These were words I excitedly typed in the acknowledgments section of my Master’s Thesis. At the end of a grueling year of research, when I thought of all the people who had made it possible for me to have completed a thesis, which I could well and truly say I was proud of, I only thought it appropriate to thank the nameless do-gooders who created Gigapedia – an online utility, so robust, so powerful and so generous, that I went from being a bibliophobe (at least when it came to research), to a hoarder bordering on the obsessive-compulsive. Gigapedia, to which I was introduced by my research guide, in no time became my one-stop shop for any idea that caught my fancy – be it counselling psychology, art therapy for recovering schizophrenics, the collected works of Sylvia Plath or the poems of Rumi in Arabic that made dear friends gasp ‘How on Earth did you manage to find this?’ Gigapedia for me was a gift that kept giving, a wild-card entry into a world of knowledge and high-culture that was hitherto inaccessible to me due to financial reasons; and each time a nagging query crept into my mind, I unfailingly headed straight to it.

Just like today – on a rather sluggish Friday morning, when footfalls were scarce owing to a public holiday, I received a call from my Head of Department calling me immediately to ‘The Fourteenth Floor’. Now an urgent call from the floor in question usually means ‘Drop everything you are doing and get up here immediately’, and I did just that, wondering all the way what task awaited me. And then, as if in a dream, a very senior figure in the management briefed me in very precise words “Some of our patients whose hospital stay has been prolonged require not only medication but counselling too, in order to make a recovery”. And just like that my skills were called upon to deal with some of the most complicated cases in the hospital. As someone who has been struggling to make elbow-room in a landscape dominated by specialists and super-specialists, the faith shown in my skill was a validation of my efforts. At the same time, I was well aware of the fact that I had to carefully plan my modus operandi before I started speaking to any of the patients. So, as always, nagging query in mind, I hurried to my workstation and typed out ‘Library.nu’ (the current DBA name of Gigapedia). But it wouldn’t load. Probably another name-change I thought to myself as I googled to check what was Gigapedia’s latest name. But what I saw was as this poignant piece on Kafila.org mentions ‘…a visceral experience of loss’.

Gigapedia had been shut down, by a collective of major publishing houses the world over – much like MegaUpload and BTjunkie which were wiped out by SOPA-PIPA-ACTA wave earlier this year. But while the arguments made in favor of blacking out Gigapedia were the same as those made to pull the other two abovementioned sites viz. loss of revenue and violation of intellectual property rights, shutting down Gigapedia was meant to make a statement to people like, and several others the world over, who feel the sharing of knowledge should be free and democratic, that any attempts to change the status quo will be quashed. This was not about revenues at all; after all what money can one expect to make from individuals who neither have access nor the wherewithal to legally purchase obscenely expensive scholarly research. In other words, broke students from developing nations have never been the target audience of the Elsevier’s and the Wiley’s of the publishing world. They have neither made any attempts to make their publications accessible to every curious mind that wishes to access them, nor have they  ever wondered how a student like me who struggled to scratch together a fifteen thousand rupee term fee would afford to buy a text book priced at $ 39.99 plus shipping.

At the end of the day, the publishers consortium may have won this round, but their victory means that thousands like me who want to ‘know, argue, dispute, experiment and write just as those in the leading universities of the world do’ will now remain confined to the outdated, mildew-infested leather-bound tomes their local universities can afford. Makes me wonder how if Gigapedia was ‘illegal’ and ‘wrong’, is the world a poorer place without it?

Na autowalleh se bheek mangenge
‘Bhaiyya station chalo please,
Late ho jayega’
Na bus ke peeche
100 meter ki daud lagayenge

Na dive marke train mein chadhenge
Na bheed mein se baahar nikalne ki
Labour pain sahenge

Aaj stock market gir jaye
Toh catch karne nahi jayenge
Anna bhook hartal kare
Fir bhi tandoori chicken
Aur butter naan khayenge

Aaj duniya gayi bhaad mein
Jo hona hai hone do
Poore hafte ragdaayi hai
Aaj Sunday hai, sone do

…

You were with me every inch of the way
Invisible but ever-present,
And when they’d try to pull us apart,
Your sharp replies left them bloodied

…

One day I flew too far from you
‘Wind up’ you said, I disagreed
You snapped
No dheel

…

At first I thought
It was your loss
What good is glasspowderkitestring
Without the kite?
Then I saw you flying
With that empty polythene scumbag

…

No one chases a vagabond kite these days
Even if one wants to, the threat of being ass-raped
By a bunch of bullies, cannot be overlooked
Either that…
Or I totally missed the point Kite Runner was trying to make

Your empty words
Your callous touch
Your stoic face
It’s all too much

The glaring lamps
The snaking lanes
The drenched stray
Stumbles in the rain

No more he asks,
No more you say,
As he dissolves,
You walk away

Yet everytime
you somehow manage
To miss them
Long enough
For them to sink deeper
Than ever before

Yes,
Its better
Than diving in there,
Going against the current,
Thrashing forth,
Arm over arm,
Over arm over arm,

Until you reach them,
Coughing up tales,
You’ve dreaded telling

Why the hell
Should you bring them,
Back to shore?

The days, the weeks, the months,
Of tidily organized
Disorder
Strewn about
For everyone to look at
And turn their noses up to

As if the sea
Harbours none of their secrets

Yet you know
That before anyone
Is to ever reach
Your deepest depths
You’ve got
Some cleaning to do

Man overboard

You hop, skip, jump,
Make sloppy little pirouettes,
Spin around me like a moon with a wonky orbit;
Comfortably apart one second,
Millimeters away from colliding the next.

Yet, I know you pose no harm.
If you truly knew how to conduct
This bizarre symphony of yours,
I’d be concerned.

But trial and error
Can make a chimp
Look like a genius sometimes.

Take the first right
From the exit
That’s where I always dropped you.
Remember?
It’s okay
It was a long time ago
People forget,
I get it,
Never mind.

Would be nice
To hear from you
Now and again.
No pressure though!
Schedules can be tight,
Calls pricey,
Networks dodgy
You never know!
I get it,
Never mind

But
Let’s not waste the time
We have with us
Right now
Bickering over these little things.
You need to rush?
Okay, okay,
I get it,
Never mind

Kook kook! m’lady
what layeth under your veil
Is it the secret to eternal life
Or is it an old dark tale?

“Nay my noble man”
The mysterious damsel spake
“I am bound by an oath
That I cannot break

Beneath my blouse
Lies my fragile heart
And until the day
True love arrives
With it I cannot part”

P.S. If you still don’t get it this might help

But she has seen the dark of night
Several hundred times more than I have

She’s walks in,
Leading a troop of five
Two on either side
Clinging to her skinny arms
Bearing episodes
She’d rather not talk about

While the fifth
Rests in a sling around her neck
Leeching away her
last ounce of strength

“Maarta hai kya?
Relation ke time zabardasti karta hai kya raat ko?
Bol na!”

The piercing cry
of the four month old
Voices the torment she tries to mask

“Operation kar ke band karva le!
Mar jayegi!”

God doesn’t allow it, she says

I wonder
How he allows this?

With song titles that often span a couple of sentences (take ‘You Stay. I go. No Following!’ for example), one may consider Look Mexico an emo-pop outfit. Give their CD a couple of spins and you realize that they cover an even wider musical territory. ‘Take It Upstairs, Einstein’ has an atypically orchestral start but things are soon reduced to frontman Matt Agrella crooning to a lone guitar.  ’Maybe a good friend is like a great story/ You can pick right where you left off/ But tell me where isthat kind of book/ A book you can’t put down’ he sings. Exquisitive stuff!

29) ‘Don’t Mess with a Texan’ by Mouse Fire from the album Big Emotion

Though Mouse Fire’s music fits somewhere between Indie rock and Dance-pop it’s unlikely that they figure on the Best of 2010 lists of either of the two genres. On this song however, they hit a rare balance. With incredibly catchy, danceable rhythms and a super thick bass–line coupled with tight musicianship; and not to mention a surprise solo at the bridge, this song packs in enough twists and turns to keep you coming back for more.

28)  ‘I Can’t Hold It’ by Sneha Khanwalkar from the Love, Sex aur Dhokha OST

Despite the success of Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye!Sneha Khanwalkar largely remains an unknown entity. The only female composer in the industry today, she has a knack for coming up utterly unique musical ideas, like this song for example. Mixing Rajasthani folk and hip-hop beats, Khanwalkar moans ‘I can’t hold it any longer, kunwar-saa!’ which is probably an excellent theme song for an R-rated Balika Vadhu should that ever be made (thank me later for that image in your mind!). But just as you think this is desperate plea from a woman thirsting for (ahem) love (‘Ghani Pyaas ho rahi stronger!’ exclaims a lyric), in comes the ‘Nahi toh F.O.! F.O.! F.O.! F.O.’ chorus. Ram Ram! What a song!

26) ‘Ready to Start’ by Arcade Fire from the album The Suburbs

Seeing this song by Arcade Fire on a best of 2010 list is no surprise. The dark and beautifully composed track starts off with a haunting guitar-snare countdown and soon explodes into a full blown wave of heartache and disillusionment. With quote-worthy lyrics such as ‘Businessmen drink my blood/ Like the kids in art school said they would’ and ‘All the kids have always known/That the emperor wears no clothes/But to bow to down to them anyway/Is better than to be alone’ this is sure to go down as one the year’s most memorable songs as well as a career-defining single for the Canadian indie-rockers.

25) ‘Clap Your Hands’ by Sia from the album We Are Born

There’s no denying that this veteran Aussie singer knows her pop music. Sia, who recently co-wrote as many as four songs for Christina Aguilera’s latest outing Bionic, has always been noted for her soulful vocals and her knack for producing catchy, dance-pop rhythms. What makes this song exceptional however is the genuine sense of enjoyment that it exudes; be it through its funky bass-line or the smart use of hand-claps in the chorus that complement the song title beautifully. Though clearly designed as a sugary pop tune meant to set the charts on fire, it somehow doesn’t mass–produced and formulaic, which in itself is an achievement.

24) ‘Take Everything’ by Greg Laswell from the album Take a Bow

The multi-talented Laswell clearly understands music too well to overdo things on his own solo album. ‘Take Everything’ the lead single off his latest album starts off with such upbeat strumming and cheery pianos that one is almost taken by surprise when the lyrics reveal that is actually a song about heartbreak and being taken advantage of over and over again. With his deep voice, Laswell could have easily recorded this as a deep, brooding track. But the fact that he has been able to combine two opposing ideas and not make a hash of it truly displays his genius.

23) ‘Immigraniada (We Comin’ Rougher)’ by Gogol Bordello from the album Transcontinental Hustle

Gogol Bordello’s crazy carnival featuring Eugene Hutz’s thickly accented English set against a dizzying backdrop of violins, accordions, and exotic percussion can easily be dismissed as a novelty act, and indeed, many critics and listeners alike have done so. But even the harshest critic would be in awe of the infectious energy they’ve put into this song. What is even more noteworthy is that despite switching to a major label and allowing star producer Rick Rubin to take charge of this album, the band still manages to sound like no one but themselves…naysayers be damned!

22) ‘Lovesick (Once Again)’ by The Hundred in the Hands from the album The Hundred in the Hands

Electro-pop depending on how you look at it, can either be a very forgiving genre, or a very hard one to stand out in. On one hand, a track can be production-heavy and the vocals auto-tuned, and no one kicks up a storm, but on the other hand, every act sounds like the other. To make things tougher, trying to sound too experimental in this genre (which thrives on sounding experimental ironically) can often end up sounding like a jangling mess. Which is exactly what makes this track so special! Instead of going for the conventional up-tempo, disco channeling option, THitH went the mid-tempo, guitar heavy way, and the result is one of the best tracks of this year. Try not getting the stuttering chorus stuck in your head when you listen to this one. I dare you!

21) ‘One Match’ by Sarah Harmer from the album Oh Little Fire

Musically-speaking, the only thing one can hold against Sarah Harmer is the fact that she doesn’t make records often enough. Apart from that, there is pretty much nothing that is out of place in  Oh Little Fire her  first outing since 2005, and half a dozen tracks from that album could have fit this list just as deservedly. ‘One Match’ however, for me is the standout track from the record thanks to its stop-start drum beat and his prominent yet unobtrusive bass-lines which serve as the perfect backdrop to Harmer’s honey-dew smooth vocals and playfully evil lyrics such as ‘If I only had one match left/ Would I try to light a fire under you?’. By the time the album title is mentioned at the bridge, it reaches a whole new high and its exceptional how Harmer pulls things back to the starting verse structure. Simple, sweet, and utterly lovable!