Tax Tape

I sometimes miss 90s Nadeem Shravan era and visit it on YouTube, and there in comments section I find my kind of people, same when I miss older games like Half-life, Motocross Madness and Tribes 2 and such. I belong to a breed that has chosen to euthanize itself. I like bands like Strings, Call, Jal, and Rage Against The Machine. I like 90s authentic American gangsta rap when most people would like Michael Jackson from that era. I like Carnatic music, and I like folk artists like Sharda Sinha (RIP). I like Rajasthani folk culture and despite living hundreds of kilometres away from Rajasthan I could feel it through Anant Kushwaha, the editor of children's magazine Balhans which I read regularly. I still love bands like The Local Train, Agam, Thaikkudam Bridge and Motherjane. And I love Midival Punditz (they launched a new album by the way). I love Jagjit Singh and Bhupinder, and I love Manmohan Desai, Hrishikesh Mukherjee and David Dhawan and I know that their stories and their kind of stories would still work in this country even in the politically turbulent times we live in. The time that I am living in, I won't be able get a Midival Punditz ticket, even Himesh's Capmania is far cry (Tere Naam was his best movie by the way) and no it's not because I can't afford it. The apartheid has tightened itself, post 2013. It's not 2014, as most people think. I have been that guy who witnessed the exact time the apartheid was enforced so it's not when Modi government came to power, it was a year before that and it's not like it was not there before it just got enforced more tightly post 2013. I liked that time when people listed their favourite movies on their social media profiles and you could decide whether they were worthy of being your friend or not. My favourite movies are The Departed, The Namesake, Gulaal, The Matrix and Harry Potter and yes Pathology, an underrated medical thriller (I was a young medical student back then), you should try it it has medical jargon but it is satisfying. Post 2013 my life which was about medicine and psychiatry became about pizzas and croissants. There was a time when both Sharda Sinha and Guddu Rangila coexisted and now Sharda Sinha is dead and soon the ones who listen to her would be too and all that would remain is Choliya Ke Hook. I won't defend my culture, I'm not qualified for it. I suffered my region and culture despite not living in them most of my life, but I would (actually) defend my culture that has now been swallowed whole by greed because Sharda Sinha is now dead, and Guddu Rangilas are growing like wildfire. I came to know things about my culture, my beautiful beautiful culture, things that have sealed its fate for me. What remains is just a shell and a performance and love that is in the hearts of my people which would evaporate as soon as people come to know what has been done to the culture. I miss the times when food was served in pattals in the weddings and water in bharukas and Limca and Thumsup were still called thanda and meant nothing more than something to be served to a person who had come from outside in summer heat. I miss the green mango Frooti. It's funny how greed and lust can destroy beautiful things because having something to yourself is not enough, you have to destroy what others have too. Funnily I do not want things to get better, because this is the worst case scenario and the worst case scenario is the best case scenario because there is nothing to lose and here one can focus on what really matters to them.