarify that it is based on my interpretation of that term. Well, I happen to have some musical background (active - with respect to playing the Harmonium before I started playing guitar, passive – with respect to whatever exposure to music I have been fortunate to have since my childhood). But it does not interfere with my ideas & understanding about the term “guitarist”. A guitarist, for me, doesn’t necessarily mean that that person is a proficient/skilled guitar player. When I call myself a guitarist, it just means the following:

• I have dedicated considerable portion of my life to music. The guitar, or music at large, is not just an interest for me, it’s been a passion.
• I have been involved in an active relationship with my guitar for around 4 years now.
• I have sincerely tried to better myself with the instrument ever since I first laid my fingers on it. To best of my efforts, I try to practice every day as much and as often as possible.

I really don’t know how many of you out there would agree upon my interpretation. But I honestly feel that a dedicated musician - with continuing, regular & sincere efforts over a period of time to improve his skill - irrespective of his current skill level - has a right to call himself a guitarist/pianist/violinist/vocalist or as the case may be.

Expressions of a Frustrated Mind

Nobody’s right or wrong just because majority of people say they are right or wrong. Who has said this or something similar? I don’t seem to recollect. But I do think being different is not necessarily being wrong. Am I right?

Why do we express ourselves, just for the heck of it, just because we want to start a fight to vent our frustration or because we are looking forward to those replies so that we feel that we are also being heard and replied to by somebody out there? I myself am expressing all this right now simply because it’s going on for far too long and it just got too much to handle. I had to vent it out.

People express themselves. They comment on current affairs, they have their suggestions, remarks, opinions, recommendations etc... I talk to them. I talk to them about this. We have discussions. We have arguments. I try achieving a truce by saying that what you say is your opinion, what somebody else is saying is their opinion. I am saying my opinion. You are saying your opinion.

In spite of getting tired of using the same word again n again n again n again, why do 90% people don’t understand a simple word called opinion? If somebody’s saying something, why do you have to attack (attack need not be taken literally here) him/her, if you don’t agree with it? Just like you have the right to have one, they have the right to have one too. It’s just their opinion, it’s not the end of the world, and definitely not something which gives you the right to attack him/her.

But the worst part is yet to come. When I try to tell them – or should I use the “keyword” – express myself about this, they start to ridicule me! Whoo-ah!! Till that moment, I wasn’t even a part of their world. I was just an inconsequential somebody. But then at this moment, I suddenly become the great Mr. Damle who is trying to preach others! People either take me too lightly or they discard me from the conversation as an extremely serious person. Awesome. I sometimes don’t understand why the hell I bother to express myself? Is freedom of expression worth all that if it’s going to be ridiculed upon and not taken seriously?

There are so many times when I feel that I don’t seem to fit in. I just don’t. I studied the expression “lonely in the crowd” so many times in school, college etc, but never really felt it as starkly as I do these days. May be I am at the wrong place at the wrong time. May be I am not adaptable enough. Whatever may be the reasons, the bottom line remains that I, for sure, suffer due to this brilliant expression exercise.

So what do I do? Good question. I think I have found out an answer to that, an effective one at least for the time being. Its going to be my useless talent no. 67: Keeping my opinion to myself. Freedom of expression is not worth it.

A chilly British morning...

I am listening to Moonlight Sonata right now…

It soothes me...

Some violin...

Some piano....

Like a beautiful painting....

Mountains...

A chilly British morning...

The countryside…

A cozy little house…

A wooden study...

A stone-fireplace…

Rain drizzling…

Some typical grayish 10 o clock morning…

Me walking in a garden or on some small pathway towards a mountain...

I stand under a huge dense tree which is there all alone by itself in a huge meadow...

Sky is grey…

It starts raining...

It’s cold...

I don’t feel like going back home....

I am there, standing…

My mind has reached some state where there is no single thought in it…while the nature is getting angry all around me...

I come to a small cottage...

Drenched...

I get changed in some good warm cloths...have a nice hot mug of coffee...

I pull over a blanket and just sit in the balcony...

Looking at rain outside...

Fragrance of the wet soil…

It’s quiet, except raindrops' sound on the grass and dirt…

I perhaps am able to play "für Elise" by Beethoven...

On a piano nearby…

I go on....

And on...

And on...

And I end up the piece on a beautiful quiet note…

And that’s when all that rain noise - that was going on outside all this while - also stops…

And it’s all quiet now.

Religion, Discussion and Interesting Confusion

I am not very religious. Currently I don’t believe in god. Well, I do believe in good or bad. (Although I will still say that nothing is actually good or bad, after all, they are also somebody’s opinions. But as a normal human being, I too, have some opinions about good or bad.)

To tell the truth, I have not done much research in that direction to comment about the existence of god. But somehow, not accepting god seems to be more logical than accepting god. Because when you accept god, you totally believe in it (not him / her, I see god as a concept here). Belief leads to faith. And when you encounter faith, you don’t ask questions, you simply don’t! And I do not agree with that. (I love it when Tom Hanks’ character says wonderfully in Angels & Demons: I am an academic. Faith is a gift that I have yet to receive.)

I prefer not accepting god, because it keeps room for discussion. There remains enough space for confusion. I love confusion… (Only through confusion one reaches enlightenment. God bless Fakih sir! :D Anyway, coming back to the topic…) Because of confusion, you ask questions.

For me, well, there’s even a space in my mind which says: hey, there actually might be a god, who knows! This space – of taking into consideration the opposite possibility - is unfortunately not present with most of the religious people I know. They do not see the probability, may be even the tiniest one, of non-existence of god. You can no more argue with them in that case.

No arguments? That means no discussion. No confusion. No more interesting conversations about dissecting every possible tiny detail. No more fun. Game, set, match!

Music and Memories

I thank my family to give me such a musical childhood. My family never seemed to run out of good music to be played in the mornings. Sometimes it was Kishori Amonkar. Sometimes it was Prabha Atre, Bhimsen Joshi. Then there were times, when Kishor Kumar accompanied me while I was getting prepared for school. And sometimes there was simply my aai or Amod dada, singing beautifully. Discussions would arise about which raag that was. Baba, as enthusiastic as ever, would be doing things around the house while thinking constantly about something new to play on the recorder!

But I have some special memories about James Last melodies. I have somehow connected those to the beautiful monsoon afternoons / evenings. I would return home from school, half wet, desperate to play Lego or G. I. Joes. Within no time I would wash my hands n feet in cold water of the monsoon season, get changed and directly pour all the Lego blocks on the floor! (Sometimes I was lucky enough to have a day off on a heavy-rain day. Then it was a different story altogether, but that’s some other time!)

I remember me playing in that room, which was next to Ruparel College. Ruparel College campus used to look most beautiful in those rainy days. The sound of the raindrops, clashing against the windows, going up and down all the time, of course was one music I always loved. But sometimes it was accompanied by James Last, especially “Theme from a summer place” and “The in crowd”. (I loved those songs, although I came to know about their names and their composer not before I was in degree college!) I remember Amod dada painting all the while in the room. Paints, brushes scattered all over room. Sometimes I would just love watching him paint like that. (Although he would hate when I used to start humming the songs along!)

Sometimes I remember myself sitting on the floor, trying to make some castle out of the Lego blocks. Amod dada would be just walking around the house or just standing in the window, staring at monsoon-Ruparel with a mug of hot coffee in his hand. (Of course, music is on in the background!) These times he would not switch on the tube light. He loved those gloomy half-dark afternoons. I loved them too. The whole atmosphere of half-darkness accompanied by melodious music gave me some mysterious feeling. And still whenever I listen to those songs, all these feelings – like a wild short-distance runner – start running through my entire body!

Anyway, those were the general things happening around that time. Soon it would stop raining and I would go out to play with my friends(?) in the building. After some time, that afternoon would turn into a 7 o clock situation, where it would be neither evening nor night. (Time used to pass so slowly n nicely those days!) The atmosphere used to be very pleasant. Within no time all of us used to get calls from home for dinner. And then there was the last but definitely not the least attraction – sleeping (hopefully under a thick blanket) while the rain would start blasting again during night and waking up the next day on a chilly morning (by Mumbai standards) to some good old Kishori Amonkar melodies!