She Blogs About This and That!

  I hate to admit it, but my thoughts about pandemic situation enriching our creative lives have changed now after being in isolation mode for almost a year 🙊. Y’all know that Google Photos has this notification feature for showing your photos “same day x year/s ago”, right? So it’s been throwing these travel pics on my face which has me feeling seriously sad about not having hopped on a flight for what seems like ages. So to assuage the desire, I have started revisiting the songs that had been my favourites on my travels.   I have a few songs that are deeply connected to some of my travels. They are mostly on my business trips understandably so because if you are on personal trips, your evil twin wants to constantly talk and hence no earphones time! Well anyways. Without further ado , here they are –  1. Stereo Hearts – Gym Class Heroes ft Adam Levine – I remember wearing my 500 rupees fake Dr.Dre’s during one of my walks from the hotel to my workplace in London....

What is it about people wanting to move from their herd to become independent these days? Has it always been there? Am I noticing it late or is this a new thing (in which case I am still keeping up, thank god!)? Either ways, I feel fascinated at people trying to move away from a comfortable setting to which they are used to, to find an identity for themselves. And obviously am talking about people like Zayn Malik. Nobody asked the chap to leave 1D, nobody pushed him to pursue a different identity than the one he was tied with, nobody assured him of the security blanket that encapsulated him at his time in 1D to continue protecting him. Despite all the odds stacked against this decision, he broke the protective barrier around him to find himself, the Zayn Malik, independent of his band.  When I was his age, I decided to study more just so I could buy more time before opting for a career carved out of an interest rather than of voicelessness. Even with a li...

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 ...

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 ...

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...

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...

Is Rock n Roll dead? Should anybody do anything about it? Are ideologies shifting? Can Philosophies change? Could one of the reasons why Rock n roll has taken a backseat be that the other genres are gaining more popularity? Experimental music has come down drastically with the Gen Y embracing the melodious, sweet songs that are restricted, clustered and congested. This being the scenario, we should look back on what happened in the 60s, what happened when the rock music geniuses without any apprehensions gave their music wings, when they reached horizons and beyond with their experiments. I am no music critic or a marvel, but as a layman in love with Rock n Roll, I think this is when we should all set aside some time and listen to the gems that were created eons ago. What was it that paved way for the rockstars to explore and use their whimsical, musical superpowers? Counterculture - now that s something only courageous people can do .. Rebels, the ones that have ...

Photo from here - http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_ZSLGTqUl7U/maxresdefault.jpg When I say, Alice in Wonderland, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? Mad hatter? Queen of Hearts? Rabbit Hole? Hookah-smoker Caterpillar? Tea Party? And what else? A trippy trip down a kaleidoscopic world? It is exactly these elements that made Alice and her Wonderland a very familiar place for all the hipsters. Who would have thought Lewis Carroll’s innocent tale for children (the article here - http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/lewis-carrolls-shifting-reputation-9432378/ - says otherwise, but let us delve into it some other day when we are in the mood for a “tea party”) would inspire so many psychedelic songs, the world he created would become a happy place for the drug snuffling musicians of the 60s, 70s and the 80s? When I first listened to Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” from their 60’s album “Surrealistic Pillow”, I assumed that it could be a description of how Gra...