Mature music for mature people?

I was leisurely spending my time on Sunday evening in the restroom by scrolling Instagram while humming to the song “Levitation” by Dua Lipa. And then overheard a couple of girls merrily singing the same song in sync with each other and then I join them by singing a little louder but they don’t seem to hear me as I am on the first floor and they were singing from the ground floor(basement).

I kept singing a little louder but they don’t seem to hear me, then I stopped singing and in dismay, I began considering that I enjoy the same music as a 16-year-old. I recently discovered the music of BTS and fell in love with them. I literally wake up with the song “Butter”, it lifts my spirits, and was keen on buying the Samsung Flip phone looking at the advert with BTS, I guess my 90s nostalgic feelings for the Flip phone need to be blamed too.

My taste in books has altered since 2019, I no longer seem to have a great willingness for reading Fiction books and prefer reading Non-Fiction books now. I have read the books of Navoneel/Durgoy/Ravinder Singh, I am not condemning their choice of stories, but they cater to a different segment of readers.

Do our tastes also mature/change as we grow? Is there a thing called music for mature people?

I understand that taste in music is a personal choice but I have seen people rolling their eyes and judging me for listening to Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeran or Chitti’s songs. I have been a big fanatic of music from Movies or TV shows. I have found some wonderful songs from the OST of movies and explored a broader spectrum of music. I am not writing this to defend my taste in music but rather coxing myself that it’s not okay to enjoy any kind of music (Rap/Metal/Punk/Pop/Jazz/Classical/Movie) at any point in your life. We might need to write some Diversity/Inclusiveness laws for music too!

People who know me might jump to the conclusion that I might not enjoy Classical/Old music but I have tried to listen to them also by Saregama Caravan and have started to appreciate the music genre. And also enjoyed the music from Bandish Bandits – the so-called commercial classical. While there is this different argument of how the works Bach or Bethovan have lasted for ages and will continue to be alive whereas our chart-buster songs like “As it was” or “Natu Natu” will vanish into this thin air.

In conclusion, hoping for a world where each individual taste is tolerated or appreciated rather than disregard or judge a person based on his/her music tastes. And also, as we grow older, may be good to explore a broader spectrum of music and expose ourselves to new genres of music rather than sticking to what’s imposed on us. (Read here Spotify/Gaana’s Top lists).

Forgetfulness

It took me a couple of hours to recall my username and email associated with this WordPress account. I was banking on my old college laptop for access to the WordPress app which had my login details. A few months ago when I tried switching on the old laptop, the mouse pointer was malfunctioning and due to lack of time and laziness I just closed the laptop and prayed for it to diagnose itself. Luckily universe (God?) was on my side this time and the old laptop’s mouse pointer started to work but unfortunately, the WordPress App on my Windows laptop became forgetful and logged me out of the App. Probably thought I was dead. This did not stop me today and I ignored all the annoying work calls/emails and was determined to get back my account today.

I applied for a leave in the office and sat down with two of my laptops. After searching for an hour for traces of my WordPress email or username, I stumbled upon an email id in a text document and I just tried my luck with it. Voila and it worked and I was able to log in to my WordPress which I have been ignoring for quite some years. After this incident of getting back alive, I had to write and publish something however pathetic it may be.

I was thinking about chatgpt and other AI-based tools which would be way better at writing than me, but I was wondering do these tools have the power of memory? On googling for half a second, I realized it would need a lot of hardware to make it remember conversations and passwords/emails. So, I guess in a way I am no better than these AI tools in the area of forgetfulness but I can surely become better.

Throughout my existence in this world, I have practiced the “Forgive and Forget” strategy. This has proved to be a boon and a bane as well. I have always told people that I forget the petty fights, and words said/done by people overnight. There have been times I have struggled to recall good memories and few of my friends can narrate them as if they happened yesterday. It’s never too late to realize our shortcomings and work on them.

Hoping to be less forgetful in the future!!

Welcome back

As I am writing the heading of the blog post, I was recalling the dialogue of famous maverick Shinshan, he used to say “Welcome back” instead of “I am back” whenever he came back home after his school. I always found this very intriguing and hence saying “Welcome back” to myself while writing this post.

So, here am I, back on WordPress after more than two years – it feels like an eternity and it feels like I have abandoned a part of my life and feeling refreshed reviving myself back. I am comparing myself to dying in the blip due to Thanos and restored back to life now. (All thanks to Hulk).

I wrote my last post at the start of 2019 and a lot of things happened since 2019 in my life – moved to a new house, got promoted, had many ups and downs in work and life, found new love with my ukulele, read some great books, discovering myself while trying to find a life partner via holy maatrimony, helped my parents build their own home, etc.

It’s not the start of the year but yet I am tempted to make some new year resolutions – to write more and maintain the blog. Keeping this post short – because I am having trouble with writing and got too accustomed to writing an email (KISS).

Rewind 2018

2018 was a very busy year for me. The first half of the year, I spent in finding the right job for me. It felt tough because it was new, exhausting and needed a lot of patience. I did not have much clarity on what I wanted and I trust me I still don’t have even after working full-time for 6 months now. There were nights I cried pointlessly because of the job rejections. During these six months, I was interning, it was my first proper job and I did learn a lot of things and it was quite different from the things we do in college and one important thing the internship taught me is that “conditions you work in” actually matters. You need to be surrounded with a right set of people who motivate you and bring the best out of you. I would like to take this moment to acknowledge my heartfelt thanks to two people who were by my side during difficult times. I find it very awkward to generally say thanks to people close to me. But I did thank them in my Masters’ thesis acknowledgment if that counts. So, MnJ and Mycroft I owe you guys big time.

This year was the first time I had an actual roommate in my life. ( Excluding the spiderman in my room. Hell yeah, I share my room with Spiderman ! ) . We had become roommates in a sudden change of events but I was so overjoyed to have her as my roommate. Initially I was skeptical that she would spend hours on phone with her fiancé, but in the end, she did spend time on the phone, not in talking but watching the TV series I got her addicted to. Our wavelengths matched flawlessly. Huge thanks to her fish pickle which kept us sane during those days of awful food at the place we were staying.

And on July 8th, I graduated together with my friends whose friendship I am going to cherish for years to go. This was my first graduation ceremony. I had very low expectations. I do not remember much of what happened that day. Except that we all made a mistake while saying the pledge and just that I was the last one in the line during the graduation parade. I had many perfect Kodak moments that day which I framed and preserved. So, right after my graduation, I landed in my new office. I was kinda outlier here and had to lot of things alone as I had joined late. But in a month, I ended up finding a good company of colleagues to help me out with work and crack nonsensical jokes during tea break. Somewhere in mid-August on a busy working day,  I had a calling for a new hobby. So, I bought a DSLR for myself. (Thanks to my employer here !).

And then came November, where I got a chance to visit UK (All thanks to my employer here again :D). I got to visit Scotland and London. I saw so many breeds of cute dogs including husky. Sadly I couldn’t find any good handsome men around. (I was counting on seeing handsome folks like Benedict, Eddie, Martin Freeman, Ed Sheeran etc or at least look-alikes). So, if there is an analogy we can find here between men and dogs, I won’t say anything explicitly but I will leave it to readers (winking). I never even dreamt of traveling to the UK but then the universe had made plans for me and I happily obliged and now I am praying that the universe should have more surprises like these in store for me next year.

I do have a few regrets this year. I regret not showing up for a Ph.D. admission interview as I chickened out. I regret that I did not show up on the day of my first marathon event. I do have a little regret for choosing a job in MNC than a startup. I regret not trying Haggis dish in Scotland, the regret of having that haircut which nobody noticed, the regret of cutting my hair in first place, reget of consulting the pricy dermatologist, regret of buying the expensive shampoo and regret of writing so much about my hair and a few more things I could have done better. But, in the end, regrets and mistakes are the memories made. I still have a chance to make up for these mistakes this year. 

So,  2018 in a nutshell

1. Got a master’s degree
2. Got a new job
3. Out of parents nest: Paying my rent and bills
4. Traveled out of the country

I am fully ready for you 2019! Suprise me more!

Boredom Doodling

It was a bright sunny Wednesday afternoon, when the office was overcrowded with frustrated colleagues (mostly middle-aged men) breaking their heads trying to reach deadlines, there was an idle intern(Me !) on the other hand happily daydreaming without a care in the world while trying to study. This happened a few weeks ago when I was going through a tough time making decisions about my career and I couldn’t focus much on work. During this time, I remembered the book I read, “Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath. This is a semi-autobiographical novel, which tells us about the struggle Sylvia went through while making a career in the big city. It also talks about in general how women are told to prioritize marriage and children than career. In the end, she is presented with a lot of options/choices in life, but she fails to decide and go with one. These are one of my favorite lines from the book,

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

I wouldnt call myself totally indecisive, but I have trouble taking decisions and end up seeking validation from various sources. I make comprehensive lists of pros and cons for important decisions.  While pondering on whether “To do or not to do” I end up daydreaming most of the times and this one time on a sunny Wednesday, I did something which I haven’t done in ages: Doodling.  Following is the image of the doodle I had done using a ballpoint blue pen. After finishing it, I couldn’t resist sharing with my folks and got a lot of adoration for the Groot sketch. I did a couple of drawings later and I had realized that I found a new past time.

Literally Literary Pay

I am writing after a long time as I was caught up in the rat race of the corporate world. But now I have earned a little vacation time (less than a week) after toiling hard for past six months. Last six months were memorable for me both professionally and personally. I had numerous noteworthy experiences and would definitely want to draft them and now that I can’t take go back to the past (Though noteworthy, trust me, I wouldn’t want to revisit some of the things that happened to me over these six months) I will write more about the momentous months of my life in my later posts.

Enough about the past, let’s get to the present. (Singing: Past is the past, let it go let it go).
I along with my partner in crime, Mycroft had written a technical article for a famous tech magazine. This is my first article to get published. I was proud to see my name in the author’s column and we were supposed to receive a small amount of money as a token of appreciation. Our article was published in the April’s Edition of the magazine and we patiently waited for the whole month and kept staring at our bank statements now and then for the sight of “credit” transfer from the magazine. April passed, and nothing happened. Then we didn’t lose hope but got busy with our work and college.

Today, I just remembered about our prize money and then we planned on mailing the editor regarding the same. Just to be sure, we checked our bank statements and there it was – our first literally literary pay, a decent amount for first-timers. Just under this credit transaction, there was another credit transaction from the company I was working, and both the credit amounts had an enormous difference in money. But the money received from writing gave me more satisfaction.

I tried hard to find a synonym to the word “Pay” that starts with the letter “L” but I failed. If anyone reading my post find it, please leave a comment. Thanks!

Fin.

Age is just a number

Yes, I just turned 24 and I am not whining. I love celebrating my birthday. My birthday falls in the beautiful month of December, with all holiday mood all around and it’s always fun coming back home after a tiring semester. This time it was very special as many of my friends who went abroad for studies have come back home for holidays.

 

Incident 1:

 

I have been writing and talking about my birthday all this month. (I try not to, but it eventually comes up). So, on my birthday we were eating at a restaurant wherein I was asked to prove my identity as a major. And after looking at my ID, the person in charge insults me by asking if the person in the photograph is me.

 

Incident 2:

 

Just a week after my birthday(Yet another birthday reference), I get into a restaurant along with my friend who is younger than me by a year. We randomly chose this restaurant as it was nearby, and it turns out they serve alcohol. (FYI, we went to eat fish and chips there). So, at the entrance, they asked for an identity proof to confirm my age. I reiterate here, I was the only one among us who were asked to prove their age.

Do I look like a minor? Do I look like a criminal?

So, I was wondering whether I look like a 24 year or not. I enquired with my friends, they snapped at him first and later everyone assured me of my age. Or do I look like a spooky 24-year-old who needs to be accessed before entering a public place :D.

 

Overall, I enjoyed being identified to be younger than I am.

Before I graduate…

I watched the LOTR part 1 and part 2 in 2011 along with my brother and later he moved to a new city for studies. I have always watched movies with him. And without him around it was difficult for me to watch the LOTR part 3 alone. Its high time I admit this, I am not a big-time movie watcher. I find it difficult watching movies alone. I have always had the company of my friends or family while watching movies. And to add to this weakness, lately, I have started dozing off during the movie. (This is because of my tiring schedule: P). So, coming to the point I had abandoned LOTR without watching the third part.

So, now fast forward to 2015.
I took a temporary hiatus from the world and went into hibernation for a year. This is when I found the love of my life – Amazon’s Kindle and rekindled my past love for reading. Now, I had taken an oath to read all the three LOTR books along with Hobbit and then only watch the films. So, I finished reading the first two books of LOTR series and half part of Hobbit by end of 2015 and then I got busy with my life.

So, now fast forward to November 2017.

I attended this amazing TEDx talk in my city where there was a singer who performed my all-time favorite song, “I see fire” by Ed Sheeran from the movie “Hobbit: The Desolation of the Smaug”. And this gave me goosebumps and reminded me of my oath. I still have no clue why I hadn’t taken such an oath in the first place.

So, now fast forward to December 2017.

I come home for holidays. And the first thing I see on the TV was the movie Hobbit. FYI, I hadn’t watched TV in months and when I sit down all I see Hobbit all around.
Is the universe conspiring? Thanks for all the signs Universe.
Today I decided to make another amendment to the oath by putting a deadline. I am a true Engineer who is deadline driven and I work best with deadlines around.

Oath: Finish reading LOTR and Hobbit before I graduate.

 

 

Together we turn 24 !

Last week by Almighty’s grace I turned 24. It’s not just me, I share my birthday with two of the favorite people in my life- my twin brother and my twin soul sister. Yes, you read it right I said twin both the times. I can write pages about my twin brother but today I feel like writing about this twin soul sister I found on July 8^th, 2016.

July 8^th, 2016- this day will go into my personal history. It was one hell of a judgment day for me. I luckily got admitted into this awesome grad school, it was the first day of my new college. I had little trouble with my admission process but then later that day I met this secret guardian of my life. We spoke for less than few mins but then I don’t think either of us thought that our friendship is bound to last long and our paths are bound to cross.

In one sentence our destinies are intertwined. It like this famous Hutch ad that says, “Wherever you go our network follows”.

Wherever Jarvis goes Mycroft follows.

Now I am writing an exhaustive list of things we share. We share our birthdays, blood groups and we use identical combs. (Cheesy enough right). We have similar habits when it comes to eating or hanging out. And many more. And this list has been better articulated by my dear friend Mycroft in this blog post of hers http://virtualramblings10.blogspot.in/2017/12/to-my-alter-ego.html.

So, in all, we are soul sisters. So, the reason for writing this now is because of all a sudden I have a rush of gratitude feeling of finding such a good friend.

Hey Mycroft,
Thanks for keeping me company in the deserted lab.
Thanks for your unlimited supply of sugar and Maggie.
Thanks for encouraging me to write more.
Thanks for pushing me to read more.
Thanks for reminding me petty chores.
Thanks for being there.
And Thanks in advance for tolerating me for the future years to come.

Her birthday

Attention world!
It’s my best friend’s birthday today.
Currently, we both are miles apart, with four continents, five oceans separating us, yet she is close to my heart. These days, I look forward to having as many video calls with her as possible. One video call with you a day, keeps doctor away. As a birthday gift, I am writing you a letter. (I am so old school! )

Dear Si,

I will not exchange any kind of pleasantries. I hate it when you ask me how I am doing, whenever I call you, I still didn’t accept the fact that you went away to some other country and you are not constantly with me to know what I am up to.
As I recall the innumerable fun times we had makes me sentimental. I intend to keep this letter funny, but don’t scold me for getting all emotional in the end.
We have known each other for 6 years, yet you never fail to surprise me. Thanks for keeping up the spark in our relationship. (Laughing aloud!). Firstly, I need to confess that I apologise for being the reason behind your fall. (multiple). To elaborate, I feel sorry that you fell (literally) on all your arms many times, while I was around you. Out of those many times, you fell, I was the first one to laugh aloud, but that one(last) time you fell, it hurt me the most.

I have tried hard to celebrate your birthdays in the best way possible but failed. So, I decided to make this one special by keeping it simple. You can even expect not to expect my phone call. Just remember it’s all part of the plan. I hope you celebrate well your first birthday away from home with your Asian friends. Wherever you went (Read Blore) I followed you all these years, it would be great if it happened again with the Big Apple. I won’t be disappointed if it doesn’t happen, I just have a gut feeling that our friendship is bound to last for the longest time.

Another confession, I hid a pair of shoes of yours on purpose. I took it from you and never returned. I don’t why but I never wanted to return them. Just a small piece of advice from my side, call me whenever in any need and me make part of your decisions.

Thanks for keeping me sane all these years. Take good care of yourself.

Here’s a small poem about you.

She learnt to fly with broken wings.

She learnt to smile with a thwarted spirit.

She learnt to eat alone in the company of memories.

She learnt to satisfy her insatiable curiosity.

She learnt to calm the ocean inside her.

She regretted for growing up hastily.