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. 

Monsoon diaries

I remember the times we used to walk along Marine Drive singing Billy Joel and BeeGees, hand in hand. You would suddenly point out to a girl jogging in her shorts and tell me how hot she looks. It wouldn't matter even in the least to me, I knew you were mine. Yet I would act annoyed. You would make your typical mocking face and say "But you are the hottest of them all, darling". I would slap your hand and we would continue on our way.

All those nooks and corners of the road would know our stories cuz that is where we would discuss our hopes, our dreams and even our fears. Fear that this joy would not be for an eternity. That is when you would assure me, the time to enjoy is now, we can take one step at a time. Those demons would be assuaged for a day.

You would take me to all these lovely places to eat maska bun and chai. I find it so perfect during the rainy season. Those typical parsi uncles. We both would be soaking wet and have windcheaters sticking to our body and yet, we would sit on the same side of the table. I would take the first sip of that piping hot tea and close my eyes in oblivion. Open them only to find you looking at me, enjoying that serenity.

All those auto rickshaw rides, I wonder how the drivers managed to drive without actually being distracted. It was so exhilarating. I am so not the kind to attempt something like that. Yet you somehow made it feel all right. And for the first time in my life, I didn't care about what the second person thought about us. Did it really matter anymore?

Those typical things we did. Like not hanging up on the phone first. Just listening to each other breathe without needing to say a word. Grinning like idiots for no reason ever. Laughing at the cheesiest lines we could come up with. The hugs that made everything in the world feel alright.

These rains. They bring back all those long lost memories. Emotions I didn't even know existed. Funny that they surface at the very hint of a cloudy sky and the cool breeze across my face.

But then I look again. You are walking towards me with a 8 year-old girl sitting on your shoulder, animatedly talking to the woman who is walking beside you, just the way I remember you. A few grey hairs that you refuse to acknowledge, very non-flattering spectacles, otherwise just the same. 

Before I can even finish thinking, you reach upto me and kiss me, giving me that mischievous look I've always fallen for. Our daughter is excitedly showing me the drawings that she made. You see that I want to talk to your sister and you drag our cutiepie away to yet another wonderful world of hers.

Just the way you showed me mine. Those fears that never needed to exist. Some fairy tales do come true, don't they?

(P.S. This writing style is totally inspired from Anjana Iyer . And what more can I say about the rainy season. Inspires the rusty writer to pick her pen and go whooshing across the paper. )

If only...

If only you could see,

How beautiful you are to me,

That a 100 Greek gods wouldn't match up,

 to the thoughts that run when you are in front of me.

If only you could see,

How pretty you make me feel,

That 1000 people calling me beautiful,

would fade away before the way you look at me.

If only you could see,

How special you make me feel,

That innumerable fans can't come close,

To what just the one person has achieved without an extra word.

If only you could see,

The dreams that you make me believe,

That a genie can come and grant me three wishes,

And I would still send him away to have you next to me.

If only you could see,

What hearing your voice does to me,

All the lovely musical pieces put together,

Can't bring the smile that you alone can bring to my face.

If only you could see,

How much love I feel for thee,

That all the love stories put together,

Can't equal even a pint of how much I feel.

If only you could see,

Just how much you mean to me,

That take away everything from my life,

And it would still be you who I'm missing.

The day all of this becomes as clear as a sunny sky,

That you are indeed the apple of my eye,

I would no longer need to wish anymore,

You would have seen and heard it all.

All we would need is time together,

The time to cherish the depth of it all,

And I shall revel in that anticipatory bliss,

The one I had been waiting for all along.

Blyton, my first love

SO I found the book First term at Malory towers on one of my colleague's desks and I happily borrowed it. Thought it's gonna be lying somewhere as a memory of what I used to love reading when I was young but before I knew it, I couldn't keep the book down and I had finished reading it, for I think the millionth time maybe and that nice feeling doesn't escape me.

I think I should be thankful to my mom that she introduced Enid Blyton to me and my sister right when we were 9 and 7.These books despite being written so long ago still manage to bring out exactly those emotions that a kid needs to grow up in the right way. I remember the first time I read Malory towers. My thoughts resonated with Darrell's so much, I thought it couldn't be possible. Right from being the studious girl to having a younger sister who adores her and being straightforward and kind, reading the book reaffirmed that I was doing it right. All those incidents that bring out the best and worst in a person puts you through all those thoughts and for me then, it was a life changing experience, though I never realized that until this very moment. (After that,recently Fountainhead has lived to be the life-changing experience for me, if I haven't forgotten any other book. )

 Must say the same about Harry Potter, that I was lucky to have read (well, at least the first three books before it became a not-so-ideal-book per se) at exactly the times Harry Potter was the same age as me with every book that released. And those ideals that a teenager learns through those books, I don't know if it would have been the same experience had it been real life. But it made me remember that I wanted to go to Malory towers much before I wanted to go to Hogwarts.

Sometimes I wonder if I missed a lot when I missed the hostel/dormitory life. Not that I regret what I had, but these stories make it sound so lovely, it would have been worth a shot.

But I know one thing. Kids need to read these kind of books before they are exposed to Twilight and Vampire diaries and all that trash that I wouldn't even know the names of. THESE are the books that help you make decisions about yourself though you never realize that you did so. And these decisions last a lifetime. They define your very persona. Sigh, just how much I love this book.

If and when I do have kids, I think I have my ideal first book for them.

Got to get the remaining five and read those as well.

P.S. Very random this is, I know. But I just decided to write about it before the feeling melted away.

P.P.S. If you haven't read it, maybe you should try it, quite the recipe for a happy after-feeling :)