nineteen ninety nine

It happened last night. I'm talking about the revelation.

I listen to music a lot. I mean a whole lot. Metal, rock, punk rock. Sometimes older blues, jazz and rock 'n roll. Mostly old skool stuff people generally thinks 'uncool' these days. And I like to talk about them too.

So last night I was conversing with some fellow music crazies like me. And after sometime one of them suggested we should form a garage band.

Then it struck me.

Memories.

Like a letter from a long lost past you never wanted to read again, but still you kept it in the dark corner of the drawer of your table. It smelled like mothballed old memories you keep carefully wrapped up in cotton clothes in the back of your wardrobe. Hoping never to bring them out again.


Eleven years ago we had a garage band. Over a decade ago. Back in the year nineteen ninety nine.

I doubt we understood anything about music back then. A broken drum kit a drummer would laugh at, a cheap amp, and some idiot seventeen year olds. But do we need more when we have ourselves?

We were blinded by the sheer zeal of our youth. Our innocence. Our dreams. We played together, we fought together, we bled together, we cried together. And we laughed. Oh yes, we laughed, like soft mad children. We withstood all the heartbreaks and heartaches. We dreamed, and saw our dreams broken, just pieces left shattered on the ground-

The eternal summer of nineteen ninety nine.

'what happened to us? what the hell happened to us? I asked.
'You grew up, that's what happened.' answered my friend.

And then it hit me. I fucking grew up!

I am not the boy I used to be, neither are they. Some of them even not here with me. Some left the country, some left this fucking world altogether. Leaving only me to pick up the broken pieces- of our laughter, of our dreams, of our youth, of our innocence. Of our memories of that enchanted summer.

The summer of nineteen ninety nine was in another lifetime.