Ramblin's
So this was a nice Sunday evening on the 20th of March, 2005; and I was at a Barista in Ansal’s Crown Plaza, Faridabad, waiting for my friends to show up for my birthday treat. I was in class 10th at the time, and had been listening to modern western music for over a year and a half, and rock music for about 6 months (the modern western music consisted mainly of the exploits of a certain Marshall Mathers and the like).
[Ramble: The first rock band that I had heard, properly, was Nirvana in their album Unplugged In New York, which gave me an entirely different idea of "proper" rock music; my exposure to Linkin’ Park and The Offspring telling me it was quite the contrary. I hadn’t heard even one classic rock band at the time (I had heard discrete songs of these bands, but never an album or any such thing), and the genre, as is quite clear, was new to me.]
So anyway, the friends I expected to show up came along, 4 out of my circle of about 5, and we basically had a merry time. This was the place where that display picture of mine on Orkut, the one that has annoyed many of you on many occasions, was clicked from my new cellphone.
30 minutes passed this way, over coffee and talk, when the 5th out of my circle, then the ever-radical who had just picked up the guitar, showed up. Immediately after the standard greeting and the hug he realised he had forgotten to get me a present. This was class X, as I said, and while birthday presents had never really given me any real pleasure, I didn’t ask people not to get me any then.
Thankfully, our default present at the time wasn’t a deodorant, it was music tapes (CDs being too expensive). So Kartik rushed immediately to the Planet M store about 50 minutes away and returned 15 minutes later with 2 tapes in his hand. He came up to me and said frankly, “Dude, I had 300 bucks I spent on these tapes; but I can only give you one of these as a present. So pick.”
Create this scenario in a group of music fans, and you’ll see a situation no political lobby can beat. So 4 were trying REALLY hard to make me pick what was clearly then the more popular option, i.e. The Offspring - Americana
Kartik, however, was pitching very strongly for the other option, the one I finally ended up picking. I did this among doubts that he wanted The Offspring album for himself, but somehow, because I had heard they were good, I picked this album, an untitled 1971 release which is more popularly known as Led Zeppelin IV.
We spent the rest of the day alternating among different food joints, an arcade, and Planet M. We spent an hour at Barista seeing Kartik’s various failed attempts at getting a proper sound out of their guitar, and an on-key tune from his strumming.
[Ramble: Sitting in campus today, my mind suddenly sprang back to that day. Out of the 5 of us, I am here in Goa, one of the guys is still in the same parts, one in NDA, one in Canada, and one in Chennai finalising a recording deal for his band. I wonder how things would have been if I had picked the other tape. Would The Offspring have been my favourite band now instead of Zeppelin? It’s possible I would’ve heard more modern bands, perhaps Radiohead, RHCP, and less Hard Rock and Folk bands. Maybe I wouldn’t have found blues and jazz so cool, or Woodstock for that matter. And hey, if the Butterfly Effect is to be believed, I might have been five thousand miles away from here, doing something completely different, and perhaps writing this same blogpost from the other side, as it were.]
I know hindsight reflections are annoying to some people, but once it started , I couldn’t help thinking this thought through.
[Ramble: The first rock band that I had heard, properly, was Nirvana in their album Unplugged In New York, which gave me an entirely different idea of "proper" rock music; my exposure to Linkin’ Park and The Offspring telling me it was quite the contrary. I hadn’t heard even one classic rock band at the time (I had heard discrete songs of these bands, but never an album or any such thing), and the genre, as is quite clear, was new to me.]
So anyway, the friends I expected to show up came along, 4 out of my circle of about 5, and we basically had a merry time. This was the place where that display picture of mine on Orkut, the one that has annoyed many of you on many occasions, was clicked from my new cellphone.
30 minutes passed this way, over coffee and talk, when the 5th out of my circle, then the ever-radical who had just picked up the guitar, showed up. Immediately after the standard greeting and the hug he realised he had forgotten to get me a present. This was class X, as I said, and while birthday presents had never really given me any real pleasure, I didn’t ask people not to get me any then.
Thankfully, our default present at the time wasn’t a deodorant, it was music tapes (CDs being too expensive). So Kartik rushed immediately to the Planet M store about 50 minutes away and returned 15 minutes later with 2 tapes in his hand. He came up to me and said frankly, “Dude, I had 300 bucks I spent on these tapes; but I can only give you one of these as a present. So pick.”
Create this scenario in a group of music fans, and you’ll see a situation no political lobby can beat. So 4 were trying REALLY hard to make me pick what was clearly then the more popular option, i.e. The Offspring - Americana
Kartik, however, was pitching very strongly for the other option, the one I finally ended up picking. I did this among doubts that he wanted The Offspring album for himself, but somehow, because I had heard they were good, I picked this album, an untitled 1971 release which is more popularly known as Led Zeppelin IV.
We spent the rest of the day alternating among different food joints, an arcade, and Planet M. We spent an hour at Barista seeing Kartik’s various failed attempts at getting a proper sound out of their guitar, and an on-key tune from his strumming.
[Ramble: Sitting in campus today, my mind suddenly sprang back to that day. Out of the 5 of us, I am here in Goa, one of the guys is still in the same parts, one in NDA, one in Canada, and one in Chennai finalising a recording deal for his band. I wonder how things would have been if I had picked the other tape. Would The Offspring have been my favourite band now instead of Zeppelin? It’s possible I would’ve heard more modern bands, perhaps Radiohead, RHCP, and less Hard Rock and Folk bands. Maybe I wouldn’t have found blues and jazz so cool, or Woodstock for that matter. And hey, if the Butterfly Effect is to be believed, I might have been five thousand miles away from here, doing something completely different, and perhaps writing this same blogpost from the other side, as it were.]
I know hindsight reflections are annoying to some people, but once it started , I couldn’t help thinking this thought through.
Comments
Read the last post, you'll probably relate to it more; this one was just rushed up.
Mudit's still there, in Gurgaon, Chirag in NDA, and Nishant (Pasricha) in Canada