I’m tired and sleepy now and I wanted to give more updates. But I think I’ll postpone it until tomorrow or something. Two reasons – I’ll get more privacy starting tomorrow. One of my flat-mates is leaving tomorrow. Secondly, I have decided on a lot of stuff about my life.
I’ll tell you all about that. Thanks for reading and sharing with me your thoughts! I love you all!
Here’s the first in the series of updates. I’m posting them in a retro-spective manner so that the post date actually goes with the happenings around that time.
(PS: I would like to hear from the readers of the blog on how they would have reacted to the situation that I was facing in the updates section. This would be insightful and helpful for me I guess. Thanks for reading these posts!)
(PS2: I was thinking of putting all the updates in the chronological order. But that seems like impossible as I get dragged down by the sheer emotional needs of recollecting the situation about a month back. Therefore, with due apologies, the other updates are added as well. I hope you won’t mind! ;))
Today, I realized something. Something so grave that I did not know how to react to it. Vinokur confided in me earlier in the evening that he can’t fly back to Mumbai and stay with me. The whole plan of us living together clung to the idea of him staying with me in Mumbai until I had the dough and a job/course in the USA.
I love him very much. More than ever! I can’t understand what to do?
I can’t leave the band. If I leave the band I won’t get this opportunity once again. The band is the only way that I can earn and save money without ditching something that I can’t live without; Music. The only other thing that I can’t live without is Vinokur!
During the whole evening, I was trying to figure out what to do. Do I stick to the band (and India) for another year until I can save up enough money to fly over? Do I quit the band and get a tourist VISA and fly to work there as a waiter at a restuarant and live my entire life as an illegal immigrant?
The only thing that I want is justice. I and Vinokur have not shared a single moment in our lives when we were ‘normal’. Give me a break! I can’t think straight about this problem.
Having pondered for so long, I have regretfully resigned to adopting the safe way out. I think I will try to earn as much money with the band as I can. And I’ll try to go visit him as much as I can.
Does that seem like a reasonable settlement?
In the past months, when internet communications were the only necessary thing in my life, I neglected the rest of my computer. Viruses proliferated. System crashed regularly. For the last two days, I have had to go through more of this shit. Finally, it resulted in me and Jay deciding to format the hard drives and install Windows. We did that.
Now, things seem to be better. But it’s my computer! It’s as unpredicable as the weather in Mumbai!
For those who have been following my blog, this post must be confusing. This leaves a whole month of (lack) of updates behind and jumps right into the present. I decided to do that because of one major event in my life.
Vinokur is back! Vinokur is back home from the hospital in NYC! He’s back on Skype. He has lost about 10 pounds, looks emasciated and lost his gorgeous stubble… but all the same, he’s back!
It seemed impossible about a couple of weeks back when I was in tears for entire days. When so much of confusing things happened. When he was admitted in an ER unconscious and deteriorating!
I talked to him for a few minutes today on Skype! I’m relieved!
It might seem strange to you. But I’m dreaming about books. I’m dreaming about buying books off bookshelves in bookstores and reading them. In the past week, I’ve been to a bookstore 5 times, each time wanting to buy at least a dozen books and actually buying none.
The reason is simple. Poverty. I don’t have enough money to indulge in books. Fuck, this life is pathetic. Here I’m on the verge of becoming a rock star! Forget that. I have almost completed 23 years of gooddamned high-standard education. See my plight?
I’ve been reading excerpts from books by people like Rushdie, Lahiri, Ben Elton, Asimov and many more! I want to read more books.
Seriously, books seem to be the only way that I can reasonably hope to get lost from the current state of mind that I’m in. They hardly ever, though I must admit that at times they do, remind me of those memories and the immaterialized hopes and dreams that may never ever come true.
I’m currently reading three books at home. ‘A Catcher in the Rye’ by J. D. Salinger, ‘Nightfall’ by Isaac Asimvo and Silverbirg and ‘An Interpreter of Maladies’ by Jhumpa Lahiri!
I’m also reading ‘Chart Throb’ by Ben Elton at the Landmark store in Infiniti mall!
I was getting tired of being home hoping that something interesting would happen. Nothing seems to happen anyway. All what transpires is a few hours of jamming with a distinct undercurrent of uneasiness between most of the band members. I don’t know if I alone am feeling this. But anyway, things were never like this about a couple of months back.
Anyway, to get away from the pain of having to stay home expecting some ‘jamming’ to happen, I go out and watch movies. Today, Sunday, we had a GB movie fest in National College, Bandra.
Previously, I had been to a single GB film festival. It was the first month of my stay in Mumbai. I had to rush out halfway through the second movie when I got a call from the hospital. But I remembered that the quality of movies on offer was excellent and the crowd, interesting.
Hoping for the same, I headed. I wasn’t disappointed. Three excellent movies. The first one was a French movie which feature the tragic story of a weird love triangle set in the holocaust time. The second one was a tragic Israeli movie set in the early 2000 which featured the Israel-Palestinian political tension. The third one, the only Indian movie, was a laugh riot which ended so gloriously with the father of a gay guy accepting his sexual orientation and asking him to marry his boyfriend!
I enjoyed a hell lot despite being flashed-back, as always is the case these days, to the time that I and Vinokur shared in the last few months. I was so ab-normal from the usual Kris that I didn’t respond in any way whatsoever to somebody who said that I looked handsome and that he liked my looks. Fuck, I’m weirded these days!
This time, I went downtown and watched this movie at my favorite theatre in town – New Empire. At a meagre 50 Rs. per ticket, with great Coffee and Samosas, this is the best movie theatre downtown!
The movie itself is a good one. It reminded me a lot about Vinokur as the story is set in Manhattan! Everything that I do in my life makes em realize that I’m missing out on the best part of my life due to unfortunate turn of events!
I watch movies just to kill time. I seem to have a lot these days. Especially in the morning when things get so depressing at home. S. is sleeping with the AC turned on to freezing tempratures. Dash is sleeping in the bedroom. And I am haunted by memories and the things that I could have had.
There are two options for me for this. Either go to a mall in the morning. Or head to town in the evening. Today, I went to the Infiniti Mall in Lokhandwala with this book that I’m reading called ‘The Naked Sun’ by Asimov. I wanted to watch a couple of movies. I could only watch one as the others’ show was cancelled.
‘The Spiderwick Chronicles’ – I rate it at 3 just for the concept, good screen play and good acting by the kids in the movie. I had a good time watching something which is closer to science fiction that reality – fantasy!
It’s been years since I read a detective novel. It’s been even longer since I read an Asimov novel. When they both combine to provide something so tantalizingly eerie novel, there is nothing like it!
The Naked Sun is a brilliant novel. It’s brilliance is once again charecterized by the concepts that Asimov spins out of things like the cycling between day and night that we take for granted.
I’d taken this book out of a lending library. I gave it back and took another Asimov classic; the novel based on the astounding short story ‘Nightfall’!
Engayging Life 