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. 1 Comment ».
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 ».
Wonder how I would fare with Phenom’s Songs!
I came across this brilliant video of one of my favourite bands “Rush” trying to play one of their most popular songs “Tom Sawyer” on Rock Band! And needless to say they Suck at it!! But it makes for a damn hilarious watch!
Posted on Jul 26th 2008 by Gaurav. No Comments ».
Interesting spam?
Seems like our friendly neighbourhood software company is either trying out new marketing tactics or is the victim of some interesting spam?
Posted on Jul 22nd 2008 by Gaurav. 1 Comment ».
My Photography Skills!
This has been a long neglected area of my life, I got my DSLR (off my good friend Ashwin of course) over 2 years back now and I have been taking lots of photographs mostly because I am usually the only person with a good camera at hand, but of late I have begun to seriously like photography!
Unlike a lot of people in my circle of friends, I am not so much a wildlife photographer, and I don’t really see myself going that route either. I am more of a people and faces kind of photographer and would love to click pictures of emotions and people when they are not aware that a camera is pointing at them.
This usually poses 2 problems, one is the issue of permissions when photographing people etc .. and secondly, the ability to actually take good photos!
The latter is the easier problem to fix and I think its time I went over to my good friend Kallu for some guidance .. Once that is done, we’ll take a look at the other issues
Posted on Jun 30th 2008 by Gaurav. 1 Comment ».
London Photos
I have just started putting up photos of my lovely trip to London on my photoblog and it should be all up there by the end of the week. Please check from time to time
Posted on Jun 29th 2008 by Gaurav. 2 Comments ».
The craziest time of my life!
The past few weeks and the next few to come have officially been the craziest times of my life! I have learnt so much its not even funny and everything just happened at the same time.
After the North East trip, I have come out a much stronger person and I must say my resolve to do something on my own has strengthened and I am determined to do something about it.
I am in Bombay this week, talking at the ‘Palm Expo’ and also as part of the Onstage Foundation! More about that later .. and there is a LOT more to come about that
Next week I travel to London for the finals of the International Young Music Entrepreneur award and that will be a whole new experience.
I am just making a note of things I should write about in detail and I will!
For now wish me luck .. on all fronts
Posted on Jun 6th 2008 by Gaurav. 1 Comment ».
Back Home …
I got back to Bangalore yesterday and I’m still trying to catch up with things on multiple fronts. The trip through the North East of India has positively changed my life! And in many ways, the lessons I have learned from this trip I would never ever have got otherwise ..
I will update the blog with pics and stories in the time to come but this is a quick hello to let everyone know that I am alive and well and raring to go infact
Posted on May 28th 2008 by Gaurav. 3 Comments ».