My Music.. My world...

"Music is my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness."
- Maya Angelou

What Miss Angelou writes here is so very true!! Especially for me. We all have our own problems, something we have to live with and tackle everyday. Our weaknesses, our troubles and our short-comings. We cannot do much about those, because most of the time they are born and brought up in our own head. And unless and until our head is not cured of that illness, those troubles don't go. But, probably, everyone turns to music to heal their soul.
Whether you listen to rock, pop, hip-hop, symphony, trance or jazz- it doesn't matter. All that matters is how music uplifts your tattered spirits and rejuvenates your faith in life.
Music is not just music for me. It is so much like a spiritual experience for me. When I listen to music, I go on another level altogether, and for a small period of time I forget all the pain and suffering that I inflict upon myself. Lyrics attract me, and so does a good piece of guitaring. And, hence I am absolutely in love with rock music.
Rock is not just about skimpily clad rock stars with tattoos on their arms and guitar on their backs screaming on the top of their voices. Rock is about amazing lyrics. Rock is about the magic that a person's fingers can do on the guitar fret. Rock is about teaching good and beautiful things in life.
No other genre has made me so happy and content about being myself.
Here is something that I wrote about music which sums up what I feel for my music. I wrote this piece for a team website project and it comes straight from my heart:

Millions of people pray using different ways and means. Some go to the church and some sit and meditate in silence. Some sing out loud and clear in different choirs and some just admire His work in silent contemplation. Music is one such form of prayer to the creator above. It is a path leading to the communion of our soul with Nature's soul.

Music is pure,
Music is pristine.
Music is food for the soul,
Music is all this and so much more.

Simply put, music is life!

What is an MBA?

"What is an MBA?", asked the black lady sitting in front of a Burger king outlet..

Location: Some rest area en route to Virginia.
Situation:
We were traveling from New Jersey to Virginia to have a fun vacation. We stopped at this rest area to have some food and water. It was 5 a.m. in the morning. I went up to Andrea (the lady sitting in front of Burger King) and kicked off a conversation. She asked me, "What do you do Shailee?". I said, "I am a student. I study in FDU. Am pursuing MBA." And it was then that she asked me, "What is an MBA?"
For a minute I was shocked. MBA is such a common term! I mean who does not know about MBA's? I was taking the world for granted in that moment.
Every day in our MBA classes we talk about issues like globalization, the dying American economy, politics, Obama's measures to combat recession and blah blah.. never once did it cross my mind that someone on the planet might not even know what MBA is..
All the huge talks about everyone doing something to tackle recession would then sound so trivial when more than half of the population on the planet doesn't even know what is going wrong.
People in countries like Africa, Pakistan or Bangladesh wouldn't even care for something like this. Because everyday is a struggle for people in these countries. Everyday they, probably, wake up with fear in their mind whether they will get water or not, or whether they will get bread to eat or not.
It sounds ridiculous when people here are worried about not being able to pay mortgage or shop in extravagant shops when more than half of the people on the planet don't even know what mortgage is or what DKNY, Gucci or Chanel is..
We cry now, because we have to face problems now. We can now, perhaps, empathize with more than half the population on the planet. We now know what it is to be an African caught in a famine or a Bangladeshi staying in a refugee camp. We, hopefully, now know...

Straight from Eleven Minutes...

One day a woman saw a bird and fell in love with him. She watched his flight, her mouth wide in amazement, her heart pounding, her eyes shining with excitement. She invited the bird to fly with her, and the two traveled across the sky in perfect harmony. She admired and venerated and celebrated that bird.
But then she thought:He might want to visit far off mountains! And she was afraid, afraid that she would never feel the same way about any other bird. And she felt envy, envy for the bird's ability to fly.
And she felt alone.
And she thought: "I'm going to set a trap. The next time the bird appears, he will never leave again."
The bird, who was also in love,returned the following day, fell into a trap and was put into a cage. She looked at the bird every day. There he was, the object of her passion, and she showed him to her friends, who said: "Now you have everything you could possibly want." However a strange transformation began to take place:now that she had the bird and no longer needed to woo him, she began to lose interest. The bird, unable to fly and express the true meaning of his life, began to waste away and his feathers started to lose their gloss; he grew ugly; and the woman no longer paid him any attention, except by feeding him and cleaning out his cage.
One day, the bird died. The woman felt terribly sad and spent all her time thinking about him. But she did not remember the cage, she thought only of the day when she had seen him for the first time, flying contentedly among the clouds.
If she had looked more deeply into herself, she would have realized that what had thrilled her about the bird was his freedom, the energy of his wings in motion, not his physical body.
Without the bird, her life too lost all meaning, and Death came knocking at her door. "Why have you come?" she asked Death. "So that you can fly once more with him across the sky," Death replied. "If you had allowed him to come and go, you would have loved and admired him even more; alas, you now need me in order to find him again."

- From Paulo Coelho's Eleven Minutes.

The Dancing Girl..

I was walking down from the gym and going back to my apartment. The weather was nice (for a change) and I was enjoying myself. Suddenly I saw a girl walking in my direction. Now from the place where I was, I could see her first and she couldn't see me. She was doing a little dancing jig while walking. She looked so happy and it seemed like she was really enjoying her little hop (read dance) on the road.
I felt good, that at least someone is so happy and has the courage to show it to the world. But as soon as she saw me coming, she stopped dancing and started walking normally. And our paths crossed.
Now this is just a small simple thing that happened on another regular sort of a day. But what touched a deep chord within me is why do we try and hide our true selves from everyone. There is nothing wrong in dancing on the middle of the road and feeling happy about it. Then why suddenly stop in between and change the track?
The biggest sin we can do, according to me is try and please everybody. We put on masks, don different roles and in the whole process just forget who we actually are. There is nothing wrong in being absolutely crazy if that is who you actually are..

Dissipating into someone else..

They say that a new born baby is the purest thing on the planet. But as and when it grows, the layers of worldliness start enveloping its heart and mind and slowly but steadily it loses its innocence.
How I wish, I could stay as innocent as I was when I was born. Losing out on innocence, not being able to trust people and being wary at every step-these are the few symptoms of the disease we all know as 'growing old'.
I am turning into someone else, someone who is growing old. I wish I could go back into being carefree and trustful. I want to trust people, but I am wary. I want to be able to become the Shailee I was before. I have started thinking about myself more and I am not even able to decide whether this good or bad. This metamorphosis affects me, and I wish I could change..

Somethings I want to do...

First of all, thank you Nehal-because I stole the first line from his yahoo messenger status.This gave me the inspiration to write this thing..

Sleeping with open eyes,
I see dreams for myself
Waiting with an open heart
I wait for the right time to play my part.

Contributing with an open hand,
That is all that I want to do
Winning with a humble end
Is all that makes me take a firm stand

Wanting the best to bring out within my soul
Will happen someday I am sure
Striving to create a face
Will finally help me come out of this daze…

People that I observe...

I know it has been ages since I put up something. My friends complain, my parents rant on and on about not keeping in touch, and loved ones patiently wait for me to get back home.. but the thing that has kept me really busy is the place where I work part-time- a convenience store.
Now working here is real fun, because you encounter people from all walks of life. But there are certain customers who leave their foot prints behind in your mind. Now all of these are not necessarily good, but nevertheless I mention them here, because they forced me to think about them even after the transaction is done with. Here is a list of them all:

- The Grumpy Guy
The Grumpiest Guy on planet Earth award goes to this particular customer who comes to the store everyday. He has a horrible body language and a constant frown on his head. I have not seen him smile even one single time. He throws money on the counter as if he despises it. His frown gets all the more deeper if there are people ahead of him in the queue. I just wonder, what must have taken place in his life that he turned out like this? What atrocities has he gone through that force him to be in a bad mood all the time..

-My Crush
Yes, I am a girl! And I do realize that I have crushes all the time. There is this guy who comes and buys beer everyday. Now he looks exactly like Thom Yorke of Radiohead fame, and I can't help but find him oh-so-cute. Turns out that he is a student at my university too pursuing Criminal Justice.. impressive huh???!!!

- My sweetheart
She is probably a 70 year old woman, who still has to work at this age to cover up her expenses during these unstable economic times. I asked her, "Why do you still work? You should be home, taking rest". And she says, "Atleast I have a job. I am not as unfortunate as those others who lost theirs.." She taught me this lesson today- Never complain. Because what might be less for you may be more than enough for others.

These are a few people who influenced me. There are many more others who touch me in some way or other everyday... and I am thankful to God that I get a chance to meet such beautiful souls in abundance...