*The* Life. Really?

Speaking of moving, to those of you to whom it isn’t obvious, I’m not living at home anymore. In fact, I’m now living at the campus hostel.

Yes, it does sound exciting. Living without parents (or any kind of supervision), doing whatever you want when you want, and basically, experiencing a kind of freedom.

At least, ideally, that’s what it is.

Then reality kicks in, and with it comes hours of washing your clothes, shopping for groceries and such, and of course, dollops of spicy coloured water with assorted vegetables in small quantities with dry rotis and rubbery rice; also known as ‘mess food.’

And then, you decide that idealism sucks.

Apart from all these responsibilities, you also have to maintain a record of whatever you’re spending. And mind you, the spending has to be in a certain quantity, also known as, monthly budget. You’re not allowed to exceed this budget so God forbid it if you want to go to a fancy restaurant or buy one too many bottles of whatever you like to drink.

If all this wasn’t enough, there’s still more. Hostels have curfews so if you decide to come back even a minute after 10.30, get ready to pay 500 bucks. And there goes a quarter of your budget.

And get ready to adjust to people, because you will end up having people living around you with OCDs for cleanliness, different body clocks, different eating habits, different ideologies, different likes and dislikes and so on. Maybe living with friends wasn’t such a hot idea after all.

Speaking of hot, remember to wake up before 11.30, because after that, you won’t get hot water in showers. And while that may not seem so bad at first and you decide to jump into the shower without checking the temperature, you’ll regret it because you’ll remember that you left the warmer city of Mumbai behind and are living in the cold city of Pune.

If you can make the best out of all this, I salute you.

Brrr, it's cold!

So finally, I’ve arrived at Pune and at my college.

The first thing I noticed?

It is *cold* here.

Actually, it isn’t that cold for a lot of people, because it’s only 26 degrees most of the time. But for people coming from the humid city of Mumbai, it’s a little cooler than what they’re used to. They tend to keep the fans off and avoid opening windows and God forbid air conditioned rooms!

But the main problem starts when they have roommates who’re used to this climate and might even find it “hot”.  Ceiling fans aren’t designed to give air in a certain direction, unless ‘everywhere’ can be a direction and of course, the people who are feeling hot will switch on the fan without being so considerate of the other party that's feeling cold. And so, people from Mumbai often find themselves freezing under their thin bedsheets which they thought could double as a blanket because they figured, “You know, it’s just Pune, not Shimla!” and decided to leave behind the fluffy comforter which could’ve easily saved the borrowing of bedsheets and pairs of socks from other people.

Apart from the weather, there are other such anomalies in the city that was so presumed as the ‘Shadow of Mumbai.’ For instance, rickshaw valas pretty much anywhere in the city can just decide to switch off the meter and demand any amount of money from the passenger. General stores are closed on Thursdays and on other days, do not stay open beyond ten. There is no concept of a 24 hour medical store (at least in the part of the city I’m living in). People don’t have any qualms in driving on the wrong side of the road. PMT, short for Pune Municipal Transport, is a fleet of the oldest buses known to mankind and is driven at 60 kmph even in two-way lanes without dividers. Airtel users cannot get decent network in 85% of the places. And, most importantly, somehow, you always manage to wake up by eight in the morning irrespective of the time you slept the night before, even if you’re still sleepy.

Adjusting to such a different lifestyle than my previous is definitely proving itself to be a task. Having lived in a place where everything you could possibly need or want was either at a stone’s throw distance from your house, or was easily accessible because of the various options of regular and systematic public transport, it is difficult to suddenly start living like, well, *this*. Curfews were something that I knew existed, but hadn’t followed until now. Budgets were just terms used by the financial minister or school trustees, but now, it was the word that defined the limit on the money I could spend every month. I have to actually plan my entire day around the timings of the hostel mess, failing which, I either have to go to a restaurant to eat, or not eat at all. Good lord, I actually have to wash and iron my own clothes, unless I’m ready to pay 30 bucks a shirt/jeans!

With so many changes has been my welcome to the city of Pune.

And I’m getting carried away in everything so hard, I actually don’t even know what I think about it.

Hoping to survive the next few weeks without having a nervous breakdown…

The Fun We Had

Friends are an integral part of any teenager’s life. No matter how nerdy, geeky, stupid, cool, awesome, weird, amazing, quirky, crazy, emotional, quiet, offensive, lame or smart you are, you will have a friend circle.
Nine times out of ten when you’re going to try something new or stupid, it’ll be with a friend. That being said, I sometimes realize how innocent I am without my assemblage of some of the craziest people on earth.
Where I live is a comparatively quieter section of the city. People do not cheer and walk like drunkards on the streets (unless it’s Holi and everybody’s been to the bhaang stall one too many times). There isn’t a lot of hustle-bustle or traffic of cars anywhere.
And people certainly do not piggy-back their friends in the middle of the street.
Most of my friends from my junior college live in livelier areas and so, they don’t know about the subtle code of conducts followed in the suburbs (though honestly, I’ve never seen anything like this in the posh areas either). They wanted to see where I lived and so, came along for a quick visit to this nice restaurant in the locality.
After getting high on loads of chicken (oh. We all *love* chicken) and generally becoming more heroic and bold because of being in everybody’s company, one of the guys accepted a dare from another to take him piggy-back.
I’ve never been able to visit that restaurant again, because they know my face now.
We walked for almost fifteen minutes and because it was still the afternoon, every shopkeeper and every person on the road saw us! And everybody was cheering them on proudly except me (I was kind of mortified)!
But today, as I look at it in retrospect, I feel glad about the whole incident. They made for great memories and great fun (not this incident particularly, but a lot others) and I wouldn’t have changed anything if I could. It’s become a treasure chest of grand feelings inside of me.
Oh, I’m getting sappy (that’s what I’m all about). And of course, every single person in the group teases me about it a lot (trust me; it’s like a never-ending thing with them, once they get started). But even though my group was formed only two years ago and we’re going off to different colleges now, these two years will be something none of us are going to forget.

The Sound of True Music

Music is one domain I can claim to know some serious stuff about. Having listened to various artists from almost all genres, I can speak about any song without having to bluff about my intelligence.

But my friend disagrees with certain judgements of mine. According to him, anything that has a good sound and/or good lyrics can be defined as a good song. While I agree with his statement from a music enthusiast’s perspective, my thoughts vary when I hear the same music from the ears of a musician.

Being somebody who worships bands and rock/metal music, I hate two things about popular music: One, the list contains tracks from artists who make songs just to make money and haven’t, actually, undergone such experiences as depicted by their songs in real life. Two, the music provided for most of these tracks comes not from a musical instrument, but a computer.

Having developed a strong love for playing musical instruments over so many years, when I hear pop musicians singing in their digitally enhanced voices on music tracks either made on computer or played by somebody who the artist hardly acknowledges, I feel an immense dislike for the song. Needless to say, I don’t particularly like songs by David Guetta and Avicii, or by the MTV pop culture people like Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber.

While I appreciate every song’s tune or lyrics or the vocals, I don’t like digital effects. The occasional Skrillex song is fine, but somehow, general electronic music hasn’t really been a genre I’ve predominantly favoured. Somehow, the same tune being played on the guitar sends tingles down my spine, symbolic to represent the goodness of the tune, but an electronic version causes no reaction. Even though the software has been made by humans, I still don’t feel the emotional connection songs have the power to make if the song is of electronic genre.

MTV pop culture is something I do not appreciate for the aforementioned reason of not acknowledging the other artists contributing to the song as much as the vocalist. What about the bands of those artists such as Adam Lambert and Demi Lovato who create an equally important part of the song as their singing – the music? Why don’t they ever become part of the artist’s name? What is so wrong in being part of a band as a musician, keeping the band image of everybody together and not just one person stealing away the glory?

Also, most of these pop culture artists do not write their own songs – they get other people to write songs and another bunch to compose and then sing a tailor-made track with no artistic input from the vocalist whatsoever, which is kind of an irony because when to song is launched, the vocalist’s name appears in the column for ‘Artist’.

Legally, these “artists” own the tracks but actually, there is no work of these “artists” in making the song. I appreciate their God-gifted talent of singing, but unless you haven’t experienced what the song talks about, you somehow cannot fully capture the essence of singing that song.

I admire certain artists whose songs are their own works (to only a certain extent, but still) such as Adele, Jeff Buckley, Colbie Caillat, Alicia Keys, Jason Mraz.

But honestly, I still love them old rock and roll bands the best. For only they qualify all my four conditions of good music: One, the music doesn’t come from a computer. Two, the band is regarded as a single entity, with each member given equal respect (if not fame :P). Three, the songs are based on real life incidents from their lives. And four, a good sound and/or good lyrics. When these four things combine, it reminds you of all those good old times of fun.