streamofalteredconsciousness

2010-01-01T08:08:00.000-08:00

Rendez-vous

It's unethical for me not to love you; pain, has always been the solitary man's sole consort; yet, my demeanor will betray this. Expressions often conceal more than they can reveal; even my suffering is affectionate;and i choose not to express. When we meet again, we'll meet as if we're meeting for the first time; we'll smile, not out of politeness, but out of genuine affection for each other; we'll find ourselves in our childlike universe.

If theatre, the stars will conjure a spectacle, will cajole the winds to orchestrate the resonance felt, deep within.

2010-01-01T08:04:00.000-08:00

Un musically yours !

In the beginning there was silence. I really would'nt know, but we'll go with the wise men on that. Then, as if to celebrate its own birth, music erupted, unfolded like the petals of a lotus. What followed several years later, caused one to gasp : Anu Malik was born. Was that the day music died?

Once upon a time, you had your regular group of friends who were really interested in music, and wanted to make a difference - Saturday night specialists born out of an extra peg of whiskey. This wanting to make a difference probably prompted them to set aside their differences and work together to create magic. Can you really imagine Mick Jagger and Keith Richards working together in a real job? In fact, most of the bands -The Beatles, The Who, Led Zep, Pink Floyd - which made "good" music were formed that way. However, the sad thing is that today we have come to a point where we often get the impression that music is "manufactured" with the sole purpose of disturbing our silence, our peace of mind. Very often, it becomes a medium misused by people for giving us a piece of their mind, which, mind you, we weren't interested in anyway - death metal, thrash metal, and what-have-you. How did this happen? When did we lose the plot?

As Thom Yorke of Radiohead very aptly puts it :" Music has a tendency to become lifestyle music. No one intends it but that's what happens". A classic example of the same would probably be hip-hop. A genre that appeals to a generation mass hypnotised by TV and celluloid, misled into believing that "shedding inhibitions" implies shedding clothes. Music, alas, has been reduced to pure biology!

Contemporary Indian music is probably a shade better than the Indian film music of the 80's and the 90's, which involved copying spanish numbers and adding jhankar beats to Indianize it. Today we have ,at least, a few notable exceptions -Rahul Sharma, Aman and Ayan Bangesh - who add a touch of freshness to an otherwise decadent art form. I believe that is the real problem: One has the right to choose, only the choices arn't right. Hence whenever you turn on your TV, or radio, you would probably catch Himesh Reshammiya doing his thing, whatever that is. I mean would you really want to hum "Jhalak Dikhlaa jaa" unless you wanted to irritate somebody. Does that man pay the channels to play his songs???

Maybe Chaos really does rule, and therefore most of contemporary music reflects the chaos that is all around us. In the not so distant future music might be replaced by burps to elucidate the fact that Dark Matter burps. Yes dark matter burps, and that is exactly why it chooses to remain in the dark. We, however, are far shameless; and it might take us years to realize the pure poetry of silence.

Dear Decadence

2009-06-22T13:09:00.000-07:00

Dear decadence, in a universe of blank stares,
you are still the way i left you - shimmering visions
of a gray wall, unveiled by an oil lamp.
Hope is still the shape of a coin on my palm...
The dust rarely settles; the dusk breathes heavy, shows
blurred images - smiling faces that hide
the numbness of our opiate twilights, our evenings,
our memories - footprints of crimson.
As the leaves of another fall leave behind their dreams;
as poets converse in silence with their muse;
you reemerge, as a deserted demon in tatters
that clothe your nakedness, not your nudity.
Dear decadence, eternal, yet never in the present;
Our past is a black and white photograph
smoke rings, blue phonographs - lonesome, in lament.
If sorrow, this empty flower vase will sigh; and I
will go down immaculate
to the funeral note of slate gray silence.