Dear Mr Gibb,

               I read your interview here. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/jul/18/barry-gibb-bee-gees-music-alive  and I started reading it with such happiness. But by the time I reached the end, the feeling didn't last. Let me explain it to you.

Ever since or even before I was born, BeeGees is something I've been listening to. My dad used to play those concerts of yours really often on the VCR and at the age of 5, I probably didn't understand the idea of a concert but I  had started to remember the sequence of songs. When your song "Alone" released and the 7 year-old me watched it on T.V., I remember me and my sister being so excited that it's the band we've heard before and fell in love with the song. Right since my childhood, anyone who asked me what kind of music I listened to, BeeGees was always one of the three bands I mentioned and I was darn proud of it. 

Now during times of loneliness, those concerts are what drive me through the night. When you play 'Words', I will forever wish I was in the crowd singing along lost in a moment I would never be able to define. Even today, when I think of a song to dance to with someone I love, "How deep is your love" is what first comes to my mind. Why, it would even be my wedding song. I must tell you Mr Gibb, in that "Live by request" concert of yours, when you sang that small part of Woman in love, I have wished right until this moment that I would do anything to hear you sing that live. And the falsetto of 'Staying Alive'? I won't be the first nor the last one to try it and fail miserably and still do it again. :)

I never will understand why you had to fight for a right that was obviously yours. I cant understand why people didn't remember the loveliest music and words you have in songs like 'Gotta get a message to you', 'Run to me' and 'Don't forget to remember me'  and those innumerable songs that always make me dreamy. I wonder how people did not appreciate that the same people who came up with these wonderful ballads were able to create a revolution with Saturday Night Fever. I know you probably would never know someone like me exists. I'm actually thinking of mailing this to you even though it might never reach you. But if ever it does, I want you to know this.

I will always be thankful that my parents made sure I grew up listening to all of your songs. I will similarly make sure my children sleep listening to your songs and that my grandchildren at least know your songs exist cuz God knows what kind of cacophony they would be calling music 50 years later. That I am just one among so many million people who has loved your music. One among so many who has been moved by the brilliance that are your songs. Someone whose face can't help a huge smile whenever your song plays at any restaurant I go to. BeeGees was, is and will always be an inseparable part of my life. And I will always love you from the bottom of my heart. I hope you never leave your association with music because musicians like you who sing from your heart are hard to find. God bless.

The Manali - Rand effect

There is something about an Ayn Rand book that reinforces what I already believe. It feels like a modicum of life waiting to be discovered as a part of you and it pops out of nowhere.

When I started reading Atlas Shrugged, I thought all I want to be is the crazy workaholic. In the middle, I realized the person I wanted to be. By the end, I knew the kind of people I want to be around. The ones who inspire me. 

I want to be the girl who people look up to. Who achieves more than what is expected of her. A woman, the one who crashes right through the glass ceiling. 

There is something that came to me. We use the relationship that has been established to define our actions and what we deserve or need to provide. Do we ever learn when that relationship becomes a plain shadow of what it used to be and yet we continue to expect what we do not deserve? Our previous actions can only help us predict what we might do but you can't expect a result of something that used to be. If there is anyone who propagates unconditional love it's me but the moment you call it out as a sacrifice and expect to be pitied/appreciated/recognized for the same, your purpose of that love has been lost. I've never realized how much the self conscience matters even when it comes to love.

Joy for it's own sake has been forgotten. I've never read something where they spoke about people who love what they do to love their life for the same sake. You always read about how people have forgotten to stop and stare, how work has consumed them but this is probably the first time I read about how that consumption gave them the greatest redemption from degradation.

I learnt how scared in fact we are of facing reality. How we screw up things just to avoid it. I also realized how easy it is to reach a solution once you have seen the reality in its absolute terms, with nothing to confuse yourself about, nothing to cheat yourself about. 

Something that I think is evident in Ayn's books is the importance and intensity of emotions. The words she uses to express the emotions that are being felt is unbelievable. And the way she uses "dearest", that's when the romantic in me comes out of nowhere and makes me attach so much more importance to that single utterance.(that will be the last romantic mention I make, thank you very much :P )

I am so influenced by this book, it is scary. I even wondered if she had conveyed exactly the opposite would I be this convinced? I doubt the possibility, this is so fundamental and so ideally right, though it does seem an utopian world, there are parts of it you'll reach.

 I realize I want to admire the second person. I want to compete naturally, the motive not being to beat the other person but to keep getting better though if the effect is to beat the person it shouldn't really matter. I have always been competitive but I admire the person who has the skill to beat me and seeing that brilliance and knowing those people exist is probably why I survive. Of course, I do have times where I wonder why am I not as good as someone else but that can not and will not become my complete sense of thinking cuz they are the reason why I still have some hope in whatever system I am a part of.

As much of a dramatic dialogue this may seem like it feels like I have rediscovered myself. The person I used to love myself to be is back. I thought experiences and maturity changes who you are but apparently it doesn't... I guess reading the book and the lovely nature that accompanied me, that which I have always loved made me believe in myself again. About the endless possibilities. Just by being me. Without anyone else at all. I have no clue, absolutely no clue how long this feeling will last, but I think I know the absolute me and THAT is gonna be with me for as long as I have a sense of understanding and consciousness. 

That I love what I do, that I know I love, I'm gonna make sure it keeps me going till the end, I don't want this to be the result of what my age gives me, I want this passion to drive me throughout my life. I know there will be more times where I won't feel like this as opposed to feeling this way but as long as I have spurts of them , I think I'll survive.

In her own words,

"I trust that no one will tell me that men such as I write about don't exist. That this book has been written—and published—is my proof that they do."

And I will be one of them.