This is a place where I write what comes to mind as and when it comes. Welcome to a slice of life, seen through my eyes. Happy reading
Since 2020 is going to end tonight, I thought I would share a new episode of A House Full of Stories to bid it farewell. So, this is The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde. Unfortunately a restriction won't allow me to share it on Instagram, which kind of stinks when you come to think of it!
The Bilge Master
As announced yesterday, the web series A House Full of Stories is now live!
For the first episode I thought I would share a classic Indian story called An Astrologer's Day by R.K Narayan. I hope you enjoy the story and would love to hear your opinions!
The story is also available on Instagram.
I will announce the next story via Instagram on Saturday. Happy listening. Have fun people!
Welcome to A House Full of Stories. I have had the privilege of growing up in a house in which stories bled from every nook and cranny. This is simply a weekly event in which I will record myself telling a story and posting it on YouTube and if possible on Instagram. The video will be embedded on my blog for all of you to feast on!
I only ask for your eyes and ears my dear followers. I also thank you for staying with me for the past ten years. I will see you tomorrow with the first episode. Welcome to A House Full of Stories!Do any of you remember my friend who wants to kill Death himself? Kiki Ayang is back on FLTM with a poem about a recent epiphany. I was so moved by the poem that I added a stanza and she approved of it, calling me a talented goose. Naturally, I called her a gifted hen!
So this is two twenty something folks doing some writing! Have a read, have some fun. Sharing is caring. 2020 is nearly done!
The Bilge Master
The Trees spoke to me.
I was wandering past a stretch of road
When the trees spoke to me-
I happened to eavesdrop without realizing.
Embarrassed, I crawled back into my seat.
It repeated for a couple more days-
Stretch over stretch of naked scrawny trees
And I was drawn, mesmerized;
Simply because they stood tall with pride
Despite the cold and rain amongst fallen comrades.
As days passed by,
I decided to pay less heed to them.
I was a melancholy soul
Trying to pass unnoticed.
It made me sad that the trees were happier
When I saw them quarrel, play and laugh.
On my last days passing through,
The other day, I could not contain my composure
They were laughing- making merry!
And it made me smile
But behind the smile A river of tears had flown The current was against me But this the trees seemed to know I thought I glimpsed a dryad Nestling in a branch Her beauty made me realize The day was sunny The road was untraveled And I was a traveler Therefore I set forth Maybe one day someone will pass through this avenue And have a similar epiphany Elephants aren't the only ones with a good memory But humans are fickle And now I must turn back And head into a different jungle Where the trees are concrete And the imagination needs constant nourishing And so I am grateful that the trees spoke to me They assured me they'll remember me After my body turns to ash And my thoughts to mud
This is a girl I met on a My Chemical Romance group on Facebook. This is a story she'd posted and I loved reading it. I asked her to send it to me and she very kindly allowed me to publish it on my blog. She wrote her own bio, enclosed below!
My name is Lorien (Lor-e-n, sometimes it's hard for people to pronounce) Shaw, I just turned 14 and I'm from a small town in the south. I love writing, drawing, playing music, or just expressing my creativity. All I want is to be known as someone who made a positive difference in someone else's life, because I know what it's like to hit low lows.
Early Sunsets Over Monroeville
The sun sets earlier now than it used to. Orange and yellow
skies aren’t a good sign around here. We sat on the ledge of a hill for a
break. I hold my wife’s hand.
“We must get moving soon, Mealina,” I
say. She nods.
“I know. It’s just so beautiful out
here.”
The sky was darkening. I stand,
pulling Mealina up with me. She kisses my cheek and we head off North.
This town used to be so full of life.
Kids running and playing in front yards, cars carrying adults to work, the
occasional cat or dog crossing the street. Now everything is still. The stores
that are left are used as refuges. The only sound that can be heard is the
rustling of the wind. Broken-down cars line the streets. It’s a dismal,
depressing sight.
My wife and I enter our refuge,
quickly calling a meeting for a head-count. I counted the living faces. We lost
no one today. It was progress.
“We’re low on food, Greyson,” Mealina
whispers to me.
“I’ll gather more at sunrise
tomorrow.”
“We don’t have anything for supper,”
she pushes. “We need to feed everyone, especially the children.”
I bite my lip.
“I’ll run out to the garden quickly
and grab a few heads of lettuce. I’ll be back before sunset, I promise.”
“No,” I reply sternly. “It’s too
risky.”
Mealina opens her mouth, ready to
strike back, but gets interrupted by the children running rampant in the small
space. I tell everyone we will not be eating tonight.
As I finish my statement, the back
door swings open and slams shut. I whip my head around, counting everyone’s
face. We’re missing someone.
Mealina.
I jump down from my post and run as
fast as I can out into the yard. I frantically search the area. I run to the
garden.
There she is, gathering lettuce and
tomatoes and other things. I run to her as quickly as my legs will take me, but
I’m too late.
It happens so fast yet it’s playing in
slow motion.
Something small and sleek swoops from
the sky and transforms upon landing. Mealina drops her basket, shocked. The
vampire grabs her shoulders as tears of terror roll down her cheeks. He sinks
his teeth into the soft flesh of her neck and feasts upon her. I stand
motionless, paralyzed with fear and sorrow. The color drains from my wife’s
body.
The vampire pulls away after what
feels like an eternity, even though it was really only a minute. Returning to
his bat form, he flies away, leaving Mealina helpless. I run to her, no longer
frozen.
I pick her up but her body is cold.
Her heartbeat is slowed and her breathing is shallow. I cry over her. Her hand
lifts to my cheek.
“I love you.” Her voice is light and
scratchy.
“I love you, too,” I whimper through
shaky breaths.
I carry her inside and lay her on the
bed. I lock the door and wander to the bedside table. I look at Mealina, my
beautiful, lovely wife with sorrowful eyes.
“I’m sorry, Mealina,” I cry, opening
the first drawer and grabbing the small pistol. Her eyes fill with tears.
“Greyson, no, please,” she whines. I
stop momentarily. Regaining my composure, I load the gun.
“Greyson, I love you.” Tears are
streaming from her face now.
“I love you, too, Mealina. I always
have and I always will. You were the one and only,” I manage to say, wiping my
eyes.
She cries and screams and pleads.
“Greyson, please! I love you, please,
Greyson, please!”
“I’m sorry Mealina. I love you,” I
choke out, aiming for the center of her head.
BANG!!
Mealina is finally still and I fall
back against the wall. The gun falls beside me and I hug my knees and cry. The
other refugees are knocking at the door but I don’t care. There’s a corpse in
this bed and I’m a wreck.
They’re calling out to me.
“Greyson, are you okay?!”
“Greyson, what happened?!”
“Greyson, where’s Mealina?!”
“Greyson?!”
I pick up the gun and reload it. I
can’t live in this nightmare, not with my wife’s blood on my hands. I put the
gun to my head and pray to whatever God is listening.
“I’m so sorry, Mealina, darling,” I
end. “Please forgive me. I love you.”
I pull the trigger and there's a rush
of force and calm and energy and noise and silence, all at once, and then
there’s nothing. I see Mealina. She’s waiting for me. I approach her and hold
her hand. We sit atop a hill and watch the sunset.
“I love you,” she says.
“I love you, too,” I tell her.
THE END
What do you like about music?
Yati : From a listener's point of view, music does to my life what it does to movies. Imagine Sam Raimi's Spiderman, but without Danny Elfman's ensnaring soundtrack. Yeah, you can't. It just becomes part of your story. You'll find me head banging or at least thinking about it every time another Motörhead song blasts in my head.
Jason: I like how versatile it can be, how simple to the ears yet with a lot of technicality to it. How one can capture the depth of the scene just by random notes playing in harmony.
What according to you is the most important aspect of a song? Lyrics or melody?
Yati : The melody (don't hate me, man). You want them to turn it up on the radio in their cars? The lyrics won't matter as long as the melody is great. You want them to analyse your words, post it in song discussion threads and remember it too? You'll still need a great melody.
Jason: Melody for sure. I actually focus much on the dynamic aspects of the song since I do have my fair share of learning music theory. That’s one of the many reasons that I hate modern pop songs coz most of them aren’t as technical enough for my ears. Even a groovy bassline can move my head and I wont focus on the lyrics. However that doesn’t mean, lyrics aren’t important as well. Any Queen fan like me would tell you, that Freddie was a lyrical genius
What makes a song appeal to you?
Yati : It HAS to make me feel something. Hope, fear, awe, happiness, nostalgia, melancholy, inspiration, evil, heroism... The scream, guitar solos, drum fills, everything, has to serve the context of the song, and has to make the audience FEEL the emotion behind it. That is all art is, you know? It should make you feel something.
Jason: The complexity of the entire mix. The eventual build-up of the entire song to get you those chills at the exact moment. The emotion of the song matters.
Talk a little about how you go about composing your songs.
Yati : I could be washing utensils, or sweeping the floor, or working in the orchard, and some melody, some hook will pop up in my head. I'll keep repeating it till I get my guitar and figure out the chords that line will need. I sing it, listen to it and then discern what it makes me feel. The rest of the song just falls into place as I realise what themes can fit the hook. Coming up with open ended or abstract lyrics is the best way to go about it. With time, I will sculpt the song to make it dynamic in the instruments and the vocals, and in 3-5 hours I will have the song completely constructed.
Jason: I am not much into creating/composing songs since m not much of a lyrical genius if you ask. But in yati’s case when he said something about his song and he needs to do a whole track on it, I was like all in. I could add in a bit more to rough structure of composed songs, some added accents that would enhance the end result.
Would you say a cover of a song helps the original song to become more popular, even if the original song's quality is inferior to the quality of the cover?
Yati : Absolutely. If laypeople can recognise the quality of the cover, people with good ears will eventually but surely think, "How the hell did those guys come up with this melody? Did they even know how much this song would affect me one day that I would scour the internet for different covers of it?". It gives the original artist the opportunity to become part of a richer culture.
Jason: Absolutely. The best thing about covers is you can do it any genre. And music has so much of it already. People have preferences and, in the end, if someone wants to figure the original one out, sure it exposes them to that genre as well.
Comment on the statement, "A cover is just someone copying something because they couldn't come up
with something original."
Yati : After mindlessly spitting this, they'll listen to Jimi Hendrix's version of "Hey Joe" for the 6th time that day. I cannot stress how important song covers are. Just slight differences in the guitar tone, vocal style, even the video, makes the artist's soul seep into that rendition. Why would anyone want to shoot that down? You get another angle of the song that you like, and possibly more people will know about the song to now enjoy the original version. Everybody wins.
Jason: Well, as I said, a cover could be as exact to the original, or you could use your artistic imagination to flow into the genres that you like. Obviously, a cover is a copy, you are copying a pattern of chords of the song, but one could obviously enhance or improve it. If you ask me, I am not that well into composing songs and, I was just a part of one and many more to come, but covers is what I can do seamlessly. That doesn’t degrade me as an artist.
How important is an app like Spotify or a site like YouTube in today's age of the internet?
Yati : Imagine what previous generations had to go through to listen to music. It hurt the artist more, in my honest opinion. If the only thing keeping you from becoming a cultural phenomenon is the fact that people can't access your material, it's sad for you. The people will find other songs to love sooner than you think. To have these sites distribute your material at minimal cost to you but with high chances of being shared is absolutely wonderful.
Jason: Social media is the key to this internet age, and apps like these help for more exposure than ever. People are accustomed to this easy life. One doesn’t have to buy CD’s anymore and those were at a cost if I'm not wrong. Streaming services are a way to go not only since they are easy to use unlike going through shelf of CD collections and they are cost efficient.
Comment on the rampant piracy of music.
Yati : Sad reality is, majority of the households have much, much more important things to spend on. Something that is so easy to pirate as music WILL be pirated. There's no escaping it. You can take the high road and say "People should support artists by buying their music, going to concerts, purchasing merchandise," and what not, but people do those things because they LIKE it. Not because they want to support the artists. There's no conclusion to this, it's just what is.
Jason: That’s the sad reality, I guess. But didn’t we all download pirated music at one point since it was free. I guess right now since the age of streaming in recent years, these have reduced. So that’s a good sign.
How important is music as a medium of expression of feelings?
Yati : Ask Slash from GnR. A shy lad who wore his top hat low and covered his face with his hair just so he didn't have to look at people. Interacting with people is scary business, and just because we got used to it doesn't mean it still isn't emotionally taxing. The ability to express who you are, what you do, in the context of a song is not just a bonus, but a gift so many of us need to tell the world what makes us, us.
Jason: Well if you can express your words in music with the tone and feel of what you want your message to be. It hits right on point. You want your listeners to feel what you are going through which also helps them relate in their lives. Everyone has their own playlist when they are in certain type of mood that they can relate to.
Name a few artists whose work has inspired you to take up music.
Yati : Linkin Park, Insomnium, Motörhead, Iron Maiden, Guns N Roses, Steve Wilson, Devin Townsend, Alter Bridge, Breaking Benjamin, KK, Shaan, Lucky Ali, Hans Zimmer, Nicholas Hooper, John Williams… I could go on. There's just so many, and each one of them has had some influence on my current work.
Jason: Queen, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Linkin Park, Shaan, Lucky Ali, Hans Zimmer, Guns N Roses, Journey, Dire Straits, Pink Floyd, Silk Route, Bryan Adams, Eagles, Elton John, AC/DC, Toto, Beatles and most of the Classic rock and 90’s artist.
Do you believe there is a message in the music you make? If yes, what is that message?
Yati : It's quite simple. Making music makes you cool.
Jason: I can’t answer this. But what Yati said.
Pick out five artists whom you admire.
Yati : Guthrie Govan, Girish Pradhan, Devin Townsend, Axl Rose, Myles Kennedy… Basically song writers who have insane guitar/vocal abilities, since I started out as a guitarist and am now a vocalist.
Jason: Freddie M, Brian May, John Bonham, Jimmy Page, Elton John, Any member of the Beatles.
How were you introduced to music?
Yati : My family. My mother is a Carnatic singer and plays the harmonium. We sing bhajans at random times, I used to play the tabla when I was a child and the response I got from people back then would leave me wanting more.
Jason: Well, being raised a catholic has its perks. I was actively involved in church activities and every church has its own choir which I was a part. Slowly I developed interest and enrolled myself for keyboard classes seeing my friends in them. My mom used to work as nanny for Pankaj Udhas’ elder daughter. So she kind off pushed me into music as well.
Where do you see music and artists say five years from now?
Yati : Foresight is absolutely not my thing, I'm horrible at projecting things in the future, and I'd be lying if I said that it makes me sad. But I'm pretty sure that selling music online will be even more profitable than it is now, or so I hope. I see so many new artists going back to Rock n Roll, India's metal scene is flourishing and I, for one, can't wait for people to realise how weak their playlists were five years ago.
Jason: Its hard to say. I know many artists right now are struggling to survive in this pandemic. And, the ‘DJ culture’ is taking the world by storm. I have seen enough American Shark tank to notice that Music is a risky business. One needs to create connections or be incredibly good at it to be found online. And then there are many who are good it at it. That however doesn’t mean that the older genres would fade off. I hope to see more international rock/metal bands performing in India though.
What if music never existed?
Yati : I would just be a shirtless guy on Facebook, instead of being a shirtless guy in my own music video. Can't imagine what my personality would be like if it weren't for music. I don't think I assimilate more of anything else, maybe superhero movies, but even they need soundtracks. It would be a grey world indeed.
Jason: I would just be another software engineer on a chair with a PC in front of me.
Here are links to stuff that would show what kinda music I make and what I'm into.
Ik Shama : https://youtu.be/EHr7AwX8TSc
One Step Closer cover: https://youtu.be/hCj1qJtmge8
Hotel California solo cover: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2082291738488575&id=100001233067301
My social media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kilmyster
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kil_mister/
YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/c/YatiAcharya
Jason:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jazz94
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simply_khadoos
