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All The Tired Horses

The MP3 file encoding format has been a boon for music enthusiasts the world around. It may have its detractors like Metallica, but then, it has been responsible for making downloadable music a reality for us, with clogged Internet lines and limited bandwidth

It was this other day that I got hold of a CD having thirteen of Dylan's album on MP3 format, among which was the album 'Self Portrait', which I did not have. It was one of them Russian CDs and, though, I had all the other albums, at three hundred and fifty rupees, it was more than a steal, so, I went ahead and bought it.

I remember listening to 'The End' by the Doors, during my school days and marveling at the eleven minutes plus track length. Keeping the listener captivated for that length of time is something but to sing a song with a two line lyric and make it run for three minutes and eleven seconds is no mean feat either. Dylan does exactly that in the song, 'All the Tired Horses' in the 'Self Portrait' album. The lyric goes:

"All the tired horses in the sun
How'm I supposed to get any ridin' done? Hmm."

This is not about Dylan or about MP3, rather, it is about my pre-conceived notions and my prejudices. There was a time when we used to believe in concepts like pansies and the lot. I do not exactly remember what term we had for ourselves but pansy referred to a sissy and pop, among a whole lot of other things, definitely came under the pansy label. Due to this pop was a simple no-no for me. I am long over those things and I now realize that there is a lot in pop and maybe, I missed out due to my prejudiced mind-set.

Growing up has been fun. Initially, the transition into maturity and adulthood meant breaking loose from parental control and taking the reins of my life into my own hand. It was a time of discovery, mistakes, bloated egos and castles in the air. The castles have now eroded but it is fun to look back to those days and make an appraisal of myself, 'then' and 'now'. Among all the other things that made up the 'me of then', the prejudices and pre-conceived notions still have their traces in the 'me of now'.

One important lesson that I have learnt about life has been not to take anything by its face value but time and again, my prejudices of old make me do just that. To illustrate this I can talk about my tastes and preferences in music. I am no musician and neither am I an authority on any genre or artist, so, I am definitely in no position to pass judgment or rate any work of music. There are a numerous genres and artists in music, however, when I go to any music shop, I seldom browse anything apart from that which my mind rates as OK. There isn't any basis as such for such a rating apart from some pre-conceived notions like 'pop is for pansies', 'white man cannot sing the blues', 'boy bands suck' and the lot.

Making music is not easy and there are some who make a mess of it but there a lot of others out there who, irrespective of genre and language, make good music. But then, when I buy CDs, I tend to buy those with maybe just one good song, but those which fall in what I think is my type of music while I afford not even a cursory glance to others which may be brimming with beautiful music. When I listen to music I hear songs like the one that has just a two line lyric and runs for three minutes and eleven seconds while I close my ears to a countless others, no matter how well they are performed. Now that makes me wonder, 'How'm I supposed to get over these prejudices and pre-conceived notions? Hmm."

- Wave, November, 2000

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Weeds In My Life

'The neighbour's lawn is always greener', that is one of them on lawns and grass. I often wonder if there are any more phrases based on the weeds that thrive alongside the grass in lawns. There may be some definitely but I have not had the calling to search for them so far, I guess I am just content wondering if there are any.

I do not buy Archie comics; rather, I depend on my brother and my friends for them. I have seen Mr. Lodge blow his top over some weed that appears in his lawn, a couple of times. I do not have much experience with lawns but now that I have been on a break for the past couple of months, I have sort of taken this small patch of grass in front of my house under my care. It does not rate much as lawn apart from a semblance to one. These past few weeks, I have spent an occasional afternoon or two, tending my green patch. It basically involves removing the weeds that seem to come from God knows where. So, now when it comes to weeds I am in complete solidarity with Mr. Lodge, no wonder he blows his top so often.

Any type of a weed may be a fun subject for a student of botany but for me they are nothing but a nuisance. Apart from dismissing them as such, I do not think there is much that I can say about them. I can, though, draw a couple of parallels between lawns, weeds and my life. There are a lot of things that I want to happen in my life and I work for them. My experience so far, however, has been such that the things that I look forward to, seldom do happen. But the things that are not at all relevant, important or necessary happen very regularly without any initiative of mine, very much like the weeds that invade my patch of grass.

The fight against the bulge is a fight that most people undertake in their life at least once in their lifetime, though, in most cases, in vain. Now that I am over the quarter century mark, my fight too has just begun. There was a time when I was a skinny fellow and all I wanted was to put on some weight. I tried everything from exercising to special diets but to no avail. In spite of my best efforts there was little improvement to my Fido Dido* figure. That was then and now that I want a slim and trim body, the flab seems to appear mysteriously at odd places. Neither exercising nor diets have been able to stem the unwanted add-ons to my body, one of them weeds.

I had mathematics as a compulsory subject in all three years of college. Never did dig the subject so don't recollect much about what all I did back then apart from the fact that our professor was a guy with a moustache and spectacles on. I am at present trying to go in for further studies and to my misfortune, mathematics figures prominently in the curriculum. Have bought myself a couple of books on Algebra and am spending a lot of time trying to figure out its intricacies. There are a lot of theorems and formulas to mug up. Have tried many so called methods of learning things by heart but it has been an uphill task so far.

One day I return home from New Road in a taxi where there is a song playing on the FM. It is not my type of a song but as I step down from the taxi after having paid my fare, I find myself unconsciously humming the tune. That sends me wondering why, in spite of my best efforts, the formulas and the theorems are far from registered in my brain while the tune, bearing no significance in my future or life, just registers in one go, without any conscious effort as such. I guess its another of them weeds!

- Wave, October, 2000

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