Lagori

Had stumbled upon a new band from Bangalore's music bylanes! Must admit they have created an impression on my sensibilities with their songs ! Three of their songs are out on the net for a listen:
1. Aasma - free download available ! listen to this song first !
2. Jeene Do - the band's fav song
3. Ni Re Sa -


I love everything about this band till now and hope they are soon recognized. As they are just working on their 4th song, guess an album is a bit far away ! The vocals of Shashank is something that I absolutely trip on ! And good clean meaningful lyrics !

Dunno how much of my recommendation matters but would urge you all to listen to their songs:
http://www.reverbnation.com/fan/control_room/1353846?tab=fan_dashboard&subnav=account_preferences#!/lagori

or on fb

http://www.facebook.com/#!/LagoriIndia  


Peace out !
Love
anup

My House

Check This Out Folks !! What do you think? The living room of the house I currently live in :-) The book shelf is hand made by a friend, the lamp on top of the book shelf is also hand made :-) Just need a 'chataai' as DG sir suggested for the floor ! P.S. - can anyone tell me how to make the picture look bigger than current?

Discovered at the wrong time !

Well, sometimes you wish that your wish of happiness for someone else were not to come true and yet when it does it leaves you happy and sad at the same time. Happy 'cuz you really want the situation to be happy no matter what... and sad 'cuz there are still things left to be mulled over and pondered over before the happiness can pervade!

Confused ! well.... I have decided to ramble a bit ! State of mind maybe !

damn it, these official trips come on the absolutely wrong days. Today out of a curious coincidence I was thinking of something and then stumbled upon that something through a harmless poke ! Well I am gonna be cryptic here...go hang me if you wish !

I discovered this absolute treasure trove.... this treasure to enlightenment.... this treasure to restlessness...and damn it that I gotta get ready to go to another official trip into Karnataka's hinterland ! Now all I will do is keep thinking about this in the bus and maybe for many days to come !

This is what happens when you stop working and start looking around aimlessly ! you stumble and sometimes stumble for good ! See... i can sense a lot of cryptic creativity inside me right now... good that i gotta stop cuz if i sit here for 5 minutes more, i am gonna be missing my bus and my deal !

A song not yet understood

Would this do
To make it all right
While sleep has taken you
Where I'm out of sight

I'll make my getaway
Time on my own
Search for a better way
To find my way home
To your smile

Wasting days and days
On this night
Always down and up
Half the night

Hopeless to reminisce
Through the dark hours
We'll only sacrifice
What time will allow us
You're sighing... sighing

All alone
Though you're right here
Now it's time to go
From your sad stare

Make my getaway
Time on my own
Needing a better way
To find my way home
To your smile


Can someone help me with this song's actual meaning?

Mish Mash !

I go around Bangalore every now and then in search of a cheap meal. Pity I fail to find one every time. The city boasts of all kinds of cuisine restaurants and dhabas but when you want a tasty healthy vegetarian food prepared in a hygienic kitchen, you will more often draw a blank.

It is important to dress well even when a guy is single and is out in the city. Invariably all men check out other girls. It irritates girls but then it does not offend them much if you are well dressed and seem to be a harmless guy just giving some health supplement to his eyes. I enjoy it when I look at the girl and she seems to not mind it. It’s fun ! When guys are carelessly dressed or downright pathetically dressed, the girls perceive some sort of a danger to them and hence take offense at even a harmless unintentional glance at them. I might be wrong but hey my opinion.

I have a huge irritation to mothers who accompany their daughters to office interviews ! Why oh why do they think that their daughter needs that extra dose of safety from a bunch of docile, already haggled corporate uncles? Beats me all the time ! They should rather accompany their daughters to the neighbourhood store or to her bus-stop as there are half a dozen uncles peering at her from their balconies, or ruffians trying to brush against her. But on second thoughts even this is not needed as how long will you protect your girl? She has to experience all of this to know how bad the world out there is. As much as I hate to say this but then I have no clue what else to say or do in this regard. Didn’t I just digress from the main topic? Screw it !

When someone says “I have done a lot of research on this and….” What does that mean ? Research is reading up on the net, newspapers, etc? I doubt if that is right. Just reading on some matter does not mean that you have the right to claim expertise on that topic. Especially if the topic is something like JanLokpall bill, gender inequality, economic reforms, love, psychology….etc etc…. and many such topics that do not have a right or a wrong defined. Basically one can make an opinion based on research, but not a statement.

I have a deep abhorrence towards people who smoke. This disgust is manifested only when I see them smoking. I don’t hate them at the other times when they are just normal people without that twig in between their fingers. I find it pathetic that they suck at a piece of stuffed paper, as if it some life force. Isn’t it disgusting that grown up men and women behave so? Come on !

I travel to kerala quite often from Bangalore. Every time I pass through Ettimadai Amrita campus, be it bus or train. And every time I wake up around that time ! strange ! I just need to look at the sky to realize that I am near Amrita – my alma mater ! each and every journey the past 4 years and each and every time this has happened. Amazing !

This curious incident that happened once when i was in Mysore, still makes me smile. I was out near the palace trying to find a place to have breakfast and I ended up in front of a furniture shop. Spotting a mirror on the dressing table kept on display, I instinctively started setting my hair right. I was combing with my fingers, when I noticed the owner of the shop staring at me. I didn’t understand why his gaze was so nasty and his facial expression turning into a dramatic frown ! I guess he was trying to dissuade me from continuing my pruning session. Being the timid boy that I am, I immediately stopped fiddling with my hair in the mirror, said sorry to the shop owner and walked away. I still haven’t for the life of me figured out what I did wrong in that shop. Did I harm the mirror by looking into it? Did the owner think that its value will be reduced if someone peered into it? It’s still a mystery to me. Also I wonder why I had to say sorry to him!!!???

Labouring over issues of Child Labour

Although I am an emotional and weepy person, social causes have not always stimulated me as much for reasons beyond my comprehension. Lack of stimulation does not mean lack of sensitivity to the issues or lack of any measures to personally not be responsible for the perpetuation of the menaces. But no issue has consistently been there in my mind except for one – child labour. From the time I used to see maids bring their kids to assist them in household chores to eating at eateries where kids served you tea and snacks, this has been a rather irksome bother to me.

The first time I thought of doing something for a social cause was when I decided not to eat at a popular snack joint in Vallabh Vidyanagar, Gujarat. The eatery employed children much below 14 years old and although the owners were nice people who treated the kids with love and fed them well, I somehow could not come around to being served by a 10 year old toothless boy. The tea and the snack just would feel like a lump of mud and stone inside my throat. I one day stopped going there and did not return ever since. This was also the time when the debate inside my head started to foster about the other side of child labour problem i.e the good that the kids get out of working instead of rotting in poverty.

A friend of mine asked me why I was refusing to hang out with them in that joint and although at first I used to make excuses, soon enough I ran out of them as we all know how often college kids hang out in these popular joints. A friend of mine then stimulated the debate I was referring to earlier. He told me how the kids come from poor families who cant afford schooling, and that it will help the kids and their families live a more comfortable life if they work and send some money home. Of course we all know the deep and complex issues and counter-issues of Child Labour so I will not dig into that anymore. Basically even after all these years of conscious effort to stay away from child labour and deep thinking of the malice, I have not been able to figure out a way to help. Is there a solution that an be independently implemented without getting into the intricate web of education, poverty, developmental programmes, affirmative action etc. ?

Today is World Day Against Child Labour – June 12 and I was reading this article in the newspaper which was written by Kailash Satyarthi – Founder of Bachpan Bachao Andolan and chairperson of Global March Against Child Labour. And after 1000 words, I still remain as clueless as before. Sure we know there have been success stories, but that is just a micro-activity done to help some few kids. It is not a holistic solution.

Rather I want to know what a common man/woman like me and countless others should do in order to avoid being an accomplice or a contributor to the scourge of child labour. Should we boycott places and organization or maids who employ children below 14yrs? Should we eat and think that its better that these kids work as they will otherwise perish to poverty? Should we eat and also help them parallel with books and clothes or daily 1 hr classes on literacy aids etc? What should we do?

Learning to Fly

Into the distance, a ribbon of black
Stretched to the point of no turning back
A flight of fancy on a windswept field
Standing alone my senses reeled
A fatal attraction is holding me fast,
How can I escape this irresistible grasp?

Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I

- Pink Floyd

Doctor said "she's dying"

A person whom you love the most, a person who is your companion so much so that you both are seamlessly bound to each others' lives....such a person, if, is dying, then what do you feel? Does one feel bad and sad because...
1) ...you feel sorry that such a wonderful person will cease to exist?
or
2)... you feel sad for yourself...sad thinking of what are you going to do and how difficult life would be once that person goes out of your life?

What is the reason we all cry when that love of our life dies? Is it selfishness reflected in our sense of loss? or is it the projection of the dying person's pain in your own self due to the closeness of the relationship? or is it the shattering of one's deeply desired dreams and aspirations that were intricately woven around the other person?

What is the real reason behind grief in the face of death of the love of your life?

A gullible stomach

Sometimes I feel our stomach is so gullible :-P It might be burning with hunger and we would feel we need to eat a substantial meal in order to douse it's hungry fires. But then even a few bits of chips ( worst possible 'meal' ) is enough for you to feel all full again ! What an idiot the stomach is !

A flutter in the heart :-)

I think Shakira, Beyonce and Katherine Heigl are the world's most beautiful women ! I just can't take my eyes off them whenever I see them on screen. That doesnt mean I check out their videos on youtube etc... naaahhh, am not obsessed but I am totally gaga over these women ! I very rarely wish this but here i am - I wish I could date Shakira ! I think she is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen in my life :-)

There you go.... I have lifted a huge weight off my shoulders with this confession. Of course this does not mean that I find my ex-gfs any less beautiful,,,,, they are probably the most beautiful and loving women I have ever met :-) cheers !

The Valentine Day Metaphor

A high left elbow, a loose bottom hand grip, the head straight and still - that's another way in which to look at love as per me :-)
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY FOLKS ! May love fill your each day with its amazing magic :-)
also
happy cricketing bonanza that awaits us in the world cup.
Have tried to use cricketing lingo to describe love in our time.

God bless and have a beautiful v day for all who have a valentine.

Shoots spring through ! :-)

saw this line in a forward and just cant seem to get it out of my head :

If you judge people, you have no time to love them !

I have been trying to follow this philosophy for some time now but failing. But I am trying hard to follow this in my personal life atleast. Love for me is defined by Hafiz's poem which I have spoken about earlier -

Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth - "you owe me!"
Look what happens with a love like that....
IT LIGHTS UP THE WHOLE SKY

Also never to break 4 things in my life - Trust, Relation, Promise and Heart. Because when they break, they don't make noise but pains a lot ! I don't know if I am even half way close to this goal ! But yeah keeping on thinking about these will surely help in following the same.

he he ! turned out to be quite a strange post ! Blaaa !

'Pricks' from a Porcupine Tree

As the cheerless towns pass my window
I can see a washed out moon through the fog
And then a voice inside my head breaks the analogue
And says

"Follow me down to the valley below
You know
Moonlight is bleeding from out of your soul"

I survived against the will of my twisted folk
But in the deafness of my world the silence broke
And said

"Follow me down to the valley below
You know Moonlight is bleeding from out of your soul"

"My David don't you worry
This cold world is not for you
So rest your head upon me
I have strength to carry you"


"Follow me down to the valley below
You know
Moonlight is bleeding from out of your soul
Come to us Lazarus
It's time for you to go"