Saucerful of Secrets

Loneliness dancing on my head, I desperately wanted to stop it banging from all sides. I have been trying to keep myself busy doing something or the other and found the easiest available source to pass my time with books. It was a difficult and hard fight for me to improve my reading habits. Initially I tried to read few novels and none of them interested me, I had to stop after reading 40-50 pages. With most of the time wondering about human life my interests towards scientific books has increased sharply and started to get drenched in buying. After reading some books I could really feel the stars in all different sizes circling my head. This made me wonder about the way these scientists think and had become very curious to know about their personal life styles. I went into a bookstore and started searching for some good biographies of great scientists. Suddenly I saw a section of books categorized under Music. Out of curiosity I started browsing few biographies of some great bands. I found one book named “Saucerful of Secrects” with bright orange cover. It’s a biography of my favorite band Pink Floyd. I don’t know why, but the songs composed by them really mesmerize me. They are not a band with great players and are not occult on the stage too, but their innovation in creating amazing sounds had really captivated me.

It all started with three architects (Bass player Roger waters, Drummer Nick mason & Keyboardist Rick Wright) forming a band named Tea set. A short time after their formation, they were joined by guitarist syd barrett (Painter by profession), who became the band's primary vocalist as well. They came up with an alternate name “Pink Floyd”. In a short span of time their psychedelic rock music became very famous in the underground clubs. The growing popularity made them to give few hits in the music world too. As the band started to gain popularity, the stresses of life on the road and a significant intake of acids took its toll on barrett. This lead to some pathetic stage perfomances. In one of the show the band members literally had to drag barret on to the stage and made him stand in front of the microphone and he strummed one chord during the entire duration of the concert. This made the band members recruit a new guitarist David gilmour. The band's live shows became increasingly shabby and eventually, the other band members simply stopped taking barrett to the concerts. After finding their feet in music world the real era of breakthrough came during 70s. Over 25 million copies of the album“Dark side of Moon” were sold all over the world and the album stayed in billboard charts for 741 weeks. Even though Roger waters moved out of the band, the remaining three did hold together and performed some wonderful live performances to capture the hearts of many music lovers like me.

As such this blog is not sufficient to narrate a story of around 350 pages of book in 350 words, I just made a point to type few words on what I have read. I would also try to breif on any book I read here onwards. I have spent nearly an hour typing this blog now and its time for me to go back home.

Few pictures of the band "then" and "now"


Nick Mason, Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, Rick Wright and
David Gilmour(sitting)

Syd Barrett (Then)

Syd Barrett (Now)

Pink Floyd with Roger Waters at the London Live 8 concert (left to right: David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright).

Big Questions ?

Big questions in science

1. How did the universe begin?
2. Does god exist?
3. What is time?
4. What is consciousness?
5. What is a thought?
6. What is a dream?
7. What is intelligence?
8. How did language evolve?
9. Are we shaped by nature or by the environment?
10. How are men and women different?
11. What makes us fall in and out of love?
12. What causes aggression?
13. Is it right to interfere with nature?
14. Can we end disease?
15. Will pain be ever free?
16. Can we end hunger?
17. Are we still evolving?
18. Is there life on other planets?
19. How will the world end?
20. What is life about?

Interesting book to read.

P

“P - Passion, Perseverance, and Persistence” is the caption for Chennai marathon. With just 2 ½ weeks to go, tension started creeping to my head. When I haven’t yet touched the 30kms mark, how am I going to complete 42Kms? Every week it’s becoming a big struggle to keep increasing the distance beyond 25kms. Even though my mind says “keep going” my tired legs badly screams saying “stop punishing me now”.

Last Sunday (Jan 15th) I watched Mumbai marathon and was quite disappointed to see not even a single Indian runner in top 20 finishers, but was quite amazed to see 12 Kenyans in top 20. There was a huge 15 mins gap between the Indian runner (finished 28th) and the winner of the race. International runners would definitely improve the standards of competition to a great extent and this would happen only if the prize money of such an international event is increased. There were around 18000 people (which is quite huge in numbers for Mumbai roads to accomodate) participated in the dream run. But the figure is very small when compared to 45000 to 50000 people participating in New York full marathon every year.

Getting back to my limping long runs, I am concerned about completing the full marathon without stopping. I don’t want to break anywhere in the middle, walk for sometime and continue the run later. I desperately wanted to run the complete 42 Kms and it would only be possible if I could do couple of 30+Kms run in another week and a half. I want to keep my hopes alive and give it a shot during the race day.

Kindness

As usual, today morning I went for running near the beach. Depending on my schedule I usually run 3.5Kms segment multiple times. While I was covering my second segment an old man riding a cycle carrying a transistor radio playing some carnatic music came along with me pedaling at the same speed as my run. He could have very well ignored and gone past me, but he rode along to encourage my mood and speed of running. I was enjoying the run and was also overwhelmed with his behavior. After completing my second segment I thanked the old man for accompaning me and I saw his face brightened with smile and happiness. I thought he made my day and hope he would have also felt the same. While continuing my run, during my fourth segment I heard someone calling from behind “Hello…Hello..”. When I slowed down and turned back I saw a boy came running towards me. He said “Do you mind if I join you”. I replied back saying “with pleasure, please..”. I introduced myself and asked his whereabouts. He is a schoolboy from Santhome High School in Chennai and has been practicing to compete in state level athletic events along with his friends. When I told him that I am going to participate in Chennai marathon, he started giving me tips to improve my performance. Wow..whats happening today, I have come across two strangers with huge age differences, one being very old and other a school kid, both being kind enough to accompany me.. That’s really great. After running for hour and a half, I went to quench my thirst by drinking tender coconut. I paid 10Rs to the shopkeeper and he thanked me for paying. Man.. am I dreaming?? Why is everyone behaving so differently today? Is something wrong with everyone?

In this part of the world where the medicine for anger used to be “kindness”, the word “kindness” is slowly losing its charm from most of the human brains. It’s becoming difficult to notice people being gracious and courteous to strangers who are in need of something. People are becoming so mean in satisfying their endless needs and justify their deeds ignoring the feelings of others. The happiness and feeling we get in making others feel happy is something which cannot be measured in human terms. On the other side there are few people in this world spreading their kindness to others by all means feasible to them. There are many books published on kindness and dedicated websites too. One of the website I came across is www.actsofkindness.org . Kindness doesn’t have to be a helping hand for handicapped person, just saying “Hi” to a stranger will do wonders.

"I've found what's truly sacred in life's small things...Hopefully, the world can be changed through acts of kindness, acts of affection and love--the idea of doing normal, everyday things that actually have an effect down the line...Be kind. Because the opposite works as well. You can send your hatred to the future. And we all know the end result."
Author: Sting

Rewind

Where am I right now?? Handling a life with full of challenges and hurdles... What will I get at the end after jumping, missing all these hurdles except a 6 feet ditch.
How wonderful it would be if I could go back to yesterday and watch myself getting up from the bed and going to the office. How will I feel if I could see myself eating, walking..? Why cant I go back to my childhood days.

I still remember the red colored toy car my father bought for me in Tirupati when I was just 11 months old. There are so many happy moments I could think of and which could not be erased from my mind easily. Only preparing for the exams used to be a burden on those days. Everyday we used to wait eagerly to go back home from school and take our cricket bat/ball for playing. Even playing for 1 or 2hrs used be a great fun. We hardly sit at our home during the weekends. Cricket, hide and seek, watching action/ horror movies, chatting about movies/girls, sharing the adolescent thoughts with each other and so many other good things to recollect. We were the notorious gang in the entire street doing all sought of mischievous things. During one of my birthday (I think while I was in 8th grade) I batted for nearly 3-4 hrs continuously and scored 84 runs after hitting 7 sixes. My friends used to pull my legs saying that I am hitting the ball with full of “joy”. “Joy” was the nick name of the girl who used to stay in my opposite house and my first crush was also with the same girl. Hmmm.. how many unforgettable happy moments during my childhood days and now I am fighting everyday to jump over these hurdles and running to reach an unknown destination?

Beep.. Beep.. I received a SMS from my sister.

“Every New Day is A Challenge. A challenge is an opportunity. An opportunity is a way to success! Wishing you a challenging New Day. Good Morning……”

Oh gosh! I didn't follow the session for last 30 mins….What did I miss?