In memory of Richard Wright

A sad day. A black day.

This is a tribute, a remembrance, in memory of Richard Wright.

Richard Wright (28 July 1943 - 15 September 2008), a self-taught pianist and keyboardist and long time member of Pink Floyd was a multifaceted musician who gave me many a high with his soaring keyboard compositions. I literally grew up listening to his music. Many boring classes were actually fun 'cause we (my friends & I) used to sit in the last bench humming "Us & Them" or "Shine On, You Crazy Diamond".

The early years of Pink Floyd clearly showcase the artistic genius of Rick Wright (though definitely not as much as Syd Barrett). Compositions such as "Astronomy Domine" and "Chapter 24" speak for themselves. The mid-years saw Wright transforming from a organist and back-up vocalist to full time keyboardist. A step, I'm glad, like many others, he took. The result was sheer musical ecstasy - "Interstellar Overdrive", "Shine On, You Crazy Diamond", "Echoes", "The Great Gig in the Sky" and "The Dark Side of the Moon". The final years of Pink Floyd was a sad series of events with a growing rift between Rick Wright and Roger Waters. Wright left the band before the release of the album "The Wall" much to the dispair of fans. In 1984, Wright teamed up with Dave Harris (of Fashion) to form the band Zee. Following Roger Waters' departure from Pink Floyd, Wright rejoined the band in time to release the live album "The Delicate Sound of Thunder" in 1988. Wright played an important role in the recording of "The Division Bell" (my favourite Floyd album) in 1994 and was a part of the line up for P-U-L-S-E (Woohoo!).

Wright, along with Nick Mason was lucky enough to have been on every Pink Floyd tour. Richard Wright didn't taste much success in his solo career (he released 2 albums and was working on a 3rd at the time of his death). But who cares! His enormous contribution to the distinctive Pink Floyd sound will never be forgotten (not by me, anyway).

Here's to the unassuming and camera-shy legend that was Richard Wright!

Shine On....

I salute you!

Higher than you!

Everybody gets on a high. Well, at times. Everybody has a stimulus. Something that gives them a rush of blood to the head. Adrenaline pumping. Hormonal overdose. Usually, its alcohol that's playing devil. Smooth, acidic, hot, throat-piercing, amber coloured group of liquids. Ever since some early man sporting matted hair and matching furs accidently fermented fruit juice that he was saving for the next day and ended up acting tipsy and whooped around twirling his furs over his head in a circle, shocking what was mankind's first society (Needless to say, the world's first sot made it to the cover etching of the world's first issue of Time magazine. It was a stone tablet back then). Alcohol is everybody's common vice. And vice versa. I've seen some "specimens" in my pubbing days. I've seen people losing their heads over half a pint of mild beer (Literally. There was this one guy who started sobbing on a waiter's shoulder saying he left his head at his table and had gone to the loo. Well, it wasn't there when he came back. It turned out he was talking about his helmet. Which after a careful search was spotted on his bike handlebar.). I've seen veterans downing tequilas like they were relaxing with a jug of water after running a 5 mile jog (A friend claims to have shot down 40 glasses of dry rum. He always claimed to be tall for his age. Pun intended.). It seems everyone has a limit. Some have very low capacities while others drink everyone else under the table. On a personal front, I've retired without finding out my capacity (I always ran out of cash before I could test myself). Yet, there are others who get high on other things. I know a couple of adrenaline junkies who swear by speed. They are all back-slapping and high-fiving after a bike ride on an open road (Agreed. There's nothing better than biking down a highway with your friends. Nothing. But, I rather like to take a look around and enjoy the scenes too.). A lot of people go for extreme sports. I don't mind experiencing the rush once in a while, but on a regular basis is not my style. I am the guy who freaks out while sitting in an autorickshaw in Bangalore. Some people, though, are just weird. Anne, a friend of mine gets a saccharine-high. She acts crazy after a dose of sugar-laced coffee. Her usual, dour, complaining self drops away and she goes around singing and dancing around. Coffee. Must be a powerful stimulant. Just today, La had a few sips of my sugarless, black coffee. Gone! She went hysterical. Laughing (more than usual. Not like the laughing she does when with The Nutcase.) for everything not even remotely funny (Of course, we all have a poor opinion of La's sense of humour. But really, she went overboard today. I swear, if this happened while we were on a ship, I'd go overboard. Avast! Man Overboard! P.S. Due to constant reminding, pleading and threatening by certain readers, I have decided it prudent to increase font size.

A little education

I've been racking my brains out for a topic for this post ( my brain, as usual, fighting back. Its a regular thing. This fight for complete control. ). I just realised that I always, invariably, unconsciously, come up with a question to start a post. This, my friends, is a conscious effort to start off with a sentence (my brain was no help. But I won! It was a no-brainer.). Now, I know its not nice to start off with a question. But then, I have a perfectly logical bit of reasoning to back up my fault (it isn't my fault). I read in the newspaper yesterday that a recent study showed what every person, with as much comprehension as a cud-chewing bovine that just plonked itself in a field with no intention of getting its enormous 4 chambered stomach off the ground until sunset (or until a spaceship landed in the same field. Whichever happened first), could tell - rock fans are rebellious. Rock music. Now there's a topic after my own heart (Aaarrgghh! Its coming for me! Its killing me! Bad joke. Couldn't resist. Couldn't desist.). I could go on for hours about rock. Could give discourses. Its sad that people have a serious misconception about rock music. They think its all about guys in ripped jeans or leg-hugging leather pants, half drunk, full-high on coke, coming on stage and collapsing in mid-riff ( "-" intended). People! What I described just now was Jim Morrison. The rest aren't that bad. They can hold their alcohol. Well, they haven't all collapsed on stage either. Other people think its all noise. Well, they have a name for musical noise. Its metal. The heavy, black, power, Nu, death kinds (all metal categories). Rock music is as varied as the number of bands that have emerged since the Beatles (which is something to say. Considering today's mockery where every one-album band that manages to jump up from the sewer considers its music a separate sub-genre and names it so. Thanks Linkin Park. How I hate those guys!). Rock music contains a lot of categories that include the soothing soft rock, bluesy rock & roll, religiously correct Gospel rock and the father of heavy metal - Hard rock. Rock has something for everyone. They just need to find out what. Something they can't do by refusing to make an attempt to get introduced to it. As usual, I have no idea what the purpose of this post is. Maybe time will tell. Right now, time is telling I haven't written my record for tomorrow's lab and I won't have enough of it (time) if I don't sign out now. Bugger it all!

Rebel! Rebel!

Such a boring day. I've nothing better to do. This post is just. Timepass. Nothing about it is relevant to anything else. No two sentences were put together intentionally. To convey some thought. Thought process? Mind is a blank. As usual. My fingers seem to be punching keys at random. Forming words at random. Making sense in some roundabout, nonsensical way. What I'm attempting here is to regain my self-proclaimed title as "King of the Ramblers". I was rudely dethroned yesterday by a beer-belly sporting, foreigner-hating, half bald, fashion mishap of an english teacher. He was randomness personified. Not in a nice way. You had to be in the class to really get what I mean. He bored ME to death with his lecture on everything under the sun. He covered topics like the Indian freedom struggle, terrorism and taught us a bit about figures of speech. He went on to elucidate how the UK is actually behind the bombings in Ahmedabad, why India should pack up its prosperous tourism industry in the face of national crisis and why Saddam Hussein wouldn't hurt a fly. In between, he went on to brand Jesus Christ a terrorist while providing us much valued insight as to why the US dollar has fallen by a very small margin while US debts are mounting the world over. Hats off to him. Along with a few shoes. He really rambled! But you know what, I'm not bored anymore. I've decided to complete my attempt at regaining my regentship some other time. "He who runs today, will live to fight another day." Or as I like to put it, "He who runs today, is a fitness freak."