Scene 1: I am feeling absolutely over the moon as its payday and my pocket is feeling particularly warm. So I hit the electronic mall opposite my house in search for something to take the burden off my little pocket. So it is that I am moving from shop to shop in search for that all important purchase. I had to literally hop skip and jump out of the PDA shop because just hearing the prices burnt a hole in my pocket. Hearing the prices of the new Sony handycams gave me some hope but I found out that I would have to feel over all of Saturn’s and Jupiter’s moons and then for good measure high jump over the ones of Neptune and Uranus before I could get a decent cam fitting the budget and giving me a recognizable picture at the end of the day. And after about an hour’s ambling through all the aisles, it seemed that all that I was good for was not the laptop but its carry case, not the camcorder but its stand, not the digicam but its memory stick. So I was on the verge of kicking the bucket in this fruitless expedition of mine when I noticed this little beauty called iPod sitting pretty on the shelf. Carter would not have been happier at seeing Tutankhamen’s tomb as I was on seeing this priceless piece of art. After making sure that I would not have to pawn myself to own this thing, I gingerly stepped into the elite club of iPod owners.
Scene 2: I am sitting inside the apartment opening the box. I must take a moment here to describe the packaging of the product. Being employed in an industry where packaging is all about grabbing shelf space attention, I daresay I have some understanding of the need of innovation in this field. And there is just one word to describe the box that the iPod comes encased in – “Brilliant”. Buy one yourself to experience the joys as you discover neatly tucked in USB cords, stereo head phones and manual. After eagerly completing the formalities of transferring the songs through iTunes and charging it for the requisite amount of time, I plug in the headphones and get ready for the experience of a lifetime.
The very first thing that strikes you about the whole thing is the simplicity. There is no clutter, no unnecessary buttons. No frills which are not required. The click wheel is a revelation of sorts and just holding it in your hands tells you that this beauty is special. My good fortune that I began the iPod experience with Led Zep’s “Stairway to Heaven”. Let me just say that this is one song which I have heard probably once every week for the past 6 years. But the one that heard on the iPod was completely different than the ones that I had heard all these years. This pocket sized wonder brought out riffs and plucking that I had not imagined possible. I could almost picture Paige and Plant in front of me. Being a drummer myself, I am always kicked when Bonham joins the party around 4:16 into the song. But the kick that I received on hearing the opening roll on the iPod is something that I cannot even begin to describe in words. I could clearly make out every note of Paige’s solo and Bonham’s every snare hit. I just sat there dumbstruck through an eternity of elation that lasted 8:01.
Thank god for shuffle because next came U2 with Beautiful Day. I have never before noticed the bass on this song but it just jumped me on this day. And I don’t even have words for how the chorus sounded. With 16 preset equalizer settings, I could definitely swear that is was indeed “A Beautiful Day”. And so it was with every song that this thing played. It gave me a whole new reason to dump this horrible song called “Lets do balle balle” other than the self justifying factor that Kareena Kapoor is eternally etched into the memory of the beats somehow. The iPod told me how one could ruin a perfectly ok tune. You just had to add a lot of background vocals each having a separate entity of its own so that a recording studio would resemble a Bong Fish market on a Sunday when the shrimp prices have headed south because East Bengal has lost the match against Mohun Bagan. Let it be recorded for posterity to note that iPod gave me the clinching reason to hit the delete button to erase this from my hard disk (anything like this for Ms Kapoor??)
It was about half an hour into this magical journey that the playlist shuffled onto Vincent. I have no knowledge of Vincent Van Gough except for his paintings but I swear to god that for the 5:21 that the song played, I had a tete-a-tete with my man. A couple of Denvers and Macleans later I was feeling kind of drowsy when Chopsuey hit the ear drums. And boy did it hit. My pupils have not dilated that much in their lives. I literally woke up if you know what I mean.In short what I am saying is that you might have a lot of reviews saying that good and bad things about an iPod but to me this has been the single most satisfactory buy of my life and if this is the feeling that females derive from every outing to malls, I retract my earlier remarks on their shopping habits but then again we cannot, dare not compare an iPod to anything else should we? Of course not… its official, the grudge remains.
Scene 2: I am sitting inside the apartment opening the box. I must take a moment here to describe the packaging of the product. Being employed in an industry where packaging is all about grabbing shelf space attention, I daresay I have some understanding of the need of innovation in this field. And there is just one word to describe the box that the iPod comes encased in – “Brilliant”. Buy one yourself to experience the joys as you discover neatly tucked in USB cords, stereo head phones and manual. After eagerly completing the formalities of transferring the songs through iTunes and charging it for the requisite amount of time, I plug in the headphones and get ready for the experience of a lifetime.
The very first thing that strikes you about the whole thing is the simplicity. There is no clutter, no unnecessary buttons. No frills which are not required. The click wheel is a revelation of sorts and just holding it in your hands tells you that this beauty is special. My good fortune that I began the iPod experience with Led Zep’s “Stairway to Heaven”. Let me just say that this is one song which I have heard probably once every week for the past 6 years. But the one that heard on the iPod was completely different than the ones that I had heard all these years. This pocket sized wonder brought out riffs and plucking that I had not imagined possible. I could almost picture Paige and Plant in front of me. Being a drummer myself, I am always kicked when Bonham joins the party around 4:16 into the song. But the kick that I received on hearing the opening roll on the iPod is something that I cannot even begin to describe in words. I could clearly make out every note of Paige’s solo and Bonham’s every snare hit. I just sat there dumbstruck through an eternity of elation that lasted 8:01.
Thank god for shuffle because next came U2 with Beautiful Day. I have never before noticed the bass on this song but it just jumped me on this day. And I don’t even have words for how the chorus sounded. With 16 preset equalizer settings, I could definitely swear that is was indeed “A Beautiful Day”. And so it was with every song that this thing played. It gave me a whole new reason to dump this horrible song called “Lets do balle balle” other than the self justifying factor that Kareena Kapoor is eternally etched into the memory of the beats somehow. The iPod told me how one could ruin a perfectly ok tune. You just had to add a lot of background vocals each having a separate entity of its own so that a recording studio would resemble a Bong Fish market on a Sunday when the shrimp prices have headed south because East Bengal has lost the match against Mohun Bagan. Let it be recorded for posterity to note that iPod gave me the clinching reason to hit the delete button to erase this from my hard disk (anything like this for Ms Kapoor??)
It was about half an hour into this magical journey that the playlist shuffled onto Vincent. I have no knowledge of Vincent Van Gough except for his paintings but I swear to god that for the 5:21 that the song played, I had a tete-a-tete with my man. A couple of Denvers and Macleans later I was feeling kind of drowsy when Chopsuey hit the ear drums. And boy did it hit. My pupils have not dilated that much in their lives. I literally woke up if you know what I mean.In short what I am saying is that you might have a lot of reviews saying that good and bad things about an iPod but to me this has been the single most satisfactory buy of my life and if this is the feeling that females derive from every outing to malls, I retract my earlier remarks on their shopping habits but then again we cannot, dare not compare an iPod to anything else should we? Of course not… its official, the grudge remains.
1 comment:
u own an ipod,da???????????
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