Washed up in age of plenty

Shabam! What a shock! And here I thought the internet made nothing material beyond the reach of man.

I recently found my old copy of Pitch Black by DJ Sangeeta, which I thought had been lost to bowels of the earth, but which was actually lost to the mess of wiring behind the CD panel in my mothers car. For about 2 years, this had been my all-time favourite Bhangra CD, mixed right here is good old BC. It had several songs on it that were attached to very fond romantic memories of driving in the dark, feeling and warmth of a loving hand and the soft pounding of the intermittent pulse of yellow tunnel lights. Having spent the past 3 years tangled behind the dashboard had not been kind to Ms. Sangeeta's masterpiece, and all but the first 3 songs were completely inaudible. Naturally, I wanted another copy.

Sure, it was an obscure recording from 2000, having been purchased for $2 at Tameel video, having a BW photocopy for a jacket, and was released by the mysterious "Heavyeight" record label, apparently NOT to be confused with Heavyweight Records, which was founded by Ice Cube. But still, this is the internet! If I could find a Sunburst Battlebeast to bid on for my ex-boyfriends birthday present (I went up to 65$ before it got too rich for my blood), then surely I could just type "Pitch Black, DJ Sangeeta" into any search engine and be presented with umpteen buying options to quench my thirst for quality Punjabi re-mixes.


(The elusive sunburst battle beast in it's natural habitat)

Would you know, it's gone from the pages of google history just like Lyndey England.

(One of many Google returns that is NOT Lyndsey England)

It seems strange in this day and age that anything that WAS available, should with the passage of time, eventually become UN-available. Just like you can buy apples any day of the year at the supermarket, even if they have to import them from New Zealand, so too should a remix CD made in someones basement in Vancouver 8 eight years ago be only a wish, bang and paypal account away.

Being my late 20th years, I do remember a time when it was really really hard to get something once it had gone out. I have been an avid collector of Transformers since way before Shia La Boeuf left his stain on the Ark. In the early 90's, I fell into a transformers fever which I took 6 years to recover from, during which time I constructed an 8" tall replica of Optimus Prime out of cardboard, masking tape, firewood and liquid paper, and also bolstered the ranks of my Autobot/Decepticon fleets by 123. At that time, finding Transformers was a chance game at the Salvation Army or Value Village thrift stores, and then they would almost always be missing arms (both kinds!) and maybe a head or two. I got most of them through the love and generosity of others, including a full half from my someone who loved me best at the time; the rest I acquired by begging and bribing all my classmates who would speak to me, putting out hundreds of inquires as to the remaining presence of TFs in their homes, and usually bartering them off with rare Magic cards. I even got hold of the entire comic book series by careful search and seizure of all the comic shops in the lower mainland, and wrote letters to all the comic respondants in the Letters sections who had left full addresses, asking for kinships and, of course, any TFs they wouldn't mind parting with. I ended up in a 3 year penpalship with a guy named Lance from the Denmark as an unexpected result.

(Also NOT Transformers)

My fever has died down, though the love remains steady: the happy equilibrium of a stable long-term relationship.

At that time, it took THAT degree of devotion to acquire my hearts desire, whereas now it just takes a computer, a credit card, and OCD. Kind of undermines that idea that anything (or anyone for that matter) worth having is worth trying and waiting for.
My also long-standing passion for South Asian films and music was never that difficult to appease because of my numerous trips to India and thanks to the vigilant population of Main and 49th, but I can imagine if it weren't for them, I would have been chasing down every South Asian I saw and begging them to write their relatives in Mumbai to become my personal supply-ahs. Perhaps my quest for DJ Sangeeta will push me in that direction yet again, but at least I'll only have to go through the 2 million or so residents of Greater Vancouver to find her.

Pigheaded determination a small price to pay for getting what you really want, and it is, like the price of organic fruits, rather a more accurate reflection of the true costs of the things we tend to take for granted.