Living my dream from SA-1 to Awktaves

Music - the most wonderful way of expressing feelings. The hardest of the words can be expressed with the softest possible ways. The deepest of the feelings can be carved on the surface of listener's heart like Picaso's masterpiece. The farthest of the loved ones can be felt like a touch of a hand away.

Music Came to me very naturally. I remember I was in 5th standard when my grandfather gifted me with the smallest of the keyboards today - Casio SA-1, and I started weaving notes after notes on that tiny little magical thing. Its been almost 15 years on this musical ride since then. A lot of things have changed - feelings, expressions, thoughts, "people" in those thoughts, and of course - the size of my fingers. :) I still have that little keyboard with me, though I am not able to compose music efficiently on it as my "Now Big" fingers have started playing unwanted side notes along with the correct ones. Hehehe. That keyboard is my Alma Mater in Music.

Ever since I grabbed that little magical instrument for the first time, some kind of instant affection and confidence grew inside me like - 'Yes!!! That's my Future in my hands. Let's go shape it to its best.' Children when asked the typical parental question of - "what you want to be in future?" reply with equally typical categories - Doctors top the list, then come Pilots, then somewhere there are engineers and one of the least probable answer is MUSICIAN which is the one I used to answer. I was too deep into music, many a times I thought of developing this dream into my life's profession. But, when I grew up and began understanding the meaning of the word "Profession", the dreams stalled and the thought of being a "Musician" faded away. Its quite an irony that most of the children do not become what they dream of as a child, yet some of the lucky ones that do get to live their dreams are praised by saying - "the child was always true to his dreams from the very beginning..." True!!! But I wonder whether the bunch of us who unknowingly changed professions gradually, were never true to our dreams???

Anyways, coming to back to the journey of my dreams, I did enter a different professional world as I grew up. I learned computers, got attracted to this machine, did Engineering and now am specializing in computers from IIT BOMBAY. Meanwhile, through all these years, though music never ever went away from me, but its light did got a bit blurred. I got busy in studies and other responsiblities as I grew older and suddenly from nowhere, a time period arrived when my keyboard just caught one corner of my room's shelf and set there, packed in a cover, silently waiting for me to make it sound again. I think we both felt lonely.

Looking at the geeky path on which my studies strolled, no one (not even me) ever imagined that I would someday again catch hold of my musical skills. But, as if Music was always my destiny, though not as profession but an integral part of my daily life. Me along with a bunch of people, sharing the same passion for Music, came together and kept the foundation stone of Music Club for our department - AWKTAVES. This was the day, the hidden musical ME woke up from a long, steady and silent sleep and got back to the work instantly - Learning and Playing Music. My fingers just felt alive again, ears constantly hunting for the notes - Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni. And thus I again got a chance to live up my long awaited and carefully nurtured dream.

Awktaves has become an inseparable part of me now. I, now acting as the Head of Awktaves, am getting an opportunity to share dream, my music, my knowledge, my skills with a number of people who might have also had the same fascination in their childhood. I got a chance to learn guitar, practiced hard to get the best out of it and now, at Awktaves, I even get to teach others what I have learned. Its such a satisfaction to see all these members of my music club learn from each other and share their music. I have now bought my own guitar and dedicate atleast an hour a day to my actual self and the music within me so that this dream will never fall asleep and silent ever. I feel happy and infinitely lucky to have again got a chance to live my dream of music.

Now, It feels like in place of the regular 12 notes of music, I am rather listening to 12 million notes - each note attached with a million thoughts, a million expressions, a million feelings..... A MILLION DREAMS.