The Dreaming Tree

It was 9 years ago, when I was 13 year old in the quaint but lovely town of Visakhapatnam. It was boyhood, MTV and lots of tennis. I landed up at home after my daily dose of rather mundane education every day at 2, whence I promptly turned on the TV, tuned into MTV Select, then hosted by a young Nikhil Chinappa. I sat there and ate alone, since the house was always empty till 5 P.M.

One fine afternoon just before leaving for tennis practice I heard a song in an advertisement. It was beautiful. I don't know what, how or who. It just struck me to be brilliant. Maybe it wasn't so much the song. I had never heard anything like it before, I was 13 for god's sake.

But it stuck. It stuck through tennis, through the 10 rounds of the 3 courts, through the 50 squats. It stuck for another 7 months.

That is when Satyam's first dial up crept up. Over a period of time I discovered Audiogalaxy. I hummed and hummed. Recalling what I though were the lyrics I ran it through the search engines. Day after day, song after song. I discovered a lot of new music with the same words. And then inevitably, I found it. And it all came back as a rush.

It still does.

And 9 years down the line, through boyhood, adolescence, high school, intimacy, entrance exams, ragging, department bullshit I have found comfort and love in its music. When everything goes wrong, I have this one infallible 5-odd minute composition that links my past, my present, my has, my will-haves and most of all my aspirations.

I hope there's never another day when I mean it as much as I do at this moment.

Wish you were here.