the news and knowing you're out there...

All over the world, there is a plague...an obsession with what is wrong and what is bad. When I get together with friends, we always joke about putting together a newspaper that only highlights whatever positive things are happening in the world. There is much to write about! There is much to support.

I like to think that I surround myself with positive people. People who understand that what we focus on, and what we put our energy towards, is what eventually takes power and precedence over the things that lack our attention and focus. We must ask ourselves at any given moment, if what is wrong with the world is what we would like MORE of??? My guess is, definitely not.

My heart has broken a few times in the last couple of weeks. Friends tell me that it is because I am a silly Utopian idealist who needs to wake up. These are the same friends who scoff at such events as "Rock On for Humanity" - saying that there's no way that money will even reach the people in need in Bihar..."it's just another stupid Bollywood tactic to draw more attention to the film Rock On".............

I wonder??? How one could be averse to the fact that an otherwise ignorant and incestuous industry is finally branching out and wanting to do something for an effectual change? Why wouldn't you want for that industry to finally do something good with the mind-boggling popularity it DOES have and the oddly and often disgusting control it has over household culture in India? I want it to change. I have always disagreed with it. My brow has furrowed one too many times at the hypocrisy I see in the media. But I choose to focus on what I DO want...and, I DO WANT CHANGE.

Is this the downfall of India? Why our roads are paved with the tar of the 1950's? Why people are either too lazy, too tired, too apathetic to move onwards and upwards towards a better system for the children who will come after us? Often, there is a crab in the bucket syndrome infecting the historically spiritual beings of this beautiful country.

Have you felt it? Have you felt people pulling you down every time you've taken a step forward?

I know you are out there. I feel you every day. Even though I'm a quiet one...unless I'm on stage. Everyday, I want to be better...everyday I challenge myself. I'm upset with the MNS and the horrible abuse I've witnessed first hand on the streets of the "urban and cultural capital of India" - countrymen beaten mercilessly because their nose is a certain shape and their dialect is of a certain kind. No sense in acknowledging that these are the very men constructing the buildings that we live in, the hospitals we seek refuge in when we are sick, and working towards a solution for mass transit in this beautifully overpopulated and uncomfortable city! Why acknowledge that? No point. Right? WRONG.

I know you are out there. I feel you every day. You who would sooner hold a hand, than slap it. You, who believes in the evolution of all things...which means, change.

I praise you. I make music for you. I consider you, MY PEOPLE.

I see better days ahead. I do. And I hope you share my vision.