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Showing posts from 2016

The God File

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My brother is responsible for getting me hooked on to a number of things. From TV shows and different genres of music, to the NFL and Ethiopian cuisine, Basil George has impeccable taste and he is my go to guy when life gets boring, and/or when I am in need of money. Many years ago when he brought home a cassette tape of Metallica’s live performance with the San Francisco Symphony, my non-identical twin Sanjeev George and I were still getting over our love for hard rock, which by the way was courtesy Basil as well. Barely a month before this he had introduced us both to 'Bon Jovi' and 'Def Leppard'. I won't forget how the three of us sat around our home theater system, which was basically an old Sony car stereo with a couple of cabinet sized speakers, holding our breath not sure what to expect. Three weeks later we graduated from the School of Rock and enrolled for higher education at the University of Heavy Metal. I could tell you that the r

Beautiful

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Radio in India was stuck in limbo for the longest time.   All India Radio, more popularly known as Akashvani-the national broadcaster dominated the  air-waves  for nearly half a century.   Although both my parents recount listening to their respective Murphy radios amongst their most precious childhood memories, growing up I rarely tuned in, except of course for those 'once a blue moon' occasions when the TV wouldn't work and a cricket match was being played somewhere. Not to discount anything from the station whose line-up was unique and entertaining in its own way, there was something missing. New music was rarely played and upcoming breakthrough artists were never featured.   Then in 2001, Radio City came to town.   I kid you not, the days that followed were dominated by an unprecedented newfound interest in FM radio.   Newer stations blossomed throughout the country, on-air advertising became the norm of the day and Nokia literally seized the day by stepping in an

677 Runs

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Skinny Shakeel & Stout Tom, that’s what they called us in school. It’s all our Sanskrit professors’ fault. Mr. Upadhyay, the tall, lanky, perpetually unkempt language expert whose mannerisms very closely resembled the zombies from the walking dead. Most of us were hearing the word stout for the first time when he pointed at Shakeel and then me saying “You are so skinny, and he is so stout”. He wasn’t wrong, I was pretty rotund back then, but there was no need for him to give a bunch of primary school kids another word to make fun of a nice round fellow. I usually sat next to Shakeel because he was the only one in class who could fit in the same bench as me. Avinash thought it was the funniest word ever to have come out of a person’s mouth.  That little rascal didn’t even know what ‘Stout’ meant, but for the next 3 years he wouldn’t stop calling me ‘Stout Tom’. It would have gone on for years,  but then one day the very same Mr. Upadhyay caught him withou

Feel

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I’m about to do something I’ve never done before. Its been a while since I started thinking about it and I’m finally doing it. Today, I’m going to blog on the move. This won’t be easy, for one thing my laptop (which I happen to love a lot) is kinda big, its battery is sorta weak, I also feel a little crammed up in my seat at the back of the bus. But that’s not going to keep me from trying. Normally, for me the whole process of writing a blog post begins with an idea. The inspiration for which often comes in weird forms and in unexpected ways. I let the idea gestate in my head and over time it slowly takes shape. When I feel I have enough content in my hands, I start putting the words down. That’s when things get complicated. Because now, the challenge of invoking the same reaction in you that prompted me to write about an experience in the first place becomes very real. Which is why, this is going to be tough for you as well. I’m going to need you to