Monthly Archives: October 2004

Me and Xander

I’ve got too many things to write about and I don’t know where to start. I think I’ll start with a huge huge thing happening to my life. I had another chat session yesterday with Xander.

Our history is very complicated. We met about 5 years back when my friend S introduced Xander to me. Back then, Xander and S were in a slutty college band which played covers of boybands and pop songs. Xander was a rapper/vocalist who was not too much interested in rock. That was because he had never heard enough to get interested.

It was a practice session for their college rock show and they wanted some advice. I was much better off than either in guitar and musical theory. Naturally, I helped them out with chords and melodies etc. I was getting bored doing this and wanted them to do something more rockish. But no one was interested enough.

During this apparently inconsequential session, S. asked me if he could let Xander borrow my guitar. I said it is fine. He took my guitar and I didn’t see him for some time.Another show came up in their college. S. took my drumset, tambourine and another guitar. At that time I was having a busy time with my studies in med school and I didn’t have time to practice or jam.

A few months passed by and I needed my gear back. I called S. up and asked him to bring the stuff back home. S. said he will bring it soon. Even after a few weeks, no signs of him returning. I went and talked to S. about it. S. said that there was a problem. Most of the stuff was with other bandmates from college (including Xander) and they refused to return it.

I insisted. Finally I got back my stuff, not all of it though. The drum set was damaged. My tambourine was gone and only one guitar was back. The guitar with Xander had not yet arrived. I was in rage after this and I bursted out to S. He said he was helpless and couldn’t help me repair the stuff.

I was very disappointed. But still I didn’t have my guitar back from Xander. I hated Xander then. I demanded S. that he should bring the guitar home whatever happens. In another months time, after numerous phone calls as reminders, he brought the guitar back.

I was relieved. But I still hated Xander.

Then, came my big mid-life-crisis. It involved S. and was a huge misunderstanding. It is too long to write about here. In summary, I lost my trust in S. I realized that S. was making excuses all the while for not taking care of my gear. This meant that Xander was not responsible for not giving back the guitar.

A few months passed. I began my internship. I was enjoying life. One day, at a restaurant, I was handed over a fly about a gig in town. I decided to go to the gig. I was without company and had high hopes.

But two songs into the gig I felt rotten. It was gospel rock and it didn’t sound great. I hated the lyrics and once the vocalist asked everyone to stand up and clap while should “We serve the lord…” or something of that sort, I thought I had enough of this.

I rushed out and noticed that there were three others who went out along with me. The one in the middle was Xander! I went and met him. I was very happy. We decided on meeting sometime later to jam.

I’ll continue the story tomorrow…

In 24 hours

  • It was a wonderful night yesterday with a cocktail dinner at a club for surgeons from our city. The case presentations and the discussion held afterwards were simply excellent.

  • During dinner, our Head of the Department came up to me and asked me if I want to change units at the hospital. I said I didn’t want at first. Then, when I thought about it I thought I wasn’t sure about this. I ended up being totally confused about this topic and asked around for opinion. This caused further confusion. I have asked him to give me two days time to make up my mind about this. I still don’t know whether I should give away an opportunity work with Chuck.

  • I woke up to see Yasser Arafat’s package outlined clearly in the front page of India’s national newspaper, The Hindu. Not a bad start.

  • There was a cutie right beside Yasser Arafat. Very, very hot.

  • I went to the hospital to attend an interesting academic discussion.

  • Had a dull day at the OT.

  • Heard from a resident (that I hate the most) that our chief considers me as a role-model for residents. I’m not kidding! This happened. Apparently, my chief is really impressed by me.

  • Came back home to watch the final rites at the Nagpur test. I wish I could just instill in the batting skills of Parthiv Patel into either Ganguly or Yuvraj so as to get Patel off as ‘keeper and to get some use from the latter two for Team India.

  • Chatted with my pal and bandmate Xander after a long time. He is now working as a 3D animator in the city which I’m starting my residency in 6 months’ time. I’m very happy.

  • I find out that the place where his office is only 10 minutes from the hospital that I’ll be working in. I’m ecstatic. This way, I have someone there with whom I can entrust my musical gear. This is awesome.

  • I make him listen to my latest song fearing the fact that the directions in which I and he have gone in our songwriting careers have created a big gap which might be hard to bridge. But he ends up liking the song. He even thought that I sang well in it. He says that I’ve a good voice. I’m thrilled to my subtlest senses!

  • I’m beaming in the evening while attending an academic session at the hospital. I am very happy to inform Chuck and Ray about the developments.

  • Finally, I and Ray end up watching King Arthur in the second show. It is a good movie.

It has been a wonderful day. A day which probably gives me a definitive direction in the future. I think I can harbor hopes of a good band career with Xander!

Finally…

Yes. I’m going to break the big news concerning chuck. Brace yourself…

Chuck is going to get married soon! If you remember, I covered for Chuck because he had to leave for some place in an emergency. He had indeed gone to check out the girl.

For those of you who cannot make sense of what I meant by the phrase ‘check out the girl’, remind yourself that I live in India where arranged marriages are still considered as the rule. And this is how an arranged marriage would go.

The father and mother of the man/woman would consider matrimonial sections from newspapers, magazines, internet etc. From these sources, they would take the horoscopes of both the sides and compare. In the case of a match, they would enquire about each others’ family background. If they find it alright, the parents would talk over on the phone. Finally if they seem to be okay to each other, they (the parents) plan to meet. If the sets of parents don’t mind each other too much, they would eventually arrange for a meeting of the man and woman who would be marrying. This is the function that I meant by checking out.

Back to Chuck; he liked the girl. The two sides like each other. Therefore, his marriage is almost fixed. All it needs is an official engagement ceremony to fix it officially.

He had broken this news to me on the day before he went. Now, most of our close friends know it. And that is why I’m able to tell you.

If you want to know how I feel about it. Umm, I don’t know. Really. First of all, I don’t believe in arranged marriages. Then about kinda losing a friend, or at least the prospect of losing out on some quality friends-time with Chuck is saddening. But I think I should be happy for Chuck. Chuck is happy because he wants his parents to be happy. Therefore, he doesn’t mind getting married even though, personally, he would want to marry only after he finishes his residency.

The story of self destruction

This has got to be really sad. My friend J., who is only 25, had an episode of epistaxis (bleeding from the nose) last week. He lost about 100 ml of blood in the first episode which subsided with nasal packing. He had another episode in the night which was less severed. He got his blood pressure checked. It was 120 over 180 mm of Hg. His blood test have returned to be normal and he doesn’t give a history of any trauma/picking to the nose.

What his means that it is a Hypertensive epistaxis. He is a chronic smoker for about 10 years and smokes 1 to 2 packs per day.

All these years, I’ve been trying to get him off this dirty habit. Many a times, I’ve felt like a loser because of my unsuccesful efforts.

Index finger length and penile length

This has got to be one of the most interesting stories that I’ve read in the past few months. There is an article about correlation of penile length with that of the index finger. Go check it out.

From now on, I’ll take a vow that I would carefully scrutinize the hands of all hot patients in the hospital! 😉

The only bad thing about this article is that it has destroyed my fantasies about penis length and girth increasing with age and some other body measurements. I usually go by these; thickness of forearms, wrists and fingers for penile girth.

“Age and (body measurements) were not associated with the size of the genitalia, excluding the index finger length, which correlated significantly with the dimensions of the flaccid, maximally stretched, penis,” the report indicates.

This boy needs to be shot

I am very excitable when it comes to cricket. I usually follow Cricket Test matches, especially those involving India, as much as time permits. These days I’m not being able to catch most of the live action. But whatever I get to see is disappointing. Parthiv Patel, supposedly one of the bright young talents in Indian cricket, doesn’t deserve to be playing in the senior eleven.

He needs to be shot on the stadium after he grounds yet another important catch/stumping. I know this may sound too radical. But isn’t that the only option. The captain, coach and the selectors cannot figure out the fact that India can win more test matches if it gets a better ‘keeper.

Still suspended

It is only a couple of days or so before I can break you the huge news concerning Chuck. The day was dull except for more developments on the Chuck-front.

I’m getting sick and tired of working with lazy residents. The day when I covered for Chuck, I had a great time working with the residents in his unit. The atmosphere is so different here; indifferent would be a proper word.

Chuck is already breaking the news to his closest friends. That means that I can breathe a sigh of relief because I had told Ray about this even after Chuck ordered against this. Finally when Chuck broke it to him, Ray acted splendidly to avoid any uneasy moments.

Things that happend in under 24 hours

  • Chuck gave me the details about something which I can’t write about. It is pretty humongous. Even by my gay standards.

  • I watched a Roger Moore Bond flick on Television. The name is ‘The Man with a Golden Gun’. To my surprise, it was much better than the Sean Connery films with the Sean Connery part out. I mean, Roger Moore is no way as hot Sean when it comes to Gay sex appeal. The movie had some pretty gross scenes which were funny and highly unforgettable. Mr. Moore is shown twisting the Sumo wrestler’s *loin-cloth* hard enough to make him pass out due to pain and fears of impotence for the rest of his life and thereby, helping to release the round-the-body squeeze grip that the wrestler used to stop Moore from going inside the villain’s bungalow. There is another scene where 007’s girl friend Good Night accidentally pushes a button with her buttocks (while bending down to watch her man in action)and thereby, inadvertently triggering a mechanism which concentrates the suns engery into to a 400 degree beam which might have vaporized Mr. Bond had he not been fast enough in his efforts to save the world.

  • My unit chief openly admitted that he trusted me more than most of the residents in the unit. I felt like I was kissing Gabriel Garcia Marquez (who is the latest entry to my WHILTHS List. I have to admit that being an elderly male writer with monstrous fame is good enough to get an entry into the list. But Mr. Marquez is SO physically hot!

  • Gabriel Garcia Marquez got entry into the prestigious “With Him, I’d Like To Have Sex” (WHILTHS) List. There was an article about him in the newspaper with a photograph. Our maid servant had to spend extra hours to wipe the floor clear of all the drool.

  • Three reasons why Mr. Marquez is on the list




  • I made it to an special category of human beings; those who can take more than 40 push ups in one go. I did 41 today. I had a great work out in the morning. I have upgraded my dumbells to 9 from 7 kg. I’m almost ready for the 11 kg dumbells.

  • I cracked a wonderfully straight joke at the Operation Theatre the other day. My straight image is so well glorified now.

  • My cousin spent 12 hours at my home using the computer. He was preparing for an exam. During that time period.

    • Time spent with him : 46 minutes

    • Time spent talking to him : 22 minutes

    • Time spent talking to him about computers : 19 minutes

    • Time spent talking to him about him : 1 minute

    • Time spent talking to him about me : 2 minutes

    • Time spent talking to him while looking at him : 32 seconds

  • Another random list of stuff
    • Number of times someone made fun of me of lacking muscular mass : 2

    • Number of times someone said that I’ve gained weight : 2

    • Number of times I felt good about having gained weight : 1

    • Number of times that I felt depressed after learning that I had gained fat and not muscle : 2

A big secret

I’m sorry. I cannot break the secret yet. It is about Chuck and it is huge. It is so huge that it is going to change his life forever. I, being his close friend, can expect huge changes in my life as well.

I don’t think that anyone who I know personally (other than Ray and May) are reading this. But May still doesn’t know anything about it. So I can’t post it here.