Thank you for the music!

Pune was a pretty comfortable place to grow up. If there was one thing I was deprived of, it was quality Western music. My father is deeply into Indian Classical music and is a total nerd when it comes to music systems too. We had this fancy state-of-the-art 1980s Sony system with Dolby noise suppression that works fabulously even today. Rafi, Kishore Kumar and Asha Bhonsle were constant companions but not so much the Beatles or Simon & Garfunkel. The only English cassette at home was from ABBA. If we lived in Bombay I'd have access to Times FM atleast but in Pune the only FM station was Akashwani.(BTW my home wireless network here is called Akashwani now. ;))

MTV was good when cable arrived on the scene for a little while and I was into all those latest fleeting wonders. But I'd never really heard or paid attention to any good music, the Floyds, U2s, the Police, Dylan... I used to love the "Retro Hour" on Radio Mirchi every night at 11pm... the one blue oasis in the desert sands of music mediocrity. Rehman ofcourse was great.

I think I've heard a lot of good music now thanks to MP3 technology, LimeWire (read Piracy :D), friends with good tastes, Classic Rock stations that abound in the US. I'd heard some of Alanis before but only recently did I download some and realize how much I like her. (Well I almost worship the ground she walks on!... well maybe not) But I adore her angry young woman style with meaningful lyrics... I love how I relate to her music whether it's the psuedo-ironic poetry in "Ironic", the anger at an ex-boyfriend from "You Oughta Know", her lovely voice from "Crazy"! So much so now that a pirate has turned into a convert. I want some Alanis on a CD now to play in my car. So you see even pirates can get reformed if good music beckons. Rock on!