Chester

Let's go back to the year 2002.

I was in 5th standard back then - a "devoted" learner of Indian Classical Music. A few months prior to that I was handed a copy of the album "Millennium"  by Backstreet Boys. That was my first copy of music which had lyrics in English and I loved it. It was an asset for me to show off before my friends who were not yet exposed to this type of music. I thoroughly enjoyed this music and within a month I could sing "Larger than Life", "Show me the Meaning" or "I  want it that way" pretty good. It was then that a realization dawned upon me - I was not very much inclined towards the music that I was learning and I was more attracted to the music that I was listening to.

A few months later I was handed a copy of record by a band I had never heard of, a genre which sounded odd and the music gave me shudders (mind you I was still in 5th standard, so this music was very loud for me). I was handed a copy of "Hybrid Theory" by the band "Linkin Park".  Little did I know back then that this band would be one of the biggest inspirations behind me starting to write lyrics and compose music.

On the back of the cassette, I  saw the photo of 5 guys (the picture was taken before Phoenix had joined the band) with serious faces and the guy in front had flame tattoo on his wrist. I turned on the cassette and started listening. The first song was "Papercut". The beats started and it was building up. As soon as it reached the intro riff, I turned the player off. I was like "What is this!!!", "Is this music??", "Is it supposed to relax me??". For the next couple of days I didn’t dare to go back to listen to it. One day I heard my elder brother humming the intro of Crawling. I asked him about the tune and he stated that it was there on the cassette he had handed me over. He didn’t tell me the name of the song and asked me to find it out by myself. I was so intrigued by the music that I wanted to know the song. I thought that maybe all the songs didn’t sound like the first one and I was wrong to have judged the entire cassette based on the first song.

And so it began. Crawling was the fifth song on the record so I had to listen to four songs in order to reach that. At that point I listened to Papercut and I didn’t enjoy it much. The next song was "One Step Closer" - God was it aggressive. But I didn’t stray away from it. I kind of liked it. The next song was "With you" which I didn’t find all that bad It had a soft underlying layer which attracted me. Following that was "Points Of Authority". I must say that was a straight forward rock song and left mixed feelings inside of me.

"Crawling" - the fifth song finally started and the intro sample itself was good enough to glue me to it. To this very day, I have no regret to tell that Crawling is my favorite song for the last 15 fucking years!!!! I mean, the song has this pain, aggression, silver lining - all packed into 3 minutes of blistering vocals by Chester Bennington.

From that moment on, there was no turning back. I listened to all the songs till Pushing Me Away and within a week, I loved each of the  song on the record. Since then, I became a fan of LP. Whether it be Meteora or Minutes to Midnight or A Thousand Suns or Living Things or The Hunting Party or One More Light, I made sure that I listened to each song and for some reason, each of their song really found a place deep inside my heart and I couldn’t get enough of LP. I just loved the effort they put into each record and brought out tracks to which you could relate to on an everyday basis.

The one thing that held me was Chester's voice. I mean, that guy could scream and be the most aggressive person on a song like "No More Sorrow" and less than a minute later his very voice on the song "Not Alone" (it’s a single released separately and not a part of any record" would bring you to tears.

When the album One More Light was released, my favorite song was "Nobody Can Save Me" because I couldn’t listen to the song "One More Light" initially. I too have lost people in the past and listening to that song just brought back memories of the past back up.  I mean, the vibe of that song would literally bring tears down my eyes and I couldn’t listen to it till the end and so I would click on the next button to avoid it.

The day I got the news of Chester's demise, I didn’t know how to react for the first couple of hours. I was flipping through news articles to find any article saying that this news was a hoax and all is well in the world. But that didn’t happen. Once I confirmed myself that the Voice of  a Generation was no longer among us, it left a void deep inside of me. I couldn’t come to terms that there will not be another LP record with Chester's vocals, that there will not be those LPTV episodes where Chester's wit and funny side will make you laughing for the next couple of minutes.

It has been couple of months now and I finally gathered the courage to pay my tribute to him.

His voice inspired me to make my voice as versatile as possible. To be able to scream and sing simultaneously. His funny moments shown on the LPTV episodes did always make me laugh.

It is very hard to accept that all of this is just a memory now.

But as they say - LEGENDS NEVER DIE…

Chester will always sing and scream on my playlist….

I don’t know how to end this but i do think there will be another post coming soon with more memories I hold of Linkin Park and especially Chester Bennington as an inspiration to me.

Ciao for now…

Lucid Symphony : next

The maiden's tale

The maiden belonged to the wilderness. She had never been to either side of the road and so she didn’t know how either side of the road felt. Yes, she saw many people cross the path in search of the luxury and in time, get lost and give up and not able to get back and ultimately die on the path of luxury itself - trying their whole life to get to the comfort zone but breathe their last while they are still on the search for the same.
Did she stop everyone she saw?  No!!
In fact, she was never noticed by anyone unless she wanted to get noticed.
When she saw him, she didn't have the same feeling that she had when she saw the other people. She didn’t find him the same. She felt he was different and just looking at him gave her an intense feeling and she felt that she could reveal herself to him and so she did, just to talk to him and clear her mind whether he was the person she wanted for herself or not . She wanted to keep him with her and just wanted to be with him because one, she didn’t want to lose him just in case he found the way he wanted to seek and two, she didn’t want him to get lost and just rot in the wilderness like the many she had seen along the way.
So, it was out of her selfishness which cannot be judged that she wanted to be with him.
She had fallen in love.

The first deception

He didn’t know the maiden's intentions. He wasn’t aware that she was trying to lure him away from his goal on the pretext of getting him closer to his destination. So, he followed her but he never thought of her the way she thought of him. His mind was fixed on his goal and he just followed her because he trusted the fact that she would help him reach his destination. Well, she tried to deviate him but she couldn’t.
A strange incident followed.
He wasn’t aware that she was smitten by him. He was unaware that she was trying her best to attract him towards her and deviate him from his goal and make him believe that he had reached his goal - she was his goal!!
After trying for as much as she could, she saw that her value in his life was limited to the fact that she would lead him to his destination. Not that he didn’t respect her or see her as an asset but that he was too fixated towards his destination and hence everything else seemed secondary to him.
She turned  sad. And she didn’t want him to know or even be aware of her condition and so one day, he woke up only to find that she was gone - forever, leaving no trace behind.
He searched for her - only to know what had he done that offended her or what circumstance engulfed her that she left him on the middle of the journey she had promised to walk by his side on. He got worried and searched. He was filled with pessimism and couldn’t get over it and just stayed where he was - the spot where he slept knowing she was there but woke up to desolation.
At that moment, he felt that time had stopped. He found himself alone in the wilderness - just the way he had started.

The loner amidst the crowd

Time moves on - not for him. For him, time had stopped and it would start only when he would get the answer. He wanted to know that what did he do that offended or anything which led to  her walking away from him. He was left broken. He waited and waited in vain. Finally, he decided to start his journey. This time, determined not to get strayed away by any charm and just focus on reaching the other side.
Thus, his journey began. This time resolute.
He set out and started finding his way through the thickets of the forest, making his way but constantly remembering her and feeling worried, confused and just left to wonder what had happened.
It took time for him to completely focus on his way but even then, time and time again, her memories kept popping up and he was left with no option but to assume anything just to console himself temporarily about the situation.
His journey was surrounded by the wildlife of the thickets - animals, birds, fishes and from the first ray of sunshine till the time the sun set, he could hear chirpings, roars, water sprinkling and yes, they were his company at one point of time. But now, all that was his company were her memories and his definite goal to reach the other side. It was as if he had turned deaf for the rest of the world and he wasn’t aware of his own existence in the wilderness. All that he saw was the road and all that he heard was his own mind bringing up different stories, excuses to console him of his sudden desolation.

The second maiden

Before he could realize, he was drowning in his own sorrow. 
It was at that point of time that she entered.
He was walking down the road and just tripped over and fell. To rise, he raised his head only to find himself surrounded by maidens. He was sure that he was hallucinating because he could see her everywhere. The same face that had left him all of a sudden was everywhere. She was on the tree - staring at a squirrel, she was running after the animals, feeding the fish - she was everywhere.
All of a sudden through the maze a hand came through asking for his. He looked up, rubbed his eyes and then saw reality. There stood another maiden before him. She was different than the previous one. He took her support to get on his feet and started his journey after thanking her. He didn’t want to be strayed away this time.
He hadn't taken two steps before she interrupted her asking could she accompany him as she too was on her way towards the luxury. He took a moment to think and didn’t find any reason to say a 'no' because this was different. The previous maiden knew the way and hence he got deviated. Here, she didn’t know the way and was a stranger to the wilderness - just like him and he wouldn’t be deviated by her.
Thus, he began his journey with her.

Lucid Symphony - continued

Initiation

He opened his eyes one day to follow his regular time table. Freshened up, left for the day. On the way, he passed by a road filled with misery. Contradicting it, the other side of the road was filled with luxury. The road was the barrier between misery and luxury. The people who belonged to the ill fated part of the road longed to reach the other side of the road at least once. The people who were fortunate enough to live on the comfortable side dreaded this side and were thankful for where they belonged to. Seeing the road as the barrier, he felt lucky that he was just a passer by who could pity the unfortunate and smile at their contradiction but he asked himself this question - Which side of the road did he belong to?

Birth of change

Yes, he was confused. He wanted to know his stand in the world which he too was a part of. He needed answers. He couldn’t live in this uncertainty for the rest of his life. As of now, he was passing the street which wasn’t where he wanted to belong to and he knew he didn’t belong there. So, he decided to cross the road and see if he belonged on the other side of the road.
But this wasn’t the road which we see everyday. This wasn’t a regular tar road. This was a road filled with surprises, attractions and a road which could deviate you from your destination and lead you to a place which could be worse than either side of the road. You will find distractions which will drag you far from where you want to be. Momentarily you may feel happy but very soon you will realize that you mistook the short term happiness and traded it for a long term misery.
He put the first step on the road and the scenery changed. The side behind him blacked out and it looked like he was surrounded by the darkness all over and he had been here for a long distance. He couldn’t see the luxury and the misery behind him was fogged out and filled with what lied before him -  A path filled with darkness. He had no other choice. He closed his eyes for a moment and then became resolute to find the path through the maze and reach his destination.
And hence began his journey.


The first maiden

Well, a cyclone too has an "eye" - you know the part where the weather becomes calm and makes way for the next storm . But the part where the eye is covered, it can be deceptive because we think of the eye as the end of the storm.
So, now all that he had was one choice - find his way into the luxury which he longed to be a part of. So, he began his journey through the roughness that lied before him.
All of a sudden, the darkness cleared. Before him lay a beautiful maiden draped in white. He saw her and was left awestruck. He just stood there and stared at her - still trying to figure out whether he was dreaming or it was reality that he was seeing before him. The maiden came before him and spoke to him - where do you wish to go? He replied that he wished to go to the side that he felt he belonged to and asked whether she could help him. She willingly agreed and claimed that she knew the way and would definitely help him get there.
He forgot that the journey he had embarked upon had a lot of distractions that would drive him away from his destination and right now, he was stepping into one.
She started leading the way - not towards the light he wanted to go but into her own lair where she could keep him with her.

Was this what she did to all??

To be continued....

Lucid Symphony - an introduction

Life is a journey giving us stories with every step we take. Some stories are worth sharing and some are the best kept secrets. There are some stories which can be shared partially in such a manner that they sound whole whereas they are just an extract from the original tale. It may be a summary but it may sound like a story. Nevertheless, it depends on the storyteller on what he wishes to share and what he wants to conceal.
So, what is this symphony about?
Firstly, what is a goal?
It is an end of a journey. It’s the stop where you know you have reached your destination. It is the point of salvation. People have life term goals in the form of their ‘bucket list’, they have their everyday goals, short term goals and so on and so forth but do all reach the goal they have set for themselves?
Who knows, right?
Coming back to this symphony....
This story is about a guy who has a monotonous life paved before him. He sees people on the other side living a life which he too longs to lead. Just like a normal human being, he desires to reach that place and experience what he is seeing. But this road isn’t a concrete road which we walk on every day. It is a vicious path that can be the road to your doom or the road that can lead you to your ultimate salvation and lead you to what you longed for. This road has its own traps which are ready to engulf you and drag you down and never let you escape. This path could be your lifelong prison or a simple path to the beyond.
This story which has been divided in about close to 20 chapters describes his journey which he completes after struggling, falling multiple times, sometimes almost on the verge of giving up until he would find courage and inspiration in some form or another to rise and continue his journey.
Yes, he reached the end but that’s not the story. The story is about his journey which explains how the path he thought to be a cake walk turned out to be a life changing road for him teaching him everything that he never expected to be aware of in this lifetime.
"Lucid Symphony" is the tale of his journey.

To be continued….
  

Goodbye

Well, some of us do have that side of us which does not believe in "predictions". I mean, who wants to know what tomorrow holds? Yes, if it’s a positive thing, that’s something good but we do have a side which fears the negativity as well. Thus, the most preferable scenario is the simple fact of life - accept it as it comes.
But imagine a scenario where you do not wish to know the future but it comes before you without a choice.
Let me paint you a picture to make it clear. You may be least interested  in knowing what the future holds for you. Then all of a sudden, a picture is painted before you which says that you shall meet your end in the next few hours. Yes, had it been a prediction with respect to you cracking a lottery or winning a jackpot, it would have been a different scenario but this isn't a positive prediction. The picture painted has a darkness - the end, your end.
So, for all you know, the prediction may be wrong but we are humans after all. We have that 1% in our mind which thinks that the prophesy may be right, may not be a deceit. Well, who wishes to acknowledge negativity completely right?
But imagine, you are in that scenario, so, you see the clock tick its way towards the deadline. Yes, the hope is that its false and you do all that you can to stay distracted from it but that’s not possible right? I mean, knowing your end is approaching, you can't sit down and watch GOT for God's sake!!
What do you do?
Firstly, you hope that the prediction is wrong and secondly, you consider the fact of the prediction being right which leads to you thinking that what mistakes have you done so far and what is it that you would like to change from your past were you given a chance to rectify it.
All that you are left with from here till the deadline approaches  are memories - both positive and negative that have been a part of your life and have been in one way or another a lesson towards you shaping your life to where you stand today.
This feeling was experienced a while back and well, luckily, the prophesy turned out to be false and this resulted in the birth of a set of lyrics - "Goodbye".
An extract from the same is given below:

"A voice screamed this was the end
The last words ring through the mind
The time from there seemed to stop
I fear this may be a goodbye
Trying to see what's left to  do,
Remembering all that’s left behind,
A memory binds itself to me,
The fear this may be a goodbye "

Turned into Waste

Perseverance, calmness, luck….
All these terminologies are very common when we are working towards a goal. Yes, success and failures are two sides of the same coin and flipping the coin may yield any result. But the thought of the probability of losing should not in any way stop us from working towards our goal.
Yes, failures suck - big time. But they are also learning and stepping stones for something we may work towards, in the future.
One thing sucks though. Imagine you worked towards something for a very long time and finally, after a rigorous walk, you reach the goal only to find out after a while that the goal is a void. I mean, yes, you have achieved what you wanted to but it isn't what you had expected. It has a void and somewhere looks hollow and all of a sudden, all that time you invested on reaching your destination seems to be a waste.
I had faced a similar situation before and, well, resulted in the birth of the song "turned into waste".
Well, we all face bad times in our life and at every bad turn we come across, we just wish to revert it because we are humans and we mostly want to avoid any unconventionality coming our way. Something similar happened.
I worked towards something and I achieved what I wanted to. But that wasn’t the end. It was pretty dark (in terms of scenario) when I realized that what I had worked towards was a hollow and all that I had been looking forward to had just been turned into waste. I had wasted my yesterday, tomorrow wouldn’t be the same and this was a shame to be cried over. Well, the darker side took over me and I started penning down all that I had in mind and well, after 30 minutes, I had 4 verses, a chorus and a bridge lying before me on a piece of paper.
A lyric snippet is as follows:
" today will not be our's,
All of us are at fault,
This step has turned into waste,
Turned into waste"

Well, this wasn’t a song I wanted to remember because it was a personal dark song and reading it drove me back to the moment. But the very next day, I was sitting on the roof and going through the lyrics and humming a tune while reading the words. The melody sounded good and so, I just recorded the verse tune, chorus tune, bridge tune snippets before they would go out of my mind and rushed back to my room and recorded the entire song in one take on my phone. Then I sat back and listened to it over my earphone. Trust me when I tell you, it was one of the best melodies I had come up with so far. The tune, the vibe, the lyrics - everything was just amazing and I simply loved the song - my dark personal favorite.
When I started working on my next project - Cursed Valentine II, this song was a sure fit into the project. The problem began when I had to record it. While going to the studio, I used to listen to this song on the way. Well, that’s how I do it. Every song that I need to record has a voice note on my cell and on my way to the studio, I listen to that voice note over and over again to get into that vibe in which the song was written. The process for recording turned into waste wasn’t any different. I was listening to the song until I reached the studio. I thought that I had captured the vibe and was ready to nail it.
I went into the booth, recorded the entire vocal and came out and sat back to listen to it. I listened and to be very honest, I was shocked and disappointed!!! I thought I had captured the vibe but it wasn’t the vibe that the song was written in. I listened to the voice note and the voice note's vibe still outran the recording. I tried once more but failed. I took a break for a couple of days and went back to record but ended up with the same result. However hard I tried, I was unable to capture that vibe.
Now it got frustrating. Never did I have any problem recording a track to this extent. The whole project was dependant on it. This was the only song left to be recorded and I just couldn’t get the result I wanted.
Finally I gave up. No, I didn’t take it out of the project. This song wasn’t a song to be ignored or to let go of. So, as a last resort, I filtered the voice note that I had in my cell and had to make that work and sound as close as possible to a studio recording. It was difficult but I didn’t want the efforts put into it go into waste and so, this song had to reach its destination.
And so, after making a few adjustments, though this song wasn't sounding as good as the others but it wasn't sounding bad and it was considered done.
Finally, "turned into waste" was completed.

Ciao…

slaves of religion

What is religion?
According to the World Wide Web, it is a cultural system of behaviours and practices, world views etc etc etc….but that’s not how we treat religion as. If I was to define religion, I would define it as the shackle of a prison which binds us to that particular prison and separates us from our prison inmates who are tied to other shackles either in the same prison or of a different prison.
Clarifying my definition, a prison is a religion and different shackles within a prison are the different castes, tribes and so, different prison means different religions.
Yes, it’s a bit extreme to define a religion – the thing which gives us identity as a prison. But that wouldn’t have been the case had it just been an identity.
We humans are mostly born equal – with a pair of legs, hands, eyes, a nose….but once we are born, the first identity card that is issued to our name isn’t our birth certificate. It is our religion. So far, so good. The problem arises when there are objections raised when we want to attend a festival or a celebration of a person belonging to another religion. Why should there be an objection??
I will be honest.
I have people in my circle belonging to almost all the religions and some of the people happen to be my very good friends. Does them belonging to a different religion stop me from attending any function I am invited to by them???
Absolutely not. I enjoy all the diversities and have a great fun learning different cultures. Well, my case could be a bit different because I belong to a state which doesn’t have the religion I follow as the base religion. Naturally, I grew up in an environment learning to mix with people belonging to different diversities. Lucky for me, I had my peer support and I was never questioned whenever I wanted to attend a celebration which wasn’t belonging to my “religion”. Yes, I am lucky that way but it pains me to see that there are some people who fear attending a celebration which is different from theirs. The common excuses are : “ kuch aur khila diya toh??” – translation – “what if they serve something inappropriate??” …….
Yes, people are naïve. But this isn’t being naïve. This is being stupid and ridiculous.
Now I will point something out which I personally dislike the most and would term the people who act this way as sadists to the penultimate level -
This world is filled with miscreants. There are tragedies which are caused by humans and cost a lot of human lives.
I am not lying about this. A tragedy struck one day and a few days later, a guy walked up to a friend of mine and said, “ye kya kiya tumhare logo ne??? kitni jaane gayi hai!!” – translation –“what have your people done???So many lives have been lost!!”.
I was dumbstruck – YOUR PEOPLE!!!!
Seriously!!!!
It sounded like my friend was the leader who commanded the assassination.
But that day, I heard the best reply which shut the guy up instantly…
My friend calmly replied, “mere logo ki jaan bhi gayi hai, iske bare mein apne kuch pucha nhi?”-translation-“my people have died too, why didn’t you ask about that?”.
Life is unpredictable. Judging a person based on a religion which some miscreant may belong to is the utmost shameful and disgraceful thing anyone could do.
Someone else's actions cannot possibly define me in any sensible way...
I thought of penning down why in today’s world, we are slaves of religion. We are separated from the true meaning of friendship and love and affection because of this barrier.
Religion isn’t a bad thing. It gives us an identity and a direction to follow but when it separates us from people, it doesn’t server the purpose of being.

Ciao…..