my timesnewroman life

putting your thoughts into words is a tough task. on reading it, you should get the same feel as you did when you thought about it. otherwise it isn't worth it.

the thought process is the most unstructured process i've come across. every single thing around you contributes its little something to it. the subtlest of things bring about the biggest of changes, like the random person who sits near you on the bus, or meeting the unlikeliest of people, for however short a while or the temperature of water from the water doctor. everything contributes to how you feel at a particular time of the day, even though you might attribute your happiness solely to the fact that you got the rest of the day off, or your irritation to the bubblegum stuck under the keyboard.

over time, we change, for better or for worse. idle mind is a good measure of the changes i 've gone through. i used to type like a hyperactive 8th grader who fancied the '.' key on the keyboard. poetry was all about the rhyme and music used to refer to pop. walking was a bad thing, and bus rides were a rarity. feels like long ago, times when my handwriting was legible.

the first band i listened to was backstreet boys. i used to think they were good. then i saw how shallow they sounded, how none of their lines meant anything. that realisation came with 'nothing else matters', the first metallica song that i heard. and then i started believing that only when you write your own lines, will you ever mean what you sing. that was the point when i started divesifying, listening to music, irrespective of the genres. i loved songs for their lines, for the way they brought out an involunatary shudder in my spine, for few-second-brilliances.

that's how i got into metal. you need to understand metal to appreciate it. you can't like metal in a day, because metal is so vast. every day you come across a new sound. if you listen to black sabbath, you'll know why the tritone became to be one of the most worshipped sounds, or you probably won't, which is ok. metal was refreshing. what many perceive as just loud sound, has so much symmetry and beauty in it. there's this kind of a filter in my head, which helps me listen to a particular sound at a time, if i want to, like only the lead guitar in fade to black. metal is diverse. metal brings that awesome rush, that sense of wonder which comes when i listen to maiden's dance of death, jimmy page's stairway to heaven solo, enter sandman by metallica or the grungy guitar of nirvana, to mention a few. there's so much to explore and so much you can relate to. metal, to me, is not exquisite because of its select audience. it's all about the lines and structure, and the ebbs and flows. i can feel the angst in the guitar strings, when it speeds up, a volcanic eruption of emotion during the guitar solo. my hair stands on its end every time the crowd sings along with fear of the dark, master of puppets gives me a mini-orgasm, even. there's a part of metal that relates to everyone., but not metal as a whole, in my honest opinion.

a non-metallic song (if i may :p) plays as i type all this out. metal forms a large part of my music for now. but as i mentioned before, it's not only metal that does this. other genres lack the variety that metal offers, that's probably why they have so many genres, one for a particular feeling. the music i listen to now, reflects my mood, or even determines it sometimes. after listening to songs with life in them i can't bring myself to appreciate dance-mixes and remixes. i'm lost when in opeth's deliverance, in mighty popo's carefree african tune, or the blissful serenity of a piano, drowning in it, letting it flow through me. lost, in a strangely liberating way.

as time passed, i realised i think in english. tamil features now and then, but most of them it is english. at college, the avenues for conversing in english are very few. in class, i have like two people i can speak in english with. don't get me wrong here. the others speak well too, but they just don't. and they don't have to. but sometimes i get the feeling that if i don't use the english i have, i'd lose it slowly. so you see, thinking in english is something big. i guess that's one thing i needn't worry about.

i've stopped watching tv, except for the occasional soccer match, or the playoffs, or the grand slams, or the world cups, or the masters. i've lost faith in tamil cinema and tv shows. tv shows in tamil don't cater to young folk. so i shifted my attention to the english ones. what started off with f.r.i.e.n.d.s has now grown into this monster under my bed which threatens to eat me up. before, monday was the blues day, tuesday was the day after monday, wednesday was half way through, thursday was looking-forward-to-friday-day, friday was yay-it's-almost-the-weekend day, and then saturday and sunday were, saturday and sunday. a coupla months later monday became chuck + himym + prison break day, tuesday meant house m.d, wednesay was a day for detoxing, thursday meant naruto. friday, saturday and sunday didn't change. i've maxxed out. no more new tv shows, or so i've decided.

everyday, i walk 5 minutes to my busstop, take the bus to college, sit and let myself be 'taught', pretending to listen while the one up there in front, invariably pretends to be someone he'she is not, talk to a few people, ignore a few others, live my life, go back home by bus, walk the 5 minutes which becomes 7 due to weariness, scribble what i have to, listen to what i want, stare at the wall, think and spit out what i feel occasionally. and when i spit it out, it sounds so mundane, which is just because my mood is mirrored in my words, because it isn't actually so mundane. i sleep thinking i'll wake up to do all this again. and again. and again. or i might change. again.

i've grown, a lot. responsibility has eked into my life, and looks to hitch a ride with me wherever i go. i still find time for myself. to do the things i love;

for dream theater's a change of seasons,

for jack, as he jumps at me, as i walk home,

for that perfect coffee,

for the people in my life,

for the random pretty girl to turn her face,

for hating myself for the ones that faded away over time because i didn't take the effort,

for a few words, now and then.

why?

because i will change,

because change is all we do.

me, you, why, jack too.

i ask myself, "was it worth it?"