Full Bridge rectifier.

(Misleading title alert!)

I visited Baroda eight years ago and came across a tiny music shop while wandering around the market at night. They had one of those small travel acoustic guitars on display and I knew I had to have it. (Despite already owning a regular sized one.) a small guitar is useful for me since I have short fingers. Not that it makes much of a difference to my less than mediocre guitar skills, but It is also very cute.

Anyway, I bought it at a throwaway price. Only much later would I realise why it was so cheap. But for now, I couldn’t be happier.

It started off great! I loved it and it loved me back. We were good together. We made music together, entertained people and traveled together. It was heavenly. But then the honeymoon ended. I couldn’t manage to keep it in tune for too long. Sometimes it would go off within fifteen minutes! The high e started jarring and buzzing. B played differently open vs. While strumming chords.I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. No matter what I tried, it would refuse to tune. Almost felt like I was losing my mojo, you know. Even consulted some friends who simply told me that it’s how it is with these little guitars and that I must live with it. But the other guitars I tuned and played worked perfectly, so I wasn’t the problem, but I would need to fix whatever that was. I worked hard on it. Removed and fixed all the tuning keys properly in alignment. Tried to adjust the nut height (I’m resourceful that way.) Even tried multiple guitar strings. Nothing worked. I kept trying. Kept failing. Then I started neglecting it. And almost gave up. The situation felt hopeless. The last nail in the coffin seemed to be when I decided to visit Spain in May where I intended to get me a new one. But something inside me resisted. I went for a flamenco show and ended up buying cheap castanets instead (Worth every one of the six euro I spent on them.)

I came back determined to fix my little guitar. After a few days of dilly-dallying, I finally managed to take it out of its dusty case, clean it, took a deep breath, coughed (we live in a dusty country) and began working on it. I knew most problems arose because the high e and b strings were touching the first and second fret. I had in the past, tried to adjust the nut. And it was impossible to remove and adjust the frets without damaging the guitar. The poor thing. I thought it’s finally over. But then one day I had a brainwave. Maybe I was tackling the wrong end. Maybe it wasn’t the nuts and the fret but the bridge. 

The bridge! I took a close look and the saddle looked exactly like it was how it should look. But something wasn’t right. I removed the strings yet again, and started adjusting the height of the bridge a millimetre at a time (I really am all kinds of resourceful.)

Bit by bit the sound improved. With a few trials I thought I finally did it. And oh boy was it perfect! It was well past midnight but we were making the sweetest sounds we’ve ever made and I wasn’t about to stop right then. It didn’t go out of tune even once. The e string stopped jarring and buzzing and even the b played perfectly.

And this wasn’t even a one off! I played it again a couple of days later and again and again. It wasn’t out of tune! Just a couple of adjustments and it was perfect again. No more jarring, no more buzzing. No more going horribly out of tune again!

Looking back, I can say that fixing something you love and believe in takes time, effort and commitment. The journey is long, winding and hard. But in the end it’s all worth it. A little flaw was the reason it was so cheap in the first place. But all it took was a small adjustment and some time and a tiny effort to make my little guitar great again.

And after all the bridge repairs, as I try playing some truly terrible acoustic versions of awesome AC/DC songs, you may call me (as the title of the post suggests) a Full Bridge rectifier. 

Things we do to cope with the tragicomedy of life in India.

I came across a video on twitter that shows a mobile traffic signal being carried away by gushing streams of water on the streets on Mumbai in the monsoons. Think about it... the system was designed hundred years ago for probably a hundredth of the current population. There’s nowhere for the water to go. We’ve left no place for it! And instead of flowing through drains clogged with plastic, water- being the way that it is (fluid) finds the path of least resistance which happen to be roads surrounded by tall buildings. This is the perfect water channel. And because it’s narrow, the water flows with a force that can take people and other objects along with it.

Now that video itself is more tragic than comic but the comment with it in the tweet made me laugh so hard, I had tears in my eyes. That’s real tragicomedy right there. The caption read: ‘Pehli baar signal khud road cross kar raha hai.’ This made all the difference between hopelessness and laughter. Its the ‘I live in a shit country but at least I can laugh about it’ syndrome.

But I don’t know how long I can keep making statements like ‘I live in a shit country.’ I have to admit that things are changing quite fast. The current govt is working with tremendous will, force and speed to make saying such things illegal.

That day might come soon. Till then I can say such things because I have freedom of speech and I’m still privileged. We make jokes about these things and that makes it a little better for us to cope with life.

It may also subdue any will to solve these issues but that’s a discussion for another day (i.e. never.)