Ode to Her

When you love someone, you don't care for anything else in the world. She's my first and only true love - Music. As I say goodbye to one phase of music in my life, thought I should write something to express how much she means to me.

I've never been a believer in love at first sight. This wasn't one either. I remember the first songs I heard were on our car stereo. The good old fiat had a sound system not worthy of much praise, but music is not about huge speakers. Whatever we hear is through the same ear. beauty is in the eye of the beholder, music is in the ears of the listener. I can't say for certain what changed me into a music fanatic, but my first recognition as a singer in 3rd standard sure helped. I thank my parents forcing me to sing at our school youth festival.. the first of many opportunities I had to entertain the audience. My first English song: Michael Jackson - Heal the World.

Fast forwarding a few years, I was lucky enough to make a niche for myself as someone who can sing western songs pretty well. Groups song at ICSE youth festivals are still some of the wackiest moments of my life. Imagine singing 'In the End' at an inter-school youth festival, with a guitarist who doesn't know to play a string, but still has the passion to play it in front of an overawed audience. LaFest is another occasion not to forget. Surennan and me singing 'Pineapple penne' which still has a cult following. Through these years the most significant fact was that I got to hear more songs - better or worse - I heard all kinds of songs I could get my hand on.

Entering college, I never dreamed there would be any future for expressing my love for music. Getting second in Genesis was a beginning, but the real opportunity came at our Sophomore's day - Miraglo. Don't know what inspired me to form a band, but everything fell together and I'd my first performance as part of a band. The attempt was much appreciated, I guess. That lead to performances for Illuminati, Dhwani, Ragam, College Day etc. I loved each and everyone of the moments I spent on stage. Looking back I'm really proud of the list of songs we performed:

In order of performance,
Greenday - Boulevard of broken dreams
Bryan Adams - Summer of 69
The Rasmus - In the shadows
Thousand Foot Krutch - Rawkfist (backup vocals)
Eagles - Hotel California
S C Chapman - Dive
Deep Purple - Smoke on the water (backup vocals)
Deep Purple - Highway Star
Metallica - Unforgiven II (backup vocals)
Aerosmith - Dream On
Nirvana - Breed (backup vocals)

The ones given in bold are my favorites. I'm listening to Change by Tracy Chapman now. Beautiful tune and lyrics. Thank you God for giving humans the power to enjoy music. Let her soothe us all in sadness, inspire us to be better, entertain us in good times and lead us through... change.