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Random Notes of a Closeted Hippie

My fascination with Woodstock festival started after I read this piece of article on The Guardian. My knowledge on this topic was limited before this article because I d only known that it was a musical festival that happened in the 69s ( I was researching about Janis Joplin then). But I hadn’t known how the festival was once a center of Universe for three days! I started reading more and more about the festival and also watched a couple of major documentaries.  And boy did I get hooked on to the cultural phenomenon! I have always been an ardent fan of psychedelic music. A good 4 years ago I discovered a rolling stone “Greatest Albums” list on their site. One of the albums on the list was Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow. Once I listened to the album there was no going back. Psychedelic music had a major influence on me in the sense that I understood there’s beauty in being non-conventional, that there are somethings that most people don’t understand but that

My Favorite Guilty Pleasure Songs

Don’t we all have them? Guilty pleasure songs. Don’t we have them on our secret playlists, don’t we reduce the volume even when on headphone so that the world doesn’t judge us, don’t we all play them when low, don’t we all sing them in showers (No? is it only me?) So a colleague of mine has this song "Right here waiting for you" as his ringtone and whenever his phone rings, although I tell people it’s a very effeminate song (I believe it is one very honestly), I can’t help but sing along! No offense to anybody here. I know this is a very subjective topic. I like songs based on the music more than their lyrics which is why I have an outrageously large number of guilty pleasure songs in my kitty (no kitty is not the name of my iPod).  Some of the songs that I used to like as a kid now seem to provoke gag reflex reaction in me. But some of those still remain close to my heart (and also locked up in my heart :P ) Here we go. Since am universally proclaiming

Reading Azar Nafisi's "Reading Lolita In Tehran" - My Thoughts

This is not exactly a review but a bunch of thoughts I had when reading Azar Nafisi's brilliant Non - fiction, "Reading Lolita in Tehran". I am not exactly a fan of non - fiction and rarely do I pick up heavy books - that make you think about the world that you live in. But this book was one of the suggestions that popped up on Goodreads since I d read two non fictions - John by Cynthia Lenon and Wonderful Tonight by Pattie Boyd recently. Photo Credit - http://azarnafisi.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/book_lolita.jpg Honestly, I am the person that judges a book by its cover and the title (Midnight's Children taught me not to do this but old habits die hard right?). So the title stuck me the most and I had to, had to read it. It sounded intelligent, devoid of conventions and fell into the "rules defying" category of sorts. Even with me being an ambivert, the idea of defying rules amuses me. This is why I figured , I had to add this to my reading chal

The Most Important Groupies of All Times

The Rock n Roll storm of the 60s was a much needed revolution in the music history which gave us many great bands and musicians the world segments as “legends” today. While we are all well aware of how much this time period was unequivocally the best time to “be discovered” in the music industry, I wonder how many of us truly notice what kind of opulence being discovered led to.Money – check, villa – check, vanity, private jets – check, fame – check, women – check oh check! Women – as musicians were a small group compared to the behemoth group of male musicians in the 60s and the 70s. Pattie Smith, Stevie Nicks and a handful more made their mark in the male dominated music industry. Also behind the veil were the groupie clan that slowly and steadily made their ways into the rainbow lives of artists – satisfying the egos and “other things” these men were “in need” of. Being a groupie was more than legitimate if these girls (also men, yes there were male groupies also ) were of

Life is Like The Beatles

The Beatles have been a lesson to everybody in so many ways. Their music, their innovation, their creativity, their zeal, their timing, their loves, their passion, their loss - every aspect of them was like a lesson learnt in time. I am at a phase in life where I am so drawn to the god like band. To me there couldn't be a force superior to the band! On daily basis, there’s always some connection, some relation, some way to take it all to The Beatles. In this process, I have come to a conclusion - There is one almighty and then there are 4 kinds of people -  1.  John Lennon  - Lennons are charismatic leaders by default (Pardon me for beginning this para like I am writing about a sun sign). They come, they see and they conquer. Lennons of the world are narcissistic and have highly inflated self-worth - rightly so. Without Lennon, the band wouldn't be formed. Without a leader what is team? Anarchy never leads to fame. Because it is a predicament where everyone is a hero, ev

The Phantom - The most real fictional Hero

I have to start this post by thanking my dad for having got me and Susie develop comics reading habit very early in life. Before Tinkle, our most favorite books were The Phantom and Mandrake, the magician . While Mandrake's superhero powers included universally appealing magic, the Phantom relied on his body strength and intelligence to tackle the baddies ! That's why he was special. He didn't have super powers or fancy weapons. All he had was his masculine strength and the mysterious aura around him. Now there are a number of reasons why the Phantom is my favorite fictional hero .Here are some - 1. He isn't immortal - Although jungle legends made him seem immortal, the Phantom was a human just like you and me. The present Kit Walker is the 21st in line of all the generations that dedicated their lives to the well-being of Denkali ( I read the Indian editions, so I aint gonna call it Bangala). Right from the first Christopher Walker who swore vengeance having

How I Watched a MOTHERload of Bullshit for 9 years (or How the Mother of All Craps ate us up part –by-part for 9 years, you pick)

(Before you read further, this is not an outrageous rant of a frustrated Fan! Please note that I am no longer a Fan and I have burnt all the DVDs in literal sense and not in the copying-the-data-to sense!) Ok, Its official. The writers of HIMYM are the worst bunch of story tellers of all times. What a MOTHERload of crap! They should have named the finale "LOST forever" and not "Last forever"!This surpasses the supreme level of bullshit set by 2 Broke Girls and Anger Management! What were they thinking? Lets write about love and ruin it all in one blasphemous, sucking-at-multiple-levels, buttload of dinosaour crap of a stupid, stupid episode! (This should have been the end of all of it  -  http://hollywoodlife.com/2014/04/02/how-i-met-your-mother-alternate-ending-fanmade-video-watch/ ) When they revealed the mom, I thought, Now there is something realistic. Whatever she looked like, how much ever she received flaks for not being Robin-isque, I still loved th