The argument – the break up

This might sound ridiculous and foolish for people who have been going through this blog regularly. But shade I came back with hopes to Mumbai to re-start my band life. The first two hours after the flight were excellent. E-boi was there to pick me up and the huge bag of food that I had brought for us, Shade the band.

Then the meltdown. It was the time for the renewal of the apartment contract. And I didn’t have money. I was already in a big shit with 20 Grand for the guitar and a further 50 odd grand for the college fees to pay. I had already indicated, at least indirectly, that I was not going to pay.

But apparently, Xander didn’t understand. Or rather, didn’t want to understand. When the conversation was initiated, I never realized that I would be walking out of my apartment losing my band, a friend and a place to live in.

When Xander said that we have to pay up somehow, I said that I couldn’t afford it. I suggested that the others (E-boi, Parry should chip in as well) and that Xander should pay more than half. All this money splitting was probably my way to say that I don’t think I should be paying up half for the apartment where I never actually stayed. I never had the freedom. I had to even decelerate on my relationship with Victor because Xander had refused to let me use the apartment for sex.

But the argument which started went from bad to worse and despite E-boy mediating and finally I said that I’m getting out of the apartment and out of the contract. Xander was understandably upset and angry and he said that he wants to have my stuff out of the apartment by weekend.

Well, I said yes and that was the only way. Honestly, I thought that if that was his stand, then I had to lose the band, friendship and the apartment. I didn’t have another option.

On the way back, I felt bad. The words from E-boi ‘Kris, you just lost a friend and place to live’ kept echoing and despite me reading a very interesting sequel to the amazing Rama series by Arthur C. Clarke (‘Rama Revealed’ – by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee’, I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t sleep for that matter. I knew I was really affected by what had happened and I was not liking it…

Going back to Mumbai

Today I’m returning to my life in Mumbai. As I had expected, this trip wasn’t the best that I ever had as a holiday from my life in Mumbai. The funny thing is that I didn’t do many things that I normally do.

• Spend time with my friends – I didn’t do a lot of that. Just two days out of 10 with Ray and Chuck.
• Meet Dr. R. Yes, I didn’t do it.
• Meet Mr. Lion – we couldn’t pull off a meeting this time. I badly wanted to. But I’m not sure if he’s that interested in me.
• Talk to my sister – despite the fact that she’s having trouble in her life. I don’t want to detail them. Acutally, I don’t know how enough really.

Yet, I’m not unhappy. I’m sort of glad to return to my band and my guitars and my hospital life.

The Penultimate Day – The Lord of The Rings

I spent most of today watching the DVD collection of Lord of the Rings that I had bought recently. Amazing to even think that there are five movies – 3 of the Lord of the Rings and 2 others, in this pirated DVD. The video quality is poor but it worked and I finished one task that I had wanted to for a long time.

Wonderful! Wonderful! Brilliant! Gandalf – Sir Ian McKellen is amazingly sexy! And there is so much of male bonding in the movies!

Then, I visited a couple of friends and relatives of mine here and I ended up buying chips for my friends in Mumbai.

 

Clean City, Green City, Beautiful City

This post is just to find the meaning of the phrase ‘Clean City, Green City’ which my home city corporation had come up in a cleanliness drive when I was in College. Thes e photos reveal the intentions why. Aren’t the pictures wonderful?

 

 

 

 

The Day with Chuck

Chuck wasn’t there in town in the first few days of my trip. He was with his wife and his kid and was winding up the business at the place where his wife had just finished her post-grad. After he had come back, he had duties at the hospital and therefore it took me so long to actually meet and spend a day with.

Today, we spent the whole day basically hanging out. I went over to his place and had a delicious home-cooked lunch by his Mom who was out at work. Then we spent some time catching up at his place. In the evening we set out for some shopping. We had gone to the haven of pirated goods in town called ‘Beema Pally’ and I ended up buying a lot of English Movie Collections. We went to the nearby beach as well where I took this snap.

In the evening we went back to Chuck’s place to meet his Mom. She was very emotional as this was the first time I had visited after Chuck’s father’s demise. She actually started asking me about my plans to settle in life ie. marry. I said that I didn’t have plans to.

Later when I asked Chuck whether it would be a good idea to try and come out to her in a the future he said, ‘A very bad idea, she wouldn’t let you in the house after that I guess.’ Although I know things are going to be like that once I come out into the open, I felt bad hearing that.

Later on Chuck himself confessed that he was only joking. We ended up the day after dinner (a bad one at a restaurant) with one of our friends from college. After that, I watched the movie ‘Provoked’. Again alone. Again at the shabby theatre which stinks like a rat’s ass.

It is an okay-good movie. Aishwarya Rai did her bit in the movie which I felt was touch unrealistic in the way things evolved in the movie.

 

Musical Influences

The source of my music is probably right from home. My father is a professional mridangam player and is a scholar in Eastern (Carnatic) Classical Music. Here’s the mridangam set that he practices on. I actually took some classes from him when I was about 11 or something. I thought I wasn’t really enjoying that. Instead I took up the flute for some time. And after my pre-graduation, I started taking lessons on Classical and Spanish guitar. I bought my first bass guitar and started playing about 5 years back.

 

This is another master-piece of a relic. This is the drumset which I and e-boi had got custom-made from my Dad’s mridangam guy. He made this for 6 K. We played our first gig – on the new Years’ day of 2000 on this. Of course, I learnt how to keep the beat on the drums on this.

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Not surprisingly, this is almost in shambles. I had thought of taking it to mumbai. But it won’t stand the rigours of travel. Besides, e-boi is getting his own brand new drumset soon!

Home Sweet Home

Today I spent a lot of time away from home touring a few of my cousins’ places. Quite unnatural and quite unexpected. I had to do it and I finished doing it. But the content of the pictures in the post is to let you in on my home – sweet home.

My desk – where I spent about 12 years studying – 4 year of high school, 2 years of pre-grad and 6 years of grad (medicine).

 

My room – without the bed. The bed has been shifted to another room.

 

My sister’s room where I have shared many a moment with my sister!

 

The ‘kitchen’ upstairs – This used to be our jam room where E-boi and I started our band-life. We had the drumset in and had a table fan for air conditioning! hahaha…

 

This is our veranda downstairs where I used to spend those lovely early morning sipping amazing coffee that my Mom makes reading the newspaper.

 

The trip to meet Ray – part 2

The second day with Ray was ‘movies day’. We had so many lovely evenings in my my home town when we both were there. We went for the mega block buster release of Malluwood – ‘Chhotta Mumbai’ and ‘Vinodayatra’. Of the two, only the latter deserves to be mentioned. It was a classical feel-good Mallu movie with great screen play and cinematography. This is a snap at the movie theatre complex where was saw it from.

 

This snap really is a gem from my camera. It took it as dusk had started to set in on Cochin. It is at Cochin’s lovely Marine Drive. This is the place where I have had many introspective conversations with Ray and E-boi (when he was there).

 

After that, I came back in another bus ride. Again it was a ‘dry ride’ as per Ray’s standards of cruising. But this time, I had a couple of Marvel Comics books which I had bought from a discounted sale of books. I love them! One is a giant edition of ‘X-men’ featuring Cyclops. The other one is about the evolution of ‘Wolverine’.

Inspired to write again

I spent a lot of time yesterday night listening to the old recordings especially those that I had written. I am totally inspired again. I want to take up song-writing once again like how I think I can.

On top of that, I read up some articles on successful, yet young, Indian Rock band guys.

Wow! Now I want to try harder!!

The trip to meet Ray – day 1

I wanted to meet Ray over the weekend at Cochin. But that didn’t materialize because of his busy hospital schedule. Finally we planned to meet on Tuesday evening at Cochin. I took a bus right next to my home. On an uncomfortable, yet scenic journey through the backyards of the picturesque Kerala, I took these snaps most of them from a moving bus. Just take a look at the spectacle.

 

 

 

The ‘tea-shop’ is the quintessential essence of Kerala, where the average Keralaite socializes. Apart from Tea, we get just about everything essential for life here. An average Keralaite will go to the ‘tea-shop’ in the morning to start his daily routines and end the day with a banana, often a must for many (like Chuck, my friend). It also doubles up as a newspaper stand as you can see.

 

I reached the Cochin at around 6 pm. We had planned to catch a movie but Ray was a little too late for the show. Instead, we hung out for some time. Then we booked a room at a hotel. The manager at the hotel, which was decorated at its entrance by an army of cats, was quite suspicious of the intent of our stay – I was really wondering if we looked like sex-partners, me and Ray.

Then, we went to a pub nearby – was a really dull one to have beer. I actually had couple of pegs of Rum with soda. The cricket match on the tube was the only saving grace as I watched Ray almost getting drunk with about half a mug of beer.

Of course, all through out, we kept catching up with each other. I heard Ray’s stories about seducing men on bus rides. I also heard about his relationship with the farmer he was almost in love with, who, like my sister, wants him to convert into ‘straight’. He persisted that I was not ‘trying hard enough’ at cruising. Maybe I’m a little scared. Or maybe, I value Xander’s and E-boi’s advice more than I think I do. They had said before I had started that ‘We don’t expect you to be shamefully treated (in the case of the mishap while cruising) because you are one person who we look upto.