OST

On a Kingfisher flight to Delhi and now in my room at the guest house here, I’ve been watching the first part of the Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’ documentary called Runnin down a dream. What is amazing as I continue to watch their story is how deeply they have touched my life. One of my dreams has been to watch Tom Petty live in concert and while I probably think I won’t now, considering how little they tour, despite that I don’t think any musician or band has influenced me and reached out to me as much as they have. Even more incredible is the way they connect with who I am and my hopes and dreams. Here’s a band that came together in 1974 in Gainseville, Florida. Tom Petty was born in 1950. And here’s an Indian boy from Bangalore who feels closer to Tom Petty’s songwriting than with almost any other expression of art, music, books or popular culture, in his own country or otherwise. Surely there is a cosmic explanation to this which I cannot fathom at this point in time.

I began hearing Tom Petty at almost the perfect time in life…when you are unsure of the world, when you feel at your most vulnerable, when you experiment with life, when there only seem to be questions and a cloudy horizon.

The story behind Tom Petty’s rise as a musical genius only adds to the feeling of comfort I feel when listening to his lyrics. His music has become such a comfortable companion to me over the last 10 years that I hardly even stop to really listen anymore. Its like those friends you meet at the local café or bar: they’re always there and all they require in acknowledgement is a friendly nod, smile and you sit down at the table. The warmth and camaraderie needn’t be reinforced. It’s simply there, ever present but never overwhelming.

Right from “American Girl” to Damn the Torpedoes, Southern Accents, Into the great wide open to Wildflowers…I’ve never really stopped to consider the breadth of his music and how I resonate with those songs: from Pecos to Starters, from Vikhroli to Rotterdam, lonely, lost nights in Shunde, train rides and plane rides, bus rides and long waits, long drives and now that feeling when “learning to fly” kicks in when I’m on the 18th Km, no single person has kept me company, made me laugh, found me smiling in understanding or nodding in hope than Tom Petty. Its taken me a long time to realize this but listening to him talk, seeing the method behind the music has suddenly thrown into stark relief what I always knew. Its eerie at some level to think that a lot of the soundtrack to your life was written before you were born and since then has kept pace with how you grew up. Sure there’s no element of rage or angst here but that’s why this music is so great. You don’t have to be in a certain mood to feel close to it, I can just be me and still feel like this is an OST to the life I’m living now.

Thank you.