Amazing Internet

I think the internet symbolises the greatest virtue of the human race - that of brotherhood and sharing. Leaving aside legal issues, the whole concept of sharing music and movies is amazing. The first time i visited a peer to peer file sharing site (it was www.audiogalaxy.com) I lost myself in the sheer volume of stuff I could access for free. There were music available that I have not found in any music store across India. There were classic movies that I had only dreamed of watching but thought I would never be able to. I gorged myself till they had to close the site after losing a court battle.

Then, when I started learning the guitar, I once again was amazed at the number and quality of sites that gave free tutorials, chord progressions and riffs. That was also an eye opener for me about understanding the Indian mentality. You see for ages we had this 'guru-shishya parampara' as a result of which information and knowledge were transfered from one person to another in a very close hierarchy. Which basically meant that you massage some selfish bastard's feet for 20 years and he will tell you (and only you) the cure for cancer. Then if you die suddenly or just forget it, the cure goes to the dogs. This is basically how our science of herbal medicine (and countless other schools of science) has perished. Coming to the present, I found that getting the entire tablature for a Jimi Hendrix song takes about 2 seconds. Try that out for a Lucky Ali song and see what happens. There are a handful of sites that give you chord and tabs for popular hindi songs. The few that are there require a long process of requesting someone and following up with him till he grants you the 'favor' of sharing the info with you. The thinking of our race seems to be 'it took me 3 days to work it out..why should I give it out for free??' God!! What arseholes we are!!

Which takes me to the point where I found the exception that proved this rule. Had a get together at my place this weekend where 5 of us got together to watch some movies. Went to the library, spent an hour selecting the movies we wanted to see, then came home to find out that the discs wont play on my player (region error). Got no support from Philips and desperately turned to Google for help. Google (God Bless It) came out with this..http://blogs.nagwani.in/?p=4. It worked first time and I became a hero.

Thanks Deejay. Thanks Google. Thanks Internet...Keep up the good work.