Our Song :)
So after years of searching and debating, Shilpa and I found our song .. for the moment! we’ve found many such songs, but this one we’re learning to sing a duet for etc .. so here goes ..
Posted on Aug 19th 2008 by Gaurav. 2 Comments ».
Independence Day!
For some odd reason, tonight, I was sitting and watching Channel [V]’s feature on ‘Rock On’, the new Farhan Akthar movie about being rock musicians in India, a topic that is dear to my heart. And after an Ad break, a message, “Please Stand Up for the National Anthem” came up in bold on the TV!
Now in most cases, this is some form of an advertising stunt and so I was half skeptical as I looked up to the watch and saw that it was the stroke of midnight! and then it dawned on me .. 
So I did stand up and watch as some of India’s best voices sang the National Anthem and rang in our Independence day ..
Where the mind is without fear and the head held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action;
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
Happy Independence Day! It may not mean much to you personally, but it is a BIG deal!
Posted on Aug 15th 2008 by Gaurav. 1 Comment ».
Wordpress.com goes down?!
And all of a sudden today, wordpress.com stopped working for me! I kept getting an error message “not site admin” on any wordpress.com page. And whats more .. the page source shows NO HTML, NO NOTHING!!
Anyone have any idea what the issue is?
*UPDATE* - So there was an issue! and it was because of a bad code check-in! :P .. The wordpress team rocks for actually fixing it that quickly and even more for admitting the error and being honest about it!! Thank you Grant for pointing it out!!
Posted on Aug 13th 2008 by Gaurav. 1 Comment ».
Dance to my tunes
Sign the Pledge - http://bengalurubleeding.com/petition/
I have been an amateur musician for about 8 years now and a large part of my education as a musician happened playing in the various venues in and around Bangalore. These were either college fests where my band Phenom competed or pub gigs where we played for measly sums of money, some places where we even had to pay and play but play we did! and we loved it and it was well worth it!
In a city where venues to play musc are few and far between, the few places that allowed bands to play were our saving grace! to us, the 20 people who were our audience, most of them friends we had dragged there, were the closest we would ever get to those videos of our favourite bands who would woo stadiums filled with people!
In one swift and stupid move, my city was culturally slaughtered last month! in a very strange twist of events, the Bangalore police banned live music in places that serve alcohol. Bad enough, they had banned dancing in clubs, they had to go do this ..
In many ways, I got out of this situation with my band now playing largely outside Bangalore inspite of being a Bangalorean Band! but its the worst feeling for those kids who put their heart and soul and every penny they can muster into their music. Like Girish Karnad, one of the finest playwrights from Bangalore had to say at the protest last weekend, “How on earth will listening to live music cause anything untoward to happen?” and just because accidents happen on the road, will you ban driving?
This is the 21st Century and we live in a free country but are still subject to such ridiculous restrictions that it makes me question the ability of the people who we have elected into power!
A bunch of us have put up a petition for online signing that we would like to take further once we have enough people supporting the cause. So if you feel what is happening in the city now is unfair, please head to http://bengalurubleeding.com/petition and support us!
Posted on Aug 13th 2008 by Gaurav. 5 Comments ».