Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Deep Purple

I don’t quite remember when I first heard a Deep Purple song.  I must have heard “Smoke on the water” when I was young but I don’t remember.  Well, that does not surprise me.  There was a time when I detested Abba (so much that I actually rubbed out a cassette containing “Voulez vous” to record some pathetic Tamil songs from the Radio).  My first memory of a Deep Purple song is from a Phillips advertisement in the late 80’s.  It shows an old lady listening to “Highway Star” real loud on a Phillips music system. Her husband desperately crawls by to turn it down.  When he succeeds the lady asks in annoyance “But why did you turn it off, it was so nice” (in a beautiful British accent, if I remember right). He turns it on and is blown off.  That should definitely have been my first Deep Purple experience.  Fortunately for me I liked that one.

My next memory of Deep Purple is from my first year of hostel.  The E-block was a building inspired by the Cellular jail.  Privacy was not a factor in consideration when it was built.  So everything you talked in your room travelled across to all your neighbours and of course you heard everything that is happening around too.  To make things interesting and annoying there were guys who played their music real loud.  These were folks who had amplifiers and pot speakers.  They played their favourite song of the month/weeks continuously for one to two hours every day in the evening.  A member of this elite group had a fascination for a song which involved a lot of screaming and lot noises.  I hated this song.  Much later I realized that it was “Child in Time” by Deep Purple.  Since then, of course, my appreciation for this song has improved a million times.  I have no idea why (could it be thanks to Annu Malik’s using it as an “inspiration” in that Aamir Khan movie).

Since those days, I have got deeper and deeper into Purple’s music.  I love a lot of their songs, especially from Machine head and earlier albums.  These are probably the best rock songs ever.  The above said “Child in Time” is one terrific song.  At some point of time, I was able to get through the screaming and shouting to understand its beauty.  This is definitely one song that wet my eyes.  At the other end of the spectrum are “Highway star” and “Speed king”.  The latter is a very cool song with a wicked Ian Gillan laugh at the end and the beginning is also bloody cool.  It starts off with a lot of noise from Ritchie Blackmore before settling into a quiet Jon Lord organ.  Then all of a sudden Ian jumps in shouting the lyrics – total chaos.  As to other pieces, there is the early number “Hush” sung by Rod Evans.  For a long time, I did not realize that this was not Gillan (stupid me). 

Another great album is, of course, their live album “Made in Japan”.  It had some super long songs with lots of guitar playing and screaming.  The song “Strange kind of woman” had this deadly interplay between Ian and Ritchie.  And then there are those real long “Space Trucking” and “Lazy”.
I love many of Marks of the Deep Purple with Mark II being the favourite. It was during this time that they made the three rocking albums (In Rock, Fireball and Machine Head).  Mark I is a close second though.  A lot of good instrumentals and some of them had such cool names like “Wring that neck”.  Once Gillan left and David Coverdale came in, the songs got quite boring except probably for “Stormbringer”.  After that I lost track of the Marks till Steve Morse came in.  Since then things have started looking much better.

And so my Purple journey continues.  My biggest regret s that I have not seen any concert of theirs live and don’t think I ever will.  But I will always love their songs and will continue to buy and download their albums.  For me, thing don’t get much better than listening to “Speed king”, a song made nearly 40 years back.

Monday, October 25, 2010

My Tweets

Been Tweeting for over a year now.  Just summarizing all my tweets till date - Get an idea about my thoughts during those days.

Stay hungry, stay foolish – Steve Jobs at Harvard Convocation

You, keep on moving, when you get to an intersection take what seems the best option. Don’t wait too long & lose time.

The sudden wind rustles the leaves of the old tree. Calmness is lost, stillness is gone, inner peace is missing, old thoughts are back.

The university town of Lund is such an amazing place. If not for all the modern people & stuff, the place takes me back in time. Beautiful!

Stockholm is such an interesting place. I thought Germany is cool, this place is even better.

My personal issue :-) RT @knealemann: Technology presumes there's just one right way to do things and there never is. Robert M. Pirsig

Any effort that has self-glorification as itsfinal endpoint is bound to end in disaster (Robert M. Pirsig)

@apkalnsLV To live for some future goal is shallow. It’s the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top. Robert M. Pirsig

Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty thousand page menu, and no food. -- Robert M. Pirsig No...http://fb.me/IZbitt5F

To improve the world, start with your own heart, head & hands. - Robert M. Pirsig

When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion.-Robert Pirsig

Clarity is misleading - it is a mirage. Life is not about clarity; it is about murkiness and how we can live successfully through murkiness.

If we can define love, it wouldn't be an exciting at all. The fun part - love could seem different at different moments.

Is there really a free moment in life? Theres alway some thought or other running through your mind that binds you to something unnecessary

Life twists and turns are scary. But in the end, we seem to get through things and life seems much better. Hopefully

Dave Barry
rayadverb Dave Barry 
An amazing number of drivers seem totally unprepared for the possibility that the light will turn green.

Life is a convoluted book the ending of which you sneak-peaked, you never know the twists and turns it takes but it always has the same end.

Hard it is to live, when the path is unknown, hard it is to live, when the path is known, it is best not to think of the path at all just go


Why is the earth not a cube instead of the sphere? God or whoever wanted us humans to go around in circles apparently.

Take the papers; stack them here; take the papers; stack them there; take the papers; tear them apart; its once a century clean up time.

Any reason will do; to justify the things I do; if nothing is done; I still can convince it’s all done - I win anyway

Please don't take the ride to home on a car with three wheels, you would probably have to use your leg as the fourth wheel - Nonsense # 1

How much can you say without thinking? A lot apparently, most of the cool and divine sayings are only words put in intelligently and not. Intelligence & words don’t need thinking

Creep your way to the center of your life; determine where you have been and where you want to go. Then forget it & do whatever.

No faith, no dream, no prayer, no passion, no ambition, no destination - Just enjoy the journey.

Simple thought: it does not matter, complex action: everything matters. Messy result: a mind that is torn apart gorily.

A few more years to live, then it’s time to leave, Will I cry when it’s time to go, Will other remember when I am gone, Maybe yes, but barely.

Bored, Sleepy & Desperate to get some excitement: Footballs not interesting, works so-so. Just want to spend time watching movies & reading.

A friends husband passed away saturday. He did not live to see his 40th year. A very loved and respected person - It was a sad day.

Woody in Toy Story "Hey, that is not flying, thats falling with style"

Seedy Saying: As the sun rises in the eastern sky, the western sky lights up. Be like the sun & let your light shine from horizon to horizon.

Words can combine to tell a beautiful story, Words can be understood to hear a different story, Words are not sufficient to tell what one wants

Dont do it, dont do it, dont do it, dont do it - the world has been saved of 4 damages.

Dare not to speak the truth for the truth hurts, Dare not to speak the untruth for it is a sin to lie, Dare not to speak...

Giving a lot of free upperhand can kill the joy

@saugataraj: An Apple a day keeps Nokia away

2 heavy bags filled with cheap stuff on each shoulder, 500 Rupees in my pocket. Hope I can board the packed train to my village – A scene at Palakkad Railway Station

As hunger gnaws my insides, I look at the idlis strewn on the dirty road. Is hunger more important than cleanliness? Yes it is – A scene on Selaiyur Road

Ravanan - No black & whites: theres good in bad and bad in good. Good movie but should have been rawer. Wish RGV or Selvaraghavan made it.

Anu: Wonderful weekend! Fun, frolic, food, laughter, smiles & loads of love - positive indicators of a lousy week that will follow at work

Online Advertising - Big talk, everyone is right and so everyone wins. But who knows what happens in the end.

The more I get, the more I need; the more I need, the more I ask; the more I ask; the less I get;

Deep Purple's "Speed King" from their 70's album continues to be my favourite heavy metal song; You gotta listen to Gillan laugh at the end.

Time is like a child with many fathers (sounds much better if I used a word that would mean the same but then would be considered indecent)

We are all busy making 4, 5, 6, 7 and more digits to our earnings but hardly seem to realize that we are only adding 0s as achievement.

The cloud has so much information about me (& many other mes). So what happens when evil takes over the earth: George Orwell’s 1984 is here.

Saw this in a friends Facebook "rangudu your yagu mail is guthikking" (meaning Rangudu your Yahoo mail is bouncing).

Fun - Freely understood notion

Too many choices – Meego, Android, etc. Which to take and more importantly - which to ignore?

Computexing: How to be inventive in today's competitive world? Is there an idea that can be called original? Are we all Annu Maliks of IT?

Most popular word at Computex - Cloud. Most popular stalls at Computex - ones that display ebooks and tablets.

Imagine a world without people, A world that lets animals live in peace, Where small fishes are only eaten by bigger fishes ...

Loved the song "The 3 R's" by Jack Johnson from Curious George soundtrack. The 3 R's Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Fun song.

... I missed the B in the ABCD of my last post. But will let others fill that in, I was having a curse word in my mind.

Party formed in Taminad called India Jananayaka Katzhi: IJK(Indian Peoples Party). How about one called ABCD: Another Chicanery of Democracy

@mishranisheeth Another true definition of leader - Also, you stop being a leader if you start believing it more than others.

Hi from Navigator

Leader: Not the one who coerces other to go to the edge regardless of whether he/she does so.

Leader: Goes to the limit to achieve the goal and inspires the team to follow his/her path (right up to the edge at times).

Irumbu Kottai Murattu Singam - A deadly tamil cowboy spoof with names like Jayshankarpuram and kizhakkukatai. Super.

"35 killed as Maoists blow up bus in Dantewada" - I thought the Maoists are fighting for the upliftment of the folks they just killed. Damn

I seem to be growing old quickly. So I have decided to have my birthday once in 4 years. That way I grow older by a quarter every year.

Luke Wroblewski
lukew Luke Wroblewski 
Your first design may seem like a solution but it is usually just an early definition of the problem you are trying to solve. #uxlx

Vadapav for breakfast at Mumbai.

Travel in May is hell. Everyone has packed their bags and made all modes of transport full

Every good needs a bad else how will you identify the good. Selfish good.

"Gates promises to make Amethi an IT hub." Even the Microsoft chairman cannot resist becoming an Indian politician.

I don't analyse, I just come to conclusions.

Success - When "cess"ation of "suc"king in life

If life is full of good, its boring. When things go wrong & we fight back to gain ground, all of us get proud & happy. Thank God for Satan.

Think how boring life will be if we did not read between lines - no hidden messages, no rumors, no gossips, no imagined reality.

You are who you are. But you control your feelings & project self differently. The world sees you the way it wants to though. So why bother?

'Housefull' is not for pseudo intellectuals: Sajid Khan. I think he missed all other categories except probably for amoebas.

The chip manufacturers release new versions so quick that most of us spend our precious lives porting all the existing code - useless work.

Decisions are tough. It is much easier to flow on the river; let it take you wherever it wants to. Take decision when you start drowning.

Where there is a will, there is a way! Take the damned will out & you have no way; implying nowhere to go - just sit back and relax.

Moronix thinks "Its so easy. So lets bend it, stretch it, bend it, stretch it, bend it, stretch it, bend it, ... Oh my god it broke. HOW?"

An arbitrary statistic in Facebook made me realize that the opposite of statistics should be statisux

Why cant good news come in its purest form? There seems to be a "but" attached to it always. Maybe that happened in the good old days.

Paulo Coelho says Save the planet? Planet must be saying, "save yourself idiots, I will be fine". Something I was thinking for a long time.

How do we judge what is right by just watching TV channels? But yes, Manu "trigger happy" Sharma should be jailed for ever if not worse.

Spent 2 days in hospital. Poked at many places and many existing holes used - DISGUSTING

Satans best invention: the word calorie. So many peoples lives are miserable trying to keep track of calorie

Some one from Church of Jesus tried to convert me. He apparently "felt a calling". I am happy being me & don’t need new religions.

I hate my school days so much due to all that learning I had to do - there was very little scope of understanding much less enjoying.

People want me to believe whatever little I have achieved in life is due to my education. But why do I hate my school days so much?


Another good line from a Tamil song "Why has god turned into stone, due to the stone hearted men"

Has anyone ever experienced freedom? True freedom - no boundaries. No one has – Our minds are too busy to understand FREEDOM

Is it weak to accept your mistake even if the other side has made mistakes? No answer seems to be right answer; the world is full of grey.

The line that divides ego and lack of self respect seems to be so thin that most of the times you don’t know which side you are on.

"the time has gone, the song is over, thought I had something more to say" - Pink Floyd

"Dying is easy its living that scares me to death" - Annie Lennox

"Droplets of yes and no in an ocean of maybe" - Faith no more

Given that life is not too long should we not spend a lot of time doing what we like? But what is that we like? I never seem to know

I try to talk, shout, scream and make you all listen but all of it falls on deaf ears.

Monday's question: Should I bulldoze everything into shape or should I understand and make others understand and thus achieve perfection.

Been eating a lot of fish but don't feel brainier. Now where did I misplace my brain?

Been wearing formal for the last couple of days. Realized it feels quite undignified to stand and pee in this attire

Or you can listen to Mrityunjaya by Agni

Indian rock scene sounds good. Listening to Parikrama performing Open Skies.

Waiting, listening, seeing, smelling and now trying to talk.