{"id":368,"date":"2003-08-24T14:47:00","date_gmt":"2003-08-24T14:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/2003\/08\/diving-into-the-ocean\/"},"modified":"2003-08-24T14:47:00","modified_gmt":"2003-08-24T14:47:00","slug":"diving-into-the-ocean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/2003\/08\/diving-into-the-ocean\/","title":{"rendered":"Diving into the Ocean."},"content":{"rendered":"

Indian Ocean<\/a>‘s Melancholic Ecstasy<\/a><\/i> reminds me of a long car-drive from Panaji to Mumbai.<\/p>\n

I was a bonafide student of REC Warangal then, for three whole weeks. However, the admission procedure was followed by the announcement that classes would begin a month later, and I took off to my uncle’s place in Goa. Ah! Three weeks of pure bliss. No thoughts about the upcoming tryst with seniors ( they had asked me to get a bottle of Feni, and I was thinking of the best walkaround ), playing around with my uncle’s new Pentium ( The only thing I could use with confidence was MSPaint) and of course, hanging around Panjim. <\/p>\n

And one fine day, I found Indian Ocean. The album. The first<\/i> album. And as I keep reminding everyone around me, I found it in a freakin’ Paan shop. I had heard Desert Rain<\/i> before, but had never got around to buying it. I also found a hardcover copy of Stephen King’s Tommyknockers<\/i> and three copies of Sandman<\/i>#50 and coaxed my aunt to buy them for me.
\n\"\"
\nThat was the afternoon I was going to leave Goa and come back to Warangal. I had decided on the official story about the Feni I was supposed to bring back ( “Uhhh, Udattada<\/i>, I had bought a bottle for you guys, but my aunt was packing my suitcase and she found it hidden under my Jeans. She threw it away.” ) and I was aware of the fact that, yes, this<\/i> was it, this was where I Boldly ride into the jaws of Death, into the mouth of Hell. (that was the general opinion about REC seniors )When I bought the cassette, it was a welcome diversion from thinking about …er…you-know-what. So I explained to my uncle, in very deep detail, what a great band Indian Ocean<\/i> was, and how Desert Rain<\/i> really blew my mind and stuff like that. He got exasperated after a while ( any driver would, I guess, when he’s got two kids, my cousins, hollering in the back and a naive nephew going on about a band ), so he said – “Why don’t you put the cassette inside the deck, so that we can all listen to it?” <\/p>\n

Oh no, I thought. What if he listens to a track of just guitar and tabla and says something stupid like “Where are the songs?” What if my cousins hate it and start screaming louder? What if the cassette contains a different cassette altogether, like Raja Babu<\/i> or something? Yeah, I was that<\/i> paranoid even then.<\/p>\n

So I gingerly push the tape in. And Village Damsel<\/i> starts off, with a bass track that’s joined by the guitar, and then the tabla and the drums. A few minutes later, my uncle is smiling to himself, tapping on his steering wheel. My cousins, both<\/i> of them, are quiet. My aunt, who has been sitting quietly all along, says – “This is good<\/i>.” Winding roads, villages, pass us by. My worries disappear. By the time it’s ten, and we pull into some hotel, I realise that we’ve been listening to the tape for about 3 hours ( auto-continue )<\/p>\n

The next morning, just before I am about to board the train, my uncle says something like “Why don’t I pay you , so you can buy the tape at Hyderabad, and I keep this one?” <\/p>\n

I believe that was one of the situations I have handled very<\/i> diplomatically in my life. I didn’t know how rare the cassette was, or whether I would get it in Hyderabad or not, but no way I would let it out of my site. I gave my uncle the exact details of which paan shop I got it from, and also that I saw two more copies of the tape. For good measure, I also pointed out that I wouldn’t be coming to Hyderabad for quite a long time, it being the Senior-Junior Interaction season in REC, after all.<\/p>\n

Whew. <\/p>\n

Of course, I didn’t see the cassette again at any shop. No one else I knew did, either. I used to keep getting worried about the tape being spoiled, and always kept hoping that HMV would re-release it. But those short-sighted corporate morons just didn’t seem to care. Kandisa<\/a><\/i> came, blew me away. At least more people knew about Indian Ocean now. I passed out of REC, joined this company, and carried out my first, and only e-transaction, opting to buy a cd of Desert Rain<\/i> for 400 rupees. ( I learnt two months later that Kosmic music was re-releasing the album and selling it for 200 rupees only, but I didn’t mind. the one I got was a classic Indie-label album) <\/p>\n

This Tuesday, I went to Lifestyle music world, just to scope out the new stuff. The rock section was in pathetic condition, so I decided to check out the New-Age\/Instrumental section. <\/p>\n

And it was there. HMV’s reissue of the first Indian Ocean album. For only 99 Rupees.<\/p>\n

“Hallelujah!” was the only thing I could think of saying then. The rest of the stuff ( this<\/i> stuff ) came later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Indian Ocean‘s Melancholic Ecstasy reminds me of a long car-drive from Panaji to Mumbai. I was a bonafide student of REC Warangal then, for three whole weeks. However, the admission procedure was followed by the announcement that classes would begin a month later, and I took off to my uncle’s place in Goa. Ah! Three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}