When it rains..it pours

I travel in a local train to work and since its a good half hour everyday...i generally have something to read or listen to inorder to bide my time.... I have a small mp3 player that has some songs that i generally listen to when in the mood...I am a bit careless with my player and generally tend to drop it every so often....(No respect for hard earned money, my parents always complained)

I recently dropped my player at the platform on Dadar station and something really unique happened to it since then...Probably some component got badly shaken up but the net effect of that is that now....when i play a song, the lead singer / music takes a backseat and the backing vocals / music is pronounced for most of the songs। I am guessing that the wiring for channel which carries the input for the leads somehow has got messed up in the fall....

The best part of this is that I am now seeing my old songs in a completely different light...the same song can sound so distinctly familiar yet distant when the voice that you are hearing is that of the backing vocalists...and the lead is but a shadow in the background। Ditto for the instruments.

I am also hearing notes that I never heard in the song ever (There is only so much clarity you can get on a cheap portable player :)).

The feeling of seeing what was once centrestage and the cynosure of all eyes being relegated to the wings and those seemingly unimportant non-entities taking pride of place by an abrupt and sudden twist of fate is a unnerving and a humbling feeling...

Till I bug your lives again, Good Bye and Good Luck (A really really good movie. Thanks, Nikhil, for the recommendation)

P.S: Two mails in quick succession, you must be saying, if u managed to reach this far :) Congrats.
P.P.S : Leave you all with a poem. A wonderful one albeit sad. So ditch reading further if you are in a good mood :P

When we two parted - Lord Byron

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted,
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
Sank chill on my brow
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame:
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:
Long, long shall I rue thee
Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met
In silence I grieve
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.

A Moral Dilemma or am i just too touchy ?

On the flight back from Seattle to Amsterdam..2 weeks ago…I was lucky enough to get a aisle seat (thanks to 24 hrs internet check-in) which is always a great relief. Though I am no Gregory Peck, squeezing my legs into the cramped economy class leg room is a huge pain and with a 10-hour flight ahead, I definitely don’t want to get stuck in a middle seat…

So, as I was sitting blissfully happy in my aisle seat trying to decide which movies were worth my attention, I noticed that there was a BIG Indian fellow in the adjoining aisle. This chap must have been definitely taller than 6 feet in height and a good 3 feet in width…and he didn’t seem thrilled by the prospect of the long flight ahead but was probably buoying himself with the consolation of being a little more comfortable with his feet stretched out in the aisle….

I have no idea if u have seen dreams being shattered in front of your eyes but this was the closest I have got…A middle aged Indian lady who had the seat next to our big fellow came and stood in front of him in the aisle and REQUESTED him to let her sit in the aisle seat…citing her AGE as the reason for wanting to sit in the aisle seat….Our chap, brave lad that he was, started to explain that he had specifically picked this seat as it has more legroom and that it was extremely difficult for him to fit into a MIDDLE seat..At this, our dear lady actually cited her age and her health as reasons and made a blatant and poor attempt to try and act old and frail.. In the face of this emotional assault coupled with our sometimes silly emotionality, our poor Indian hero succumbed and actually made way for that lady and sat himself in the middle seat….

I still vividly remember the crestfallen look on his face as he squirmed uncomfortably in the middle seat. I couldn’t help steal glances during the rest of the flight to check on our Indian hero and I think his face reflected his pain so clearly along with the expression of “If only I hadn’t…”
The scary fact is that I kept wondering what I would have done in his position and it is a toss-up as to whether I would have acted any different.

I wonder if it is all the so called values instilled in us during our formative years that prevent us from having the courage to stand up for our rights resulting in us ending up as suckers for a sob story.

Moral Dilemma : Respect / Concern for the aged and infirm V/S Being taken for a ride by pretenders

Cheers,
Me

P.S: Some great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan songs : (Been listening to them for some time now)
Daata ke ghulamon ko.. Haqq Ali Maula .. Hae Kahan ka Iraada sanam.. Gham hain ya Khushi hain too… Dulhe Ka Sehra…

P.P.S: I haven’t heard a singer yet whose voice reflects pure passion the way Nusrat does. Brilliant!!!!

P.P.P.S : This P.S’ing habit is a relict of the Infy KEC-General days J Don’t remember the name of the guy who was most famous for it back in the day. Chandrashekhar Garre, was it?