I was watching a documentary about the legendary Pink Floyd album The Dark Side of the Moon and something that Roger Waters said triggered off an avalanche of thoughts and memories. He talked about how “everything up to [a certain] point was preparation for life that would start later and [he] realized suddenly that life was already happening. [He] realized that life began at dot and at any time one could take control of it…” When he said that it made me think of my own life and the influence upon it of the Indian social context in which I grew up. The notion of education and ‘growing up’ being preparation for life that would start later is very much the way of thinking in Indian society. Even as I grew up being a good little hamster, keeping his wheel turning as fast as was demanded and then some, I began to question the fundamental principles that the worldview I’d been taught was predicated upon. By the time I was out of high school, I realized that the massive edifice of a life’s plan I’d constructed was built on a foundation of well, nothing. I also realized that the loneliest place an individual could find himself in the midst of a collectivistic society.
"And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear.
And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon."
Lyrics like this suddenly felt a great deal more personal.
"And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear.
And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon."
Lyrics like this suddenly felt a great deal more personal.
Thereupon followed the existential crisis and period of darkness that I imagine everyone goes through in some form and to some degree. Thinking back to those times brought to mind yet another bit of Pink Floyd brilliance, this time from the song Time…
"Hanging on in quiet desperation
Is the English way."
Whether it was the way life had always been in the subcontinent or a dark remnant on the Indian psyche of the colonial past, it is certainly how I looked upon the Indian experience of life in those days. At that thought surfaced memories, all to vivid, of fears past… fears best summarized by more Pink Floyd lyrics,
"And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun."
And out of all this angst came the person I am today… someone consciously trying not to lose the here and the now in the formless mists of possible futures. Thinking back on all this I realize it’s no mystery why music and prog rock/metal resonates with me so strongly… it’s been, and continues to be, the soundtrack to my life. And every night, when I sleep, my fears come out to play in the dark garden of my dreams:
"The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say."
"Hanging on in quiet desperation
Is the English way."
Whether it was the way life had always been in the subcontinent or a dark remnant on the Indian psyche of the colonial past, it is certainly how I looked upon the Indian experience of life in those days. At that thought surfaced memories, all to vivid, of fears past… fears best summarized by more Pink Floyd lyrics,
"And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun."
And out of all this angst came the person I am today… someone consciously trying not to lose the here and the now in the formless mists of possible futures. Thinking back on all this I realize it’s no mystery why music and prog rock/metal resonates with me so strongly… it’s been, and continues to be, the soundtrack to my life. And every night, when I sleep, my fears come out to play in the dark garden of my dreams:
"The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say."
