To be or not to be----- (posted a few months too late :-P )

Alright, I know the title is pretty cliched. But it was something I was thinking about for a while........ OK! For the last ten minutes! Last night I was watching SNL with my sister, a die-hard fan of the show. Personally, I feel that SNL disappoints me because I expect so much, much more from the people involved in it. But then again, it's hard to reinvent yourself 35 years in a row, and this is another conversation altogether.

Anyway, I was watching the infamous episode where Ashlee Simpson was revealed to be a lip-syncher (oh the horrors!). Yes, I know I'm ten years too late and this is old news. I mean even my favorite singer ever, Lana Del Ray, sucked during her live performance. But I noticed something in the Ashlee Affair, that most gossip rags did not talk about. And why would they! The international humiliation of a young celebrity is a GOLD MINE and when your busy making money, you tend not to notice the little things happening around you.

So, it went like this. The "singer" did her little, retarded dance on the stage prepping to blow us away with her "amazing" talent, when a track playing a song she had already performed began to play. She didn't even bother to save face but just hopped around, looking a little more retarded and walked off stage. This is what we all know. However, what I noticed, was actually the part that fascinated me much more than this idiocy. As the drummer opened, he heard the wrong chord and stopped. The bassist, however, picked a chord and continued. Eventually the lead guitarist joined and drummer got his beat back. In the ten seconds that went by, the celebrity guest, had walked off stage, but the music continued. And guess what! It was actually good. The musicians were befuddled for a bit, but recovered and continued, actually enjoying themselves, in all likelihood because Ashlee made such a complete ARSE of herself. They continued, confidently and displaying more professionalism than the person who was supposed to perform.

So, what's my point? I guess it's the fact that you need to do more than sell a few thousand albums to be a singer, the fact the being a celebrity and being an artist are two so very different things. I suppose the fact that the spotlight, the fame, the interviews and awards really don't mean anything, if your not honest to yourself.
Everyone wants to be a star! People in our country leave their homes and come to Bombay, because they want to be "heroes/heroines". But no body wants to become an actor. I myself want to be a writer, but the fact that Stephanie Meyer and Nicholas Sparks are best selling authors and "50 Shades of Grey" is a bestselling book makes me feel that I would rather write like this- fragmented prose in Word Documents in my office computer, random scribbles in notebooks and of course my blogs, planetoids in the Milky Way of cyber space. I would rather be good than be seen. Of course, one might argue that to be critiqued upon, to receive opinions which may help me improve, I should be seen, I should be heard. I should be stripped down, broken down and put back together, better and stronger. But in today's hyper-connected world, where people speak through tweets rather than face to face and news/gossip spreads faster than chicken pox among fourth graders, honesty is a commodity that's in rather short supply and it doesn't take much to sell your soul in exchange for well, anything.

I spent many days craving talent. I used to look at people who were good at something, particularly the arts, be it musicians, singers, writers or actors (not dancers, because I have two left feet) and wish that I could be blessed like them and have what they have, something that sets them apart from the rest, elevated to another plane of existence, almost. I used dream of alternate realities: one where I'm singing in front of thousand people and not throwing up, or one where I am wearing a white cashmere pullover, bobbed hair and signing copies of my book at a Barnes and Nobles. I still crave to be talented, and wouldn't mind being famous either. But I would rather be the anonymous wonder, who keeps everyone guessing, the sought after one who people don't know where to seek, rather than a fame whore with a bald chihuahua!

And the epiphany de jour!

A friend introduced me to this ambient, instrumental band the other day. It’s called Explosions in the Sky, and I’m honestly surprised that I hadn't heard of them earlier. Then again, they are heavily featured in several TV shows, as Wikipedia cared to inform me, and I’m sure we all have heard a snatch of some of their stuff. Anyway, quoting Wikipedia again, they specialize in music that is cathartic to the listener. While this may not ring true with everyone, it was definitely music with a distinct positive-ness in its tone and melody, and to me, it ended up giving me an epiphany rather than become a means of catharsis.

True epiphanies are often rare. Yes, we all have our moments of unparalleled genius; usually while in the shower. These are inevitably lost in the deluge of other thoughts that pass through our brain every minute, every hour, which are mostly regarding what’s for lunch (or dinner). But there are moments when people stumble upon something really great. Maybe a struggling musician finally discovers the perfect riff when he is languidly strumming his guitar late at night. Maybe an entrepreneur decides to add a customized perfume as freebie to a gift basket. And maybe an everyday man finds the perfect way to put a smile on his kids’ faces. It all comes down to that one thought, the moment of clarity and understanding, which is more self sympathetic than inspirational, which solves the mystery of why life is the way it is. In most cases, we tend to forget these moments within an hour tops and get back to our old state, but somewhere in the back of our minds, that thought, the catalyst for change has registered.

So I watching the song “First breath after a coma” by Explosions in the Sky, that evening. It was the first song I heard, and I was already “ready to get my mind blown”. The music was beautiful- complex, yet simple enough to identify with, calm, peaceful and reassuring. The video was that of a beautiful daylight sky. The blue was a delicious pleasant shade, seen only on the brightest and most gorgeous winter days, and peppered with wisps of pure white cottony clouds. It was breathtaking and I kept watching. About a minute later, I found myself to be restless. I was waiting for something to happen. After all, the name of the band was “Explosions in the sky”, so where are the fireworks, I asked. Nothing happened. The anticipation grew and grew and reached a fever pitch. I was actually perturbed at why I wasn't seeing people running (I don’t know why, but the perfect music video in my head, always features people running!) or birds flying. So, two and half minutes into the video, and I was still staring at the sky, feeling a little bit angry now, and even a bit cheated, when I realized the beauty of it all.

All of us are constantly waiting for something to happen. We lead our lives every day, hoping that something epic may occur which will make our day exciting. We wake up in the morning praying that the big guy upstairs will create a moment of serendipity in our lives, and things will change immediately. In fact, we are so busy waiting for the extraordinary, that we don’t realize that life has passed us by. 2013 is winding to a close, and I still am in the same place I was a year ago, waiting for answers, waiting for inspiration. With hearts filled with a deep seated feeling of discontent and regret about the things we could have done, or even should have done, all we do is live a life where we are always waiting for a glorious future to knock at our door and sweep us away from a past cluttered with perceived mistakes. This waiting consumes us to such an extent, that we forget to enjoy the life we are currently leading. Who am I? What’s my purpose? What am I passionate about? What do I love? We would be lying to ourselves if we say that we do not ask ourselves these questions.  Yes, there are a definitely a few among us, who have gone beyond waiting to actually doing. These are the people we should seek inspiration from. But most of us just spend our lives like the fairy tale princess, Sleeping Beauty, living life inertly and waiting for the handsome prince to kiss away our mundane existence.

Marveling the fact that I had made such a profound observation, I continued watching, feeling slightly happier and less sorry for myself. This is when I stumbled upon another epiphany. Wow, a double bonanza, I thought to myself as I began to ponder about yet another peculiar characteristic of us, people. As I was watching the video, patterns started to emerge from the clouds. Now, all of us can definitely relate to the time we used to spend as children watching the clouds and trying to find shapes in them. Now, the ever evolving sky where the clouds are buffeted by the winds, by itself, is a source of metaphors galore, but we will keep that for another time. So, as I watched, I saw several things including what looked like a pig wearing a party hat. I was looking out for patterns, yes, but to see this while listening to moving music and pondering on weighty topics, was less than ideal. This simply will not do, I said to myself and tried to find other patterns. I strained to find a face or something like a large banyan tree, but the pattern of the pig was most visible, followed by what looked like a man-eating crocodile. Needless to say, I was disappointed, as I searched harder and harder. And right there, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Apart from waiting for life to happen, waiting for a sign or chance, we humans are always searching for patterns. We look so hard for meanings, answers, structure and even predictability, that we are ready to find them were none exist. In fact, we force of ourselves to accept situations with some arbitrary reasoning, giving ourselves excuses for things we are afraid of facing. Acceptance of situations is sometimes harder than struggle, and most of us are content with using any flawed logic in order to avoid what could possibly be a hurtful, but necessary truth. While it is true, that on the grandest scale of things, nothing is truly random and that there has to be a scheme to result in such perfection we call the universe, real life can be random. Isn't it better to leave some things unexplained, rather than to force out a meaning out of nothing, to try to give some semblance of reason to a situation? Most of us, (or may be just I) over think, over feel and let any stressful situation overwhelm us, but always under act. Using our time trying to think of five different possible reasons why a bad thing happened is much easier than finding even one active solution to make it go away. This is the bitter truth and this is possibly one of the humanity’s biggest flaws. Along with shoulder pads in suits and men’s harem pants!

As the song progressed that evening, I closed my eyes and firmly told myself to stop thinking about the pig. I told myself to stop looking for something to happen or something to be there, ever present behind the veil, and just enjoy the music. It was a conscious effort but it paid off. I was lost in the soft strums of the guitar, the steady reassuring rhythm and the melody that eventually lifted my spirit and gave me a sense of solace. Perhaps, that is what catharsis really is: the feeling that, in the end everything will be all right. At the risk of quoting Om Shanti Om, (that spoof movie actually did offer a wealth of wisdom in the form of corny dialogues) which was itself inspired by a quote from John Lennon, “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, then it’s not end”.  And in the end, I thought I saw vague picture in the clouds, which resembled a mother hugging her son. So perhaps, it is true, in the end everything simply has to fall into place and that all of us simply will end up happy; not a possibility, but a certainty. Life can definitely be a dream, rather The Dream, but only when we learn to live it.

Find me if you want to! :-)

So, we bloggers know one thing: Blogging is tougher than it looks. Mostly because we all are a bunch of lazy assholes, who can log in to watch Devious Maids ( NOT ME, I SWEAR), but do not catalogue our day to day life cos' EVERYONE is dying to read it :-P. So, managing multiple blogs must surely be much more difficult than say, managing people, or even rodents.

Anyway, ending the much contrived attempt at sarcasm and humour, I am just providing a few links where you guys ( if there are any readers) can find me. One is my old blog: from my early college days, which provide a glimpse into the person I was. The latest offering is a co-authored blog where I am attempting literary revolution. Just kidding! :-)

So find me, Rashmi Rajshekhar at:

http://rashmisrandomthoughts.wordpress.com/
http://vani-allofme.blogspot.com/
http://librabalance.wordpress.com/

A Manipal tribute (Yes, this is a periodically occurring thing)

This article is dedicated to those special people who have made an eternal, everlasting impact on my soul. In particular, my best friend and confidante, who has been with me through so many of the below mentioned events, that they are her memories, as much as they are mine. Babe, I found your letter, the one you sent me last year for my birthday: I miss you like crazy, every day and every night. Love always!!!!

“Associate yourself with great people. Maybe their greatness will rub off, and inspire you to also become great.” My dad used to keep telling me, hoping that his daughter may also become great one day. Ah, the ambitions of parents: benign but the yearning is so evident! Here, I will interject the famous Hindi stock dialogue, “mera beta (beti) khandaan ka naam roshan karega(gi)”.

I’ve gone past the stage where I feel guilty about not bringing laurels to my family name, but somewhere deep down I feel disquieted. Cleaning is an activity that brings back a lot of things: lost T-shirts, photographs, dust bunnies and heaps and heaps of nostalgia and introspection. I was cleaning my room today and I came across a few old certificates, my sister’s medals and a few cups I had won at local competitions. While I can’t say that I was a star, or even that I achieved a lot. But I had made an honest effort to participate, to shine, to be somebody. I can’t recall any such thing in college. I did participate in a few things, yes! And did pretty decently at them too. But, it was really nothing to write home about.

The beauty of the whole thing is that, this doesn't bother me at all. Sure, mom and pop would have loved a few more certificates, probably a blurb or two in the Times of India, but then again, all wishes don’t come true. In fact, when I think about college, I can’t remember distinct events like exams (oh the horror), fests or rallies.

What I do remember though, are incidents, people and the moments we shared together. Spending a good part of two years around amazing musicians didn't teach me any music at all. But, it did teach about the happiness of sitting in dark, murky, typical boy apartment, surrounding by the sweet tendrils of marijuana smoke and getting lost in guitar riffs and drum rolls. Despite dating a drummer, I could never learn the names of all the drums, but I still remember screaming his name out in a war like chant as he played his heart out. I never managed to make social connections and “network” like how the smart people used to, but I remember endless nights of chilling at THE college bar (to beat all college bars), hopelessly drunk and happily chatting with each and every Tom, Dick and Harry, I came across.

College really is the experience one only understands after graduating. Every song, every drink, every brand of cheap whiskey or rum, every road sign can be associated with some memory. Even hoardings, posters on buses, buses themselves, tell some sort of story about me- about my life and the person I was, in some ways, the person I want to be. Chop Suey by System of a Down, reminds me of the first person I thought I “loved” with disastrous results while Vat 69 reminds of the CRAZY marathon party we had at my apartment thanks to my literary partner in crime bringing his friend’s two liter bottle of the above mentioned whiskey over just for fun. House music, 3 AM joints, stuffed chicken egg burger with 2 Kings, “Naag and Naagayin”, raw Maggi, Easter hangovers and Glow in the Dark parties- these words may mean nothing to most people, but I can associate them with some of my fondest memories.

The list is literally endless. And at the end of the day, it is precisely that. To an outsider, I probably don’t have much to show for. Some even have asked, “What did you do those four years?” I don’t have a satisfactory answer: no recommendations, no certificates or awards. All I have are memories- friendships, heartbreaks, elation and misery! A bittersweet mix of things that has made me the person I am right now. Did I learn anything or leave a mark? Well, if not on paper, I hope I did so on those special people’s hearts, just like they have on mine.