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Hello World! (again)

It was almost 7 years ago, when I was in class 9, when my

great friend Chiku’s elder brother gave him a folder named “English”. Stacked

in there were almost 25 music videos. Among them was one named “Linkin Park –

Numb”. Chiku made me listen to it. He liked it too. But unlike him, I took it

to the heart. The Era of LINKIN

PARK I listened to other hits like Faint, From The Inside, One Step Closer, In

The End etc. Just remember that back then, internet was not flourished that

much. So, I didn’t have the albums. But eventually, I got the two of the

albums, “Hybrid Theory” and “Minutes To Midnight” from a very random

guy. He was actually a neighbor of my school friend Abhash. And I was already

there. I realized that following a band was the cool thing. I got all the

albums, listened to them day and night. Liked their facebook page with my new

account. Back then, Linkin Park had this live chat room thing on their website,

where you can actually chat with fans throughout the world. Made friends there.

Soon I was present on every major LP fan site or page. It was so much fun. Then

I stumbled upon this Indian site called Linkin Park India Unlimited, whose

mission was to make LP live show in India possible, for which they are still

trying but I don’t know why LP doesn’t come to India. Then I was approached by

this guy who also wanted to make similar page and I became admin of this page

called Linkin Park Underground India. I created some original content but I

wasn’t much regular because I didn’t have an internet connection at home, just

my Nokia X2-01 with BSNL network. And facebook didn’t have much facilitation

for page management in those days. So, eventually, I was removed from there.Anyways, my very early practice of Photoshop was on Mike and

Chester. I made a logo too combining Linkin Park logo and Indian colors.<figure data-orig-width="1920" data-orig-height="1200" class="tmblr-full"><img src="https://64.media.tumblr.com/0554ad2b299f148b1a743d768bd8cf71/tumblr_inline_o8n7xfU18m1rbp21e_540.jpg" alt="image" data-orig-width="1920" data-orig-height="1200"></figure><figure data-orig-width="700" data-orig-height="550" class="tmblr-full"><img src="https://64.media.tumblr.com/f2531a8600d3491b4a562edda3275617/tumblr_inline_o8n92sAPsS1rbp21e_540.jpg" alt="image" data-orig-width="700" data-orig-height="550"></figure><figure data-orig-width="476" data-orig-height="550" class="tmblr-full"><img src="https://64.media.tumblr.com/9014feb6c1a260ade91d70d3ff0fe9da/tumblr_inline_o8n938amBD1rbp21e_540.jpg" alt="image" data-orig-width="476" data-orig-height="550"></figure><figure data-orig-width="476" data-orig-height="550" class="tmblr-full"><img src="https://64.media.tumblr.com/93d967661da32ce6a9e90235f1c8e49d/tumblr_inline_o8n93rW7741rbp21e_540.jpg" alt="image" data-orig-width="476" data-orig-height="550"></figure><figure data-orig-width="1240" data-orig-height="1748" class="tmblr-full"><img src="https://64.media.tumblr.com/dccb58a0d1b73ab305936d9d7b9935d8/tumblr_inline_o8n7ywbCLz1rbp21e_540.png" alt="image" data-orig-width="1240" data-orig-height="1748"></figure><figure data-orig-width="1000" data-orig-height="500" class="tmblr-full"><img src="https://64.media.tumblr.com/59c6d8a18333a659d416a0744d0d8011/tumblr_inline_o8n7ypN9wB1rbp21e_540.jpg" alt="image" data-orig-width="1000" data-orig-height="500"></figure>And the logo <figure class="tmblr-full" data-orig-height="450" data-orig-width="450"><img src="https://64.media.tumblr.com/c850ac59469fb3146121716b2fd8b335/tumblr_inline_o8oyfxTgTy1rbp21e_540.jpg" data-orig-height="450" data-orig-width="450" alt="image"></figure>So much for amateur work! HahaSoon, I became famous among peer kids as the Linkin Park

guy. Random kid would sit next to me in bus and say, “ yaar tum Linkin Park ka

gaana bahut sunte ho na”.

Eventually, I ended up receiving this title on our farewell<figure data-orig-width="524" data-orig-height="353" class="tmblr-full"><img src="https://64.media.tumblr.com/34b6b6e2fd75af99e933af77ec89f7a4/tumblr_inline_o8ogwr2VXE1rbp21e_540.jpg" alt="image" data-orig-width="524" data-orig-height="353"></figure>The title I got on my farewell. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MyFarewellTitle?src=hash">#MyFarewellTitle</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Farewell?src=hash">#Farewell</a> <a href="http://t.co/m1tNrOeF">pic.twitter.com/m1tNrOeF</a>

But by this time, something else had come into my life. The

frequency of LP songs decreased from my players. I started to find them too

‘POP’, especially after the album “Living Things” and singles like “A Light

That Never Comes”, “Darker Than Blood” and the album “The Hunting Party” gave

it away later.The Era Of Tom

Delonge Ayush Srivastava, a fellow Linkin Park fan from school once gave me an

album, while giving me LP’s Road To Revolution live show, titled LOVE and it

was by a band called Angels &

Airwaves. It was the most atmospheric sound I’d heard. Those U2-esque

guitar riffs changed the game for me. Those stretched spacey vocals of Tom. I felt

like this was the next thing! And it turned out Angels & Airwaves(also

stylized as AVA) was not very famous around me. So I felt like a cult. It was

an amazing feeling to talk to people about a band they’ve not heard. And you

recommend them a song and it turned out they liked them. This was not the case

with Linkin Park, everyone had heard them already.

I downloaded all the albums. Found them really really exciting. “I Empire” and “LOVE”

became my all time favourite album(still are).I was actually one of those few people who came to know

about blink-182 after knowing AVA

and for whom blink was the secondary sound. For me, really what Tom Delonge was

doing with AVA was way better than blink. I got all the discography of blink. I

found them fun too.So, I was a Tom Delonge fan. I shared Tom Delonge-AVA-blink

stuff all the time. I bought imported copy of LOVE Deluxe Edition. I felt so

unique on my own.

wanted more people to know about AVA, and to be honest, there was no AVA fan page for India on fb. So made <a href="https://www.facebook.com/AngelsAirwavesIndia">this

page</a> and created contents, logos, arts all on my own, with nobody liking or

sharing it. I don’t know if anyone even saw that. <figure data-orig-width="1920" data-orig-height="1200" class="tmblr-full"><img src="https://64.media.tumblr.com/dad2516a66d707a84d1a91c7617fbea5/tumblr_inline_o8ofcz5k3D1rbp21e_540.jpg" alt="image" data-orig-width="1920" data-orig-height="1200"></figure>

It

was actually LINKIN PARK font that I used for writing INDIA <figure data-orig-width="1258" data-orig-height="678" class="tmblr-full"><img src="https://64.media.tumblr.com/3709769b348fcb1d110f7f3b7ddc4b7a/tumblr_inline_o8offwgczS1rbp21e_540.jpg" alt="image" data-orig-width="1258" data-orig-height="678"></figure>

Until

I figured a new and original logo for it. I really worked hard on this

This

was another logo that I made but never aired it. This page is abandoned now. I never post updates but don’t want

to delete. I’m actually looking for a dedicated AVA fan to hand over the

ownership.Seriously, listen to this and tell me why it’s not famous<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wTkL_K6ykr8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> It was until my first year of college that I seamlessly

listened to Angels & Airwaves and Tom Delonge. But then events occurred in my life

that changed me. I was not really following any band, just listening music. I

had entered into the realm of indie music, came across hundreds of great new

artists. Each day I would discover some new sound. The whole soundscape was

changing.The Era Of RADIOHEAD ? I had read somewhere that Christopher Nolan is a Radiohead fan. I had checked

them with Paranoid Android during my Linkin Park days, but I couldn’t

understand it. Couldn’t understand the lyrics, the music, nothing. I disliked

it. It was during my first year that I revisited Radiohead, downloading the

album “OK Computer”. I listened to it. I was blown. It was greatest of the

greatest. Got all the albums. Listened to them, adored them. I realized what I

was doing. I was going down the same path again, but it was different. It was

the mature thing now. I listened to them and didn’t force anyone to listen to

them unnecessarily, like a fan. I did not make any facebook page. I have not

yet bought any physical copy of any of their album, but I will some day. I like

to discover facts about them. I like how radiohead design the mystery around

each album. I am a Radiohead fan but it’s not the only music I listen to or not the only thing in my mind.<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TTAU7lLDZYU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> A Fan of EveryoneI recently shared this image and my friends commented with, Radiohead, Linkin Park, AVA, Barcelona, Breaking Bad, Donnie Darko, How I Met Your Mother and even our magazine UDAAN. I wonder would it be the same if I had shared it back in 2011 or 2012.<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fishdoot%2Fposts%2F1039028766166764&width=500" width="500" height="502" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe>It’s just not that childlish obsession over a group of

people anymore. I am now a fan of so many artists, namely, Sigur Ros, M83, Coldplay, Hans

Zimmer, Arcade Fire, Kasabian, Belle and Sebastian, TessaracT, Beck, Amiina,

Pink Floyd, Steven Wilson, The Beatles,…Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorcese,

Richard Linklater, Charlie Kaufman, Denis Villeneuve, Banksy, Batman, Spider-man, Donnie Darko, The Man From Earth, Nerdwriter, Zakir

Khan, Berlin Artparasites . . . and counting. The list goes on.For art is now more important than the artist.I think this whole journey from a Linkin Park fan to now has

a lot to do what I am right now, how I take things. I have evovled as my music taste has, so has my personality. <figure class="tmblr-full" data-orig-height="560" data-orig-width="450"><img src="https://touchdownreality.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/music-defines-you-tumblr.jpg" data-orig-height="560" data-orig-width="560" alt="image"></figure> And each day spent as a

fanboy, arguing other fanboys on internet has grown me. Being a fan improved my photoshop skills. Following Tom Delonge

was such a personal experience, for Tom is a demented personality himself. He doesn’t

know what to do and how to do. He bangs false drums, believes in UFOs and

shits. Being a Delonge fan was really a self discovery for me. And with Radiohead,

I learnt to say, “fuck off, I don’t care if you don’t like what I’m doing” to

the haters. Thom Yorke is an ultimate inspiration of how you can have this

super artistic pop-free image of yours and be popular and nonetheless be

praised by critics. Being a Radiohead fan is really about you should do what you want to

do. And what I want to do is to experience and explore art, pure and unbiased. This is what I’m doing.

Hello World! (again)

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© aman. 2025

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© aman. 2025

Connect with me →

© aman. 2025