Let’s analyze my future

After my recent attainment of the masters degree in surgery, I felt a part of me getting invigorated to search for options to continue my medical career. For the first week or so, when I met and talked with people, I put forth the idea of looking for jobs in hospitals. People like my sister, my uncle and my parents took that as the definitive sign of me ‘coming back on track’, I felt.

My own research, which consisted of consulting my colleagues, seniors and professors had convinced me that there was no hope of finding a hospital job that would give me liberty to rehearse and perform music the way I wanted to. The recession had wreaked havoc on the economy and the job market and finding a nice job, at least as per the opinion from many people outside the medical field, was very difficult.

Mr. Bach, because of his brash, outspoken nature, is the only person who ridicules my attempt to build a career in music with a significant enough force to put me in doubt. Even though I’m not comfortable with people being so in-your-face, he has somehow helped me realize that I need to make a deadline after which I would have to return whole-heartedly to surgery. Before he left for the States, he made me agree to setting the end of this year (or my birthday) this reassessment.

If I don’t make any significant progress/success with my band(s) by then, I would have to go back to working as a surgeon in a hospital irrespective of whether that would make me unable to play at gigs. This way, I just lose a year. That is a reasonable period of ‘sabbatical’ after which I should technically be left unscathed. I must thank Mr. Bach for making me do this. Thank you Mr. Bach!

Anjor-Kaaya, the musical

Liberation. Something that we all dream about. Something which is close to ‘nirvana’. Liberation is closely tied with arts somehow; as is captured in this photograph that Vinokur took during his hippie days. The setting is Manhattan – at the Guggenheim museum. Apparently Vinokur was standing across the street from the Guggenheim and this bus with ‘Liberty’ printed on it happened to pass by. The folk-lore goes on to mention that he was good enough ‘capture the moment’ as is demonstrated vide infra.

Here’s what Vinokur would caption the picture ‘As a bus named Liberty passed in front of a revered expression of freedom in the arts (Wright’s masterpiece, the Guggenheim Museum), the camera’s shutter opened and closed.’ It’s a shame that he is so lazy that he wouldn’t care enough to showcase his repertoire to the world, don’t you think?

Life doesn’t always allow everyone his/her share of equality, or better ‘liberty’ in this case. I allege the medical training as the reason for me to be suffering from the injustice of being left out from arts, literature, history and all the other ‘essential’ traits of a gay man. I shamefully accept that I can’t blame anyone but myself for not indulging in all of this – I wasn’t a rich heir living the land of dreams who could do anything with their life without worrying about the mundane necessities of a third world life after all! I do this rather passively – excepting of course delving in performing music.

Some other third-world-ers took it a couple of steps ahead. I was a witness to that the other night and it was enchanting. I might be a very ‘soft’ critic but I am not lying. I was invited to ‘Anjor-Kaaya’, an experimental musical written and performed by ‘professionals’ from various other ‘professions’ – I use inverted commas to be cynical about the media and the society which felicitate these to some higher level as compared to others – like doctors, lawyers, engineers etc. One of my friends, a microbiologist, the co-writer and performer in the play, had invited me for it.

I was late. I was late by about half an hour. Ashamed, I walked in and found a couple of ‘phallow gay frens’ sitting right at the back. One of them was about to leave attributing his desire to attend a rock-concert somewhere else. The other one, the more-established connoisseur of art, whose cynical tendencies were rather unpublicized, was to give me company. It took a while for me to get ‘into’ the play. It was a fantastical story based on a wishing-fountain. Many different stories of unfortunate people from the cross section of society – an estranged teenage girl who sells umbrellas in the streets, a painter whose art goes unrecognized, a dancer who becomes quadriplegic, a mother whose son runs away from home – all were unfolded in front of the fountain which is titled ‘Anjor-Kaaya’.

The script was written in old-school hindi, something which I was used to thanks to ‘Doordarshan’ and ‘Vividbharti’ from my childhood, and it elicited the reaction of the romantic poet inside me. The stories themselves were painful enough to let the language unfurl it’s adjectives and allegories poignantly. The combination of the two sounded like music to my mind and I was fascinated. My friend on the other hand was ruminating about what was wrong and what could be done to undo it. I wished I could agree with him. It was extremely hard and I found respite in one aspect – the background score. I thought it could have been written better and produced way, way better. It’s ironic how I suddenly jumped into being a harsher critic in a topic that was familiar to me.

Anjor and Kaaya, by the way, were evergreen, immortal lovers who would try to make the wishes of the people come true by following instructions given in little parchments. There were a lot of interesting aspects in their own characterization with issues like jealousy being dealt with in shades of poetry. The fact that they chose colours and their combinations to find solutions to the problems that the people came to them was suggestive about the diversity in which the society is immersed in and how harmony can be achieved by the appropriate combination of the different elements. A very strong message about and to society, I felt.

More importantly, the actual issues in the present day society were highlighted and presented in a very attractive, romantic method. I don’t see that often these days – the stuff that we get to see these days is harsher and cynical about everything relevant. The fact that the entire crew behind this effort were people from different walks of society not trained in drama was probably something which is given far too much attention. My friend, for example, chose to highlight that fact as their only redemption. I disagree. I agree with him about only one point – things could be improved in so many ways – to make it classier, to appeal to the ‘art-lovers’ who are engrossed with pre-defined notions. Ah, what they miss out on, the message, the sheer elegance of the content.

I applaud my friend and the entire team of Anjor-Kaaya for making me feel closer to being liberated. Thank you!

The airport date

Most people, including the hoards of gay-bois that I know, agreed that having a date at the railway station was weird. Those who were aware of the rituals of cruising went on to describe how lowly I had become by opting to ‘make-out’ with a stranger at a railway station urinal which of could I would’nt (and I didn’t). One of my friends even advised me to be ‘safe’ as such persons couldn’t be trusted and might be ‘carriers’. I don’t know what to say to them.

Anyway, the same person who I had a date with gave me an message yesterday. ‘Kris, I’m going to ‘an undisclosed destination’ and I’m flying via Mumbai. I’ll be free for a few hours before I catch my connecting flight. Can we meet up?’ I was startled. I couldn’t have said no. He had brought me that wonderful multi-course meal to be had on that night in the train and I had to somehow return the hospitality. But there was a problem – I had something important scheduled for the same day. I had to go finish some formalities at the hospital.

I replied saying that I’d love to meet on the condition that he had to come to my hospital. He agreed. We met today outside my hospital. I was surprised that he had virtually no luggage with him despite him being on an extended tour. We had a cozy lunch at one of my favorite (cheap-ass) restaurants near the hospital. After I finished my work at the hospital, we walked around Dadar for an hour or so talking about stuff with a subtle undercurrent of flirting.

This guy is a very handsome, mustachioed, literate gentleman who looks like an Asura or Rakshasa who are the bad guys in Indian mythology. When he was talking to me about a recent photo-shoot in which he was dressed up like a Ravana, I had found the answer to my age old question from my childhood. Why did Sita run off with Ravana (in Ramayana)? Not surprising to me! Ravana was this raging, scalding hot, hirsute beauty! And so are the rest of the asuras. So was this guy!

But soon, it was time for him to catch his plane. I went with him to the airport which resulted in me helping him avoid the mishap of missing the flight as he had mistakenly thought that the boarding time was an hour later than what’s printed on the ticket. I felt cruel. To both of us. Before he went inside the terminal, we agreed to spend a little more ‘intimate’ time the next time we meet. Let’s hope I can experience my childhood fantasy of making out with an Asura soon.

Social outcasts?

‘I hate you’. That’s a thousand whiplashes. Let’s go a couple of notches down. ‘I don’t like you.’ Sounds much less intense; more like a dozen spanks on your shin. What about something else? Incommunicado?

I’ll explain a bit more. You are in touch with a person of interest on a personals site. You exchange pictures and preliminary data with that person. Both seem to be attracted and attractive to each other. You are entering the next phase; the phase when you really want to make sure that the person who you are communicating with must not be kept unaware of a certain important fact in your life. You prefer being honest and are hoping to avoid unnecessary entanglement from both sides.

After you finish talking about the issue, you tend to expect a response. Maybe an ounce of sympathy or a little bit of understanding. You half-expect that person to say ‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I’m afraid I wouldn’t want to carry on. Let’s say goodbye. I wish you the best in the life ahead.’ That’s a bit too much you feel? From the average sex-monger perhaps? The only problem is that we aren’t talking about such people. These are refined, educated ones with a touch of dignity somewhere on their profile.

So why are people so mean and inconsiderate? It seems strange to me. I wouldn’t do this at all. I didn’t do this actually. I, in fact, went on to commit to sharing the rest of my life with this person. I’m talking about Vinokur of course. He’s just a voice for the millions of people who have some chronic-illnesses (in his case Hepatitis C) who also happen to be human beings. They too, like the more privileged ‘clean’ ones, require and desire love, companionship and courting. Aren’t we going to evolve at all? Ever?

Yet another band?

A year or so back, I had no band. Now, I am an established member of two and prospective member of three more – one being my own private band. Yesterday, after the gig with Shoonyas, I was chatting with a friend of mine and he gave me the card of a certain someone who was looking for professional bass guitar players. Obviously, money was important and so was experience of playing with other people.

Since it was the first time that I was actually going to audition for a band that I didn’t have a clue about, I was wary. Today, was our first rehearsal session and my doubts proved to be quite worthwhile. It is a band which has a long history. ‘Dinosaurs of Rock’, a phrase used for the performance of rock veterans from yesteryears at the annual I-Rock mega-gig, could be used to refer to them. The only difference – there was just a single dinosaur.

The band, which I would refer to as ‘Flood’, had split due to various reasons and only one founding member was remaining. That meant that three out of the four musicians jamming with me were like me – sessions players, who were just playing for the money. That gave me some reason as to not feel bad about doing what I was doing. Besides, I have always wanted to play with other drummers; I’ve only performed with E-boi.

The rehearsal was pretty chaotic and cacophonic. You can expect that for the first rehearsal you would say. But I had fun meeting and playing with other musicians, some really funny. I hope that I can really be professional and do my job properly with these guys.

Something relevant

Being a musician, I find it natural to enjoy gigs of other bands. This is what I used to do before I had a band. I have not lost the slightest amount of vigor to be an excited music fan. But things are not the same with my band members I guess. Sometimes I feel it’s a mixture of pride and ego. Other times I feel it’s their innate tendency to be reclusive. I can’t take either as an excuse though, at least for myself.

So, I was at the branch opening of a famous chain of musical instruments retailer playing with Shoonyas. It was a cozy, in-house gig and we had a good performance. Even though the actual ingauration ceremony featured a performance by  big-shots like the most famous percussionist drummer from India and the one of the most succesful music composer team from Bollywood, what attracted me was the band which was playing after us.

The band is called ‘Something Relevant’.  They are pretty famous and have been around for a few years. They are somewhere between smooth jazz and big band. I had an argument with Rob the other day about the genres and I was startled to hear him ridicule my genre-listation. But anyway, they are very pleasing to the ear with their orchestration of keys, trombone, saxophone and percussions along with the regular mix of guitars, bass, drums and vocals.

But their most interesting aspect is the lyrics. They wrote about stuff like mosquitoes, traffic jams and other mundane things in life in a clever, captivating way and the singing was complimentarliy soulful.  I enjoyed them very much; so much so that I was part of the entire group of people jamming with them with all kinds of instruments at the shop. I met with a couple of band members after the gig. They sure seem worthy of a listen. I would recommend them to anyone with a bit of class.

The certificate saga

I’m not employed now. Yet, I feel tired and struggle to accomplish the tasks that I set out to achieve. The tasks are simple yet so complex to achieve. A simple task of getting up in the morning, showering and going over the hospital to initiate the process of possessing the certificates for my post-graduation course had to be delayed by a day, daily for a few days. Reasons are to be scoffed at – a) didn’t get up early enough b) just felt lazy c) had some other chores to finish d) had other engagements which complicate the itinerary for the day.

To not get up early enough is really lame especially if you have worked in night shifts which require you to not sleep in the part of a 24 hour day when you are supposed to sleep such as being a doctor. During such shifts, there are plenty of instances when tiredness or habit takes you over and you tend to snooze or even sleep wonderfully well. Because of the lurking danger of a threat to wake up on demand and the responsibility to be wakeful enough instantly to perform your duties like someone in their most-alert mode, waking up from such naps is usually easy. And when you do such shifts long enough – I have done such things for over 9 years now – it becomes some sort of a trait of yours – to wake up from sleep at any given moment as you wish to.

I happen to take it to another level. I pride myself to be able to do that. I pride myself to be able to control my wakefulness with my adrenaline, thyroxine (and all the other catabolic hormones which are required bye you to be alert) and my intrinsic drive. I’m a proud person by default. I like to do things well and to be lauded for that. Like most people, I tend to loosen the drive when it’s just me who is able to monitor the proceedings and also when I am the only person who would eventually get affected by the outcome of such a thing. In simpler parlance, this is referred to as laziness.

Having critcised myself of being lazy, I would like to take the opportunity to defend myself because I’m egotistic and a hypocrite as well. I don’t want to be lazy, I don’t want to label as a lazy guy – for heaven’s sake, I despise laziness in others. But still, here are the reasons – I spend long hours in the night i) chatting with Vinokur ii) online networking which is primarily fun-oriented iii) doing important stuff like answering e-mail, reading up articles online. On top of that, I have a very non-nutritious diet which basically consists of carbohydrates, milk and eggs devoid of meat, vegetables and other nutrients, without variety, quality, frequency or quantity. The reason for such a diet is obviously shortage of finances and not my laziness to choose to eat bad food.

Add to this the three bands that I play for and all the songs that I need to learn and rehearse and other commitments like meeting interesting people (read dating), attending gigs and live events for fun and for getting more contacts – my days are so packed and I am so tired that a boring chore as to do the formalities to get a certificate, tend to be pushed from the back-burner to the kitchen counter way back behind the big containers of flour.

Yet, I did finish the chore – or most of it today! I had a wonderful time doing it meeting old co-workers from the hospital, most of who were amazed to see me back in the hospital. Apparently they had been fed rumors from my own colleagues and juniors that I had left medicine for good and was chasing the glamorous career of a rock-star. I tried to deny the malice which was instigated in such a suggestion and said that I was just taking a ‘break’ from medicine. I also happened to go visit two sections of the University of Mumbai, in two corners of the city, which are so different from each other that it’s charming to just note the contrasts.

A tryst with art in Mumbai – Part 2

(Continuation of part 1 – read Part 1 here)

A few weeks before, I finally managed to catch a play at the prestigious Y. B. Chavan centre at Colaba. It was three short experimental plays back to back which were entangled to each other by a story from Indian mythology. The reason why I got to know about the play was that Mr. Bach’s nephew, an astonishingly handsome young man, was the manager for the event. During the days that I spent with Mr. Bach, I got to hang out with him and during our conversations, I stumbled on to the fact that he was into theatre.

I have a friend amongst the gay-bois, someone that I rather respect (as compared to the vast majority of other who, I think, are really flaky, childish and boring when it comes to enjoying, discussing and reviewing art) who accompanied me to the play. For me, the naive, novice art-lover who devours art in every which form that is presented to him without paying heed to the quality , the play was an enchanting experience. My friend liked it too, but not as much as me. I came to know from Mr. Bach’s nephew (through Mr. Bach) that the play was supposedly full off forgotten lines and bloopers and that my observations were foolish and invited ridicule.

Within a couple of days, I found myself watching another play with this same friend. This time it was another fantasy-fairy tale, another experimental play written and performed by people from various walks of life (young professionals who had a penchant for theatre). It was a hindi play with very poetic, romantic lines which were marked with words which were rather dormant in the streets. The acting was average and I thought the set was rather unprofessional too. Again, the romantic, fanatic, fantasy-st in me took over and enjoyed the play despite it’s extreme length. This time though, my friend was very critical about the play and commented that I was so ‘uneducated’ about art that I would love anything that I was presented to.

One of the days when Mr. Bach was around, I had to spend an afternoon all by myself as he was busy running some last-minute errands before his trip. That afternoon, I walked over to the JJ school of Arts and met T., E-boi’s girlfriend. It was a great experience because of the sheer surprise element for both of us. She took me for a tour in the campus and showed me the sculpting studio. It was so beautiful despite them being done by amateurs (students) but I could feel myself getting attracted to art more and more.

Apart from these, two of my ‘dates’ in the last few months have been painters and sculptors. One, a good friend of mine, has invited me to his studio and shown me his wonderful series of paintings which he’s working on. Each of them has a silhouette of a person or object in black ink in a background (in a single color). He explained to me his ideas and they seemed to profound to me and I’m sure the alcohol or the prospect of sex did not tamper my judgment in any way. Another one, with whom I have just spent a few hours together talking is a painter and is a retired dean of a prestigious art school. He tried to open my eyes and mind up to the world of art by telling me about how to appreciate art – by having a clean slate or an open mind.

I feel proud to have so many friends, each acquired through life’s weird interconnections, who have helped me come closer to the various versions of art in the last few months. I’m thankful to all of them for making it such a pleasure for me and I hope that this journey gets more enchanting in the years to come.

A tryst with art in Mumbai – Part 1

I have been here in Mumbai for over three and a half years. That’s how long it took for me do anything related to conventional art and culture. The first whiff of this wonderful world came to me during the first few months of my relationship with Vinokur when he used to tell me how wonderful it was to go to museums and art galleries in the Big Apple. We had our wonderful plan about injecting the brown Indian boy with a dose of art, at Mumbai to start with, when we would start living together for the first time. That didn’t exactly workout that way as most real-life stories don’t. But the desire kept nagging me on. I had decided during the months that I studied for the exams that I would start diving into the wonderful pool of art and culture that Mumbai had to offer.

The first instance came three weeks back when I attended the screening of a documentary film about Narendra Modi and his evil masterplan to remain in power. This movie, which was banned for public screening, is about how the BhaJPa had cooked up mock assassination attempts at Modi and arrested and killed innocent people in Gujrat, their only fault that they were Muslim. I could distinctly feel the amount of culture and intelligence disseminated in the audience which was evident in the little Q&A section after the screening. I’d be lying if I didn’t confess that apart from all the culture, there were really attractive older men aplenty there. People with beards, aquiline noses dressed in graceful kurthas and talking about art – the Indian version of a talking Vinokur-blow-up doll!

The first time that I met Mr. Bach was at the Jehangir art gallery. He is the epitome of the filthy-rich south-mumbaiite who hate the suburbs and love their art. He took me in for a demo tour and ended up buying a sculpture of the bust of a handsome man with a long face and a long, but shapely, nose. He still denies any hints of narcissism in this purchase and such claims have been rendered baseless by the sculptor himself (at the gallery) and a couple of his friends and cousins who seemed to have the intelligence to grasp. We had carried on to another huge private gallery where he had purchased three pieces of a piece of modern art on the mythology of the Eklavya’s thumb story – one for his own house here and two for his wealthy friends living in the Snakes.

Experiencing the various pieces of art hung up on walls of his fantastic house(s) in town was a de ja vu experience – two of the three men that I had dated prior to Mr. Bach had their share of art on display. One had Picasso replicas and others at his home and the other is a painter and sculptor who showed me his original work over whisky and soda on a wonderful evening that we spent together. It is quit evident that my sensibilities seem to home in on men with something or the other to do with arts, thanks to my mentor, my best friend and my ex-lover – the one and only Vinokur.

Not Just Bad By The Way

The first gig that we had after my trip to Kerala should have been one that I should have remembered ever so fondly for the rest of my life. But sadly it wasn’t. Shoonyas were playing at the same resto-bar at the Marine drive and it was Not Just Bad By The Way (pun intended totally). First of all the name of the venue is far too long. Secondly, it’s a little cliched as you might have noticed in some of the pictures that I had posted elsewhere on the internet.

It’s just lack of practice. Don’t worry, not I nor the band have lost our zing. We would be back with a bang. The only thing that was memorable tonight was this hot looking guy who jived with his friend/spouse for our rendition of Beatles and Doors. I wished I could simply knock down the wonderfully dressed woman and join him. Shucks, I had to play the stuff for the jiving to happen, right?

It was disappointing but these days, I don’t let myself get disappointed with musical misadventures. Judging by the kind of skill that I have got, I think I have to expect a lot more of those. In the bottom of my heart, though, I know that I’m talented enough to not repeat the mistakes too many times.