Back....

Been a while since I waded the waters... don't ask what kept me away... I wouldn't be able to answer... What I can indeed answer of course is what brought me back... It is time to use the English language again... for fun, to vent and to be sane...

P.S.: I am still trying to figure out what happened to the songs I posted the last time I was here. If you are searching for those (ha!) and finds them, please do let me know. :) Greatly appreciated!

Redivivus!

Philomelos...

Hear ye all... I am uploading a couple of songs that I had composed, sang and recorded... You will be able to listen to it using the audio player you see on the sidebar, called "TuneFeed". It is a lovely little player, although there are some glaring missing features. I am continuing my hunt for a better audio player but I am guessing that this one should suffice for the moment.

The songs were composed by me and recorded in my tiny room, which by the way resembles the battlefield at Normandy on D-Day. The only resources I had for recording the songs were my wonderful HP laptop and a RadioShack microphone (No, I am not aiming at product placement by ranting on and on about the "brand names" I use). All the instruments and the background music were done by me as well, with the help of a wonderful software.

A few words about the songs:

• Sapna: This is the first song that I really recorded with all the instruments. This was a coming-out-of-the-shell project for me. I started it just as an experiment to see what I could actually do with the software that I had. I am planning on doing some major editing to this song but I decided to upload the raw version here till I get ready with the final cut. This song was written by my very good friend Muhammad Younis to the tune I composed.

• Saawan: This song was composed more than 5 years back. The lyrics to this song was written by my dear father to the tune that I had composed. I just thought it was high time I recorded it because I love the lyrics. The recording on this one sounds better than the previous one just because of the fact that I am still learning.

About TuneFeed:

If you feel confused about the player, well don't be. Just hit the "Play" button and the song will load (there could be a small waiting time before the song actually starts; but that depends on your connection). To listen to the next song, either wait for the first song to be done or just move your mouse to the right of the viewing window (which now says "no artwork") of the audio player and you will see the option to select the next song.

To summarize:

Sapna
Lyrics: Muhammad Younis
Music: Nitin Murali
Singer: Nitin Murali
Musical arrangements, instruments: Nitin Murali

Saawan
Lyrics: M.P. Muraleedharan
Music: Nitin Murali
Singer: Nitin Murali
Musical arrangements, instruments: Nitin Murali

That's about it for the time being. Comments are always welcome and I assure you, there is more to come. Dosvidanya...

The Algebra of Anomalies

"Let's pray that the human race never escapes from Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere..."
C.S. Lewis

On a cold, dark and gloomy morning, I remember sitting across from one of my teachers in the Rutgers University as she explained to me the two types of poverty in this world: Absolute Poverty and Intellectual Poverty. The reason she deemed it necessary to offer such an explanation was obviously the fact that she had decided to put me in one of those categories. Of course her only intention was to alleviate the grief I had been feeling and to boost my otherwise low morale to at least such an extent that I would find my way out of the seemingly bottomless pit. She told me that I was going through a phase of Intellectual Poverty and that unlike the other category, this one was very temporary as I still had the power of knowledge and a graduate degree with me to fight the odds. Of course hunger and penuriousness just happened to be the raging symptoms of both of the above-mentioned categories. Tough luck! As I left her office and learned to cope with my empty pockets for several days at a stretch, a kaleidoscope of conflicting emotions made their way into my untamed brain. Among those emotions were anger, helplessness, confusion and a diminishing respect towards the self and utter jealousy towards anyone who could afford a cup of doppio macchiato from the Starbucks. Other symptoms that later decided to break the surface included a long and confusing investigation into the supernatural, a reaching out for the higher power (also called God), and wondering "Why me!!!". So it came as no surprise when I finally grasped that poverty and it's co-anchor hunger lead to thoughts that are rather extreme in nature and actions that are overly stupid in retrospect... hatred towards anything and everything... black and white... right and wrong... and it all becomes a hopeless muddle as sour as last week's chutney. As far as I am concerned however, this phase helped me understand to a certain extent the most significant of all the anomalies of human nature... hypocrisy.

Why hypocrisy? Lets look at it this way. If not for my given state of mind at the time, I wouldn't have given a damn about the guy with the espresso from Starbucks. I understood that we decide what to love and what to hate at some point in time. The hypocrisy of course lies in the fact that at another point in time, we might learn to hate the things we loved and love the things we hated. Of course at the time one has these feelings, the power of conviction might be such that you have no reason to doubt yourself. But unfortunately, little does one realize that the courage of conviction one feels could very well be a facade. It could just be a product of one's own survival instincts, one's own selfishness. So is altruism going to rid the world of hypocrisy and make the world a better place? Of course not! If people resist helping themselves, they resist other people helping them to a very large extent as well. But of course, I, like everyone else out there, am a hypocrite as well... so what do I know!

Humans have always been attracted to extremism... black and white... love and hate... heaven and hell... conservatism and liberalism... One important topic is of course religion. I have found that organized religion is a messy business whose behavior could very well rival the behavior of a bunch of unruly thugs in a maximum-security penitentiary. The problem lies in the very act of organizing the religion. It has never fully worked and I am not sure that it ever will. Religion depends on one interesting aspect. Faith. Of course faith is a direct product of something called belief. However, it so happens that we believe in things we least know. When people decide to follow a certain religion, they end up following certain aspects of the religion and discarding the others. An interesting recent incident comes to mind. I was waiting at this Cafe' the other day with a really good friend of mine (by this time you must have correctly concluded that I love coffee. I am waiting for the time I will change to tea!). A man from Korea approached us and randomly started talking. His first observation was spot-on. He made a statement to the effect that both of us were Indians. We acquiesced. He then went on to talk about Judaism and the large number of people of the Jewish faith in New Jersey. He kept reminding us that Judaism is not a race and just a religion. Do not ask me why he started talking about the subject in the first place because I frankly have not been able to decipher that. One thing that did strike me though was his anti-Semitism. Therein lies the hypocrisy. He follows a faith where he is supposed to love his neighbor as he loves himself... Need I say more?

The issue of racism is pretty interesting as well and the hypocrisy involved should not escape anyone's eyes or ears. I for one do not understand the fuss. And I for one cannot imagine this happening in any other species. Try imagining a white dog calling a black dog a Negro... or maybe it is because dogs are said to be color-blind. The time when all the men and women of this world would actually believe in a "human race" rather than black or white or brown or yellow might actually be the time when the world finally comes to an end! Of course then we can all "hitchhike" our way out of the galaxy. But those are just the words of a cynic. A recent misadventure that could compete (and actually win) in the category of the Himalayan blunders of the current year is the faux pas by an insipid and obnoxious character by the name of Jade Goody and her clique of cartoon characters on a reality television show called Celebrity Big Brother. I watched the show (only the controversial parts that is) and concluded two things. The first thing I decided was that television had managed to reach a new low point. I hadn't deemed that possible after sitting through 5 minutes of another show called "The Flavor of Love"(A lot of people would agree with me about "The Flavor of Love"). The second conclusion I was forced to make was that the racism, bullying and the ignorance that becomes evident after watching the show is surely but the tip of the iceberg. I wondered how deep the rabbit hole actually went.

The debates following the incident were extreme and expressed the anger the people around the world felt. The international incident made Shilpa Shetty, the Indian actress who was the victim, a household name around the world. She is apparently more of a household name than Aishwarya Rai because of this comedy of errors and that is quite an achievement albeit quite unintended I am sure as far as she is concerned. The amusing part for me about the whole episode however, was the staunch support she seemed to be getting in Britain (where the show was aired) and the vacillating support she seemed to be getting in India, her homeland. In India, some people considered her a hero while the others believed more media coverage and emphasis should be given on tackling the issue of poverty. Of course according to the latter group of people then such an incident should be just pushed under the rug without a second mention. I wonder what these groups of people are doing to tackle the issue of poverty. Something tells me that they would be the same bunch of people who would wait around for things to happen rather than taking the initiative to make them happen. I wonder whether it would be fair to say that their voices would rise calling to tackle the largest issue in the country only in the face of seemingly small but sensationalized issues such as this. Then it is my contention that we need more sensationalism on a daily basis. At least then enough people would start talking about poverty for somebody to at least take the first step! But of course I am ignorant. There were still more comedians who pointed out that such division and bullying based on race, caste and creed happens in India and therefore this particular 'Shilpa Shetty - Jade Goody' matter is nothing special and hence shouldn't be given any thought whatsoever. I wonder whatever gave this group of people the brilliant idea of using the same "weapon" in the case of Shilpa Shetty and her tormentors as used in India to tackle similar vile acts of ignorance… I am of course referring to that all-powerful "weapon" of silence…just waiting for the winds of change and doing absolutely nothing! Hypocrites! Tolerance is a big word if actually used along with defiance as the man in the loincloth tried to teach us once. Without defiance, it just becomes a big black hole sucking away our souls. As for Shilpa, hero or no hero, her defiance was truly classy and she definitely deserves merit for her resilience and her level of tolerance. But of course sanctimony reigns supreme...

In the end, once I prayed that I never get to have the same gloomy conversation with my teacher about poverty, I realized that pretentiousness and sanctimoniousness are embedded in the human nature and it might very well be impossible to be cured. We might as well learn to live with it. And that I think is the truth. No more black or white... just plain gray... and then maybe we can avoid those unnecessary bloodsheds, the unnecessary loss of lives based on race, caste, creed and religion... This would indeed seem like a tall order and hypocrisy is like a mutating beast that shows its head at every corner... that has its tentacles extended to every human emotion... prejudice with a halo... an anomaly that gives rise to every other human anomaly... THE imperfection... As I stood in the cold winter with the gentle snow caressing my face, I could see through the glass enclosing of the Starbucks... The people sitting in the comfortable sofas talking to each other... drinking coffee... discussing everything from the most mundane to microbiology and nano-technology... I decided to enter... the strong whiff of coffee tickled my nostrils but was more than welcome... I checked my pocket and found the dollar coin... one that I had resisted myself from spending just because of the fact that I hadn't seen many such dollar coins around... I looked at the coin, turned it over several times and pondered over it for more than a minute... I went outside the cafe, pondered in the cold a little bit more and finally reaching a decision went inside and ordered an espresso after managing to find 25 more cents in my pocket... my lucky day... I settled myself on a cushioned chair, hot coffee in hand, stretched my legs, inhaled deeply and closed my eyes... The dreams began...

Kiss…

Melting dark chocolates... a shower of rose petals... the silent soothing fragrance of jasmine... the gentle breeze... the rhythmic swaying trees... and Yanni's poignant rendition of "Until the last moment...", she remembers her first kiss. She remembers the tears welling up in her eyes... flowing down her cheeks, only to be stopped by his lips the next moment. She remembers his comment… as if struck by a strange revelation… “Salt,” he had said smiling. She had looked into those eyes… intense, romantic, poetic… her heart beating fast and her breaths coming short. She had held onto him, never wanting to let go… hoping that he wouldn’t let go either… but things change… leaving just random images… dreams becoming delusions… cold… final… the end. Now as she stood in the cold with the rain pelting on her shoulders, she felt the wave of change again. She saw him…

Waves thundering on the silent rocks… a distant lightning… the pungent smell of love in the air… passions ignited… time standing still… he remembers his first kiss. He remembers looking into her eyes, seeing the tears in them… He remembers kissing those tears as they flowed down her cheeks, tasting the saltiness… He remembers hugging her tight… a moment that will stand the test of time… melting away in her arms… her own soft fragrance intoxicating him… and their hearts beating in perfect rhythm… everything perfect… no barriers… But then the tides stopped… there were no more waves to break the barriers of change… no more hands to hold… an empty bag of straws. She was gone. Now, as he stood in the rain waiting for the bus, he felt the tide building up again. He saw her…

The bus was late. They stood in the rain waiting… staring at each other, exchanging silent messages… rhythmic heartbeats… the longing in their eyes… passions ignited. Time stood still again… urgent, desperate, impetuous… and they came closer. He looked into her eyes, she looked into his… and they hugged. A moment later, he kissed her softly on her lips... she closed her eyes… melting chocolates, thundering waves, raining roses… After an eternity, he broke off the kiss, looked at her beautiful face and asked her, “What’s your name?”

Dark Wader!

The night was cool, the mind was not. I was walking back home from college and my hands were shivering. Not from the cold, but from a combination of some insane sorrow and some randomly generated images from my life. Poignancy filled the air with its vile innocence and I couldn't make head or tail of the thoughts that seemed to enter my mind and exit at the same time. Insane. Obscure. Abstruse. Then I understood. The hero in me was dying, to be replaced with a morally reprehensible creature who seemed to be completely indifferent not only to what was happening around him, but also to what was happening to himself. Indifference they said, was more dangerous than hatred. And here I was, wading through the dark. Dark wader.

I continued walking. 400 feet from home. Heart beating fast, blood rushing into my head... and I saw red... blood red. And I knew that I was beyond the point of redemption. I was metamorphosing. I expected to turn nocturne. I expected to grow black wings like the dark angels (were they really dark?!) I expected my eyes to turn red like they would show in all those B-rated horror movies (I wonder who thought that one up!). No more selflessness. No more helping others in need. Me, me and me. No more heroism. I was the villain. It's better to be the villain in these times. They always win. Oh of course there is the matter of going to hell. But well, that matters only to people who believe in hell. So to hell they shalt go. Not me. To me it is absolutely comical, the belief that people are burnt in hell and tortured in hell and fried in hot oil. I am always tempted to frustratingly retort "Dude, you leave your body behind when you die. You think the soul cares if its deep fried?". I hope someone comes up with a more vivid and better image of how hell would be (for all those who believe in the concept that is... coz I don't care). For me, loneliness is hell. Hence the metamorphosis seemed important to me.

250 feet from home. I thought of the times I had offered my help to people. I thought of the people who used me. I thought of all the instances where I had invested my entire time to make people feel better. I thought of how they had grown far away from me. No more worries. Hakuna Matata. Freedom at last. And I thought of my own misery. And no one to care. How the loneliness would hit me like a million pinpricks of gusty wind on a day of heavy snow. The skin burning with pain... nothing to show for it though... the winds are always deceptive... just like relationships... one can only wait for the burning sensation to stop... before it starts again. Cynicism. Sarcasm. Contempt.

50 feet from home. The heroism had to end. No more agony aunt either. People who have problems should deal with their own problems, I thought. It was the birth of the villain. The excitement grew. The darkness grew. And I let myself float into it... deep inside the long clichéd tunnel... I reached the door to my apartment. Someone was lying sprawled right outside the door. The guy who lived next door. Drunk. And cold. Out cold. The tunnel ended. The lights became brighter. It was time for respite... before it got dark again. I managed to drag him inside. The metamorphosis was interrupted. Hodgepodge! Denial! Resignation! Good prevails... and "hell" rules...!!!

The Young Paladin

The young girl stood in the scorching heat outside the train station in Secunderabad, her unwavering eyes looking into the distance. She took in the whole city with her eyes; the people swarming about everywhere… people increasing their speed as they came near her… just another girl on the street with four siblings to feed… her only goal after she wakes up everyday being to keep her brothers and sisters from dying of hunger. Would she have dreams? I am sure she would. She would dream to be a grown-up… and walk the streets without a care… without having to worry about hunger…or destitution... And then when she grows up would her dreams change? She might wish to be a child again… to return to innocence as the cliché goes… But as she stood in the scorching heat at the moment and scanned all the faces that were passing by her, she was looking for help… a vigilante… someone who cared… someone who could help and would help… someone who wouldn’t tread on her dreams… Maybe the young man wearing glasses could make a difference. He is the one who passed by her, trying not to stare at her when her unflinching gaze pleaded with him and made his heart skip a beat. She gave him a smile when he turned back to look at her after walking a distance. She hoped that he would indeed make a difference.

Two months later, the young man flew out of the country for his higher studies. He entered a multi-ethnic culture… shocking, exciting and racist all at the same time. The inherent chaos embedded in the depths of this new society was difficult to understand. Still, the young man believed that there was a pattern. It was all about co-existence… the rich and the poor… the majority and the minority… people with different ideologies… religious or otherwise… there were a million reasons for conflict. The young man believed that people always cite one of these reasons to start a conflict all the time. But what about the dreams of all these people… do these conflicts start because of the dreams and hopes in the first place? If so, yes we should indeed tread very carefully… The young man thought about the wars being fought this very moment… the dreams being shattered at this very moment… and the hopes being made at this very moment. Simply breathtaking…

Awareness is the key, and awareness of course comes with knowledge. With the media of today, it is indeed quite difficult to separate the truth from all the other gibberish. But if we have people who are aware of the basic reality behind co-existence, then we have our paladins. Maybe, they would be able to make some kind of a difference. Maybe, the young protectors of this world could start immediately so that the young girl and her siblings do not have to remain hungry anymore… and maybe, just maybe the young girl herself would prove to be a guardian to others… In fact, let us all become paladins… what is stopping us but our own torpidness? We have powerful people backing us… people like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, to name a few… Let us make sure that those dreams come true… But let us all tread softly on the dreams lest we trample on the dreams of others… As W.B. Yeats poignantly said,

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Red...

"Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light..."

From The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

Red...a color that denotes change, something the world seems to dread...a color that has been so deeply imbibed by the history of the world...a color that is deeply embedded in all the revolutions that rocked this world. There is also red, the color of blood...I suppose red is the most misunderstood among all the colors...a color that often gets drowned in the hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness our society seems to be embracing these days. A color misunderstood because of the spillage of blood...because of violence...but still the brightest of all the colors. Red...my favorite color.

The thoughts about this beautiful color passed through my mind the night I was returning after watching a very thought-provoking hindi movie called Rang de basanti. The impact the movie left on all of us was rather evident from the discussions we were engaged in soon after the movie got over. I was quiet during the time though, as I was thinking about the color...red. As I sat in the car on my way back, listening to the discussion my friends were engaged in, the color red took me back to Kerala ( these momentary trips to Kerala have become more and more frequent for me these days)...a place where the color red is very dominant...a state even though one of the poorest in the world, demonstrates a quality of life that challenges even the most developed nations in the world...including the USA...a state that has famous economists of the world scurrying to study and make sense of the bizarre behavior of the so-called "Kerala Model"... a democracy as opposed to a demo-crazy as seen in most places...no matter what anyone says.

A kaleidoscope of emotions washed over me as I further tried to hold my thoughts together and make sense out of them. I then thought about my college...the burning ember of enthusiasm that used to fill the air...red. I then began to think about things that were not even close to being glossy about the color red...the fights...the pain...the frustrations...the anger...the violence. I entered that room in my hostel in college..a small room like all others...one that had 3 students living in it. I walked to the window and remembered my uncle telling me about the unforgettable events that had triggered a major scandal that started in that particular room about 30 years ago during the dark days of the emergency. This was where the police had come to arrest a final-year engineering student named Rajan. Rajan was taken into custody, never to be heard from again...an event that had a notable impact on the politics in Kerala as it created a ruccus that successfully pressurized the chief minister K. Karunakaran to resign within a month of his taking oath in the office soon after the emergency. Rajan was arrested along with his friend Chaly and the dubious arrest was not shown on record. Rajan reportedly died of police brutality and his body was allegedly burnt and the ashes thrown into a river by the police. Ashes to ashes...dust to dust. As I stood in the room where Rajan had stayed, I felt the darkness around me...black...suppressing all the other colors. However, in an instant the room dissolved in front of my eyes and I found myself back in the car. The Rajan case had found its way into my mind because of an article I had read which had reported that there are calls for the re-opening of the case and that this time, they might actually re-open it. Hope again came in the form of red, I thought....or maybe it was yellow...

We were finally reaching our destination and it was time for me to close the pandora's box. One thing I did understand at the end of my rumination was that it would be impossible to restrict life to a single color. Life is after all like a rainbow...you need both the sun and the rain to make its colors appear. Let us start with red though...maybe it is indeed possible to make a change...a dynamic one at that.

As I then observed the small menagerie inside the car...the discussions were still raging on unabated...and one thing became quite obvious to me...that sure was one damn good movie!