Noise Market

Noise Market is participating in a national competition for Hindi bands called RC Live. The show organized by Radio City FM features us among the top 5 bands of West Zone who will compete in the West Regional finals on the 23rd of February, 2008 for a place in the national finals at Delhi on the 29th of February, 2008.

For more information on our band Noise Market and our songs, visit
The Noise Market blog.

Vote for us and make us win!

Noise Market

Noise Market is participating in a national competition for Hindi bands called RC Live. The show organized by Radio City FM features us among the top 5 bands of West Zone who will compete in the West Regional finals on the 23rd of February, 2008 for a place in the national finals at Delhi on the 29th of February, 2008.

For more information on our band Noise Market and our songs, visit our blog
Noise Market.

Vote for us and make us win!

In Shoonyas

I guess it is a proud moment in my life. I have finally become a part of a rock band which is going to perform in venues across the city. It has happened over a period of a few weeks of byzantine communication between me and the fellow band members of the rock band ‘Shoonyas’. But I guess the wait was well worth it.

The leader/singer is a hardcore professional and the guitarist is a great person to jam with and to hang out with. I guess I’m going to have my dream of playing acoustic guitar based songs with this band. As a part of the deal, I might get discounts for my dream acoustic bass guitar. Wow, that’s going to be one instrument that I’ve been dying to play!

Love about to fly in an aeroplane!

It’s with great pleasure that I post to inform the world that my ‘Handsome Jew Dad’ from abroad is flying over to meet the ‘Cute Hindu God’ in Mumbai! The date of arrival isn’t fixed yet due to a clinical condition called ‘resistance to pressure’ in a case of ‘Attention Deficit Disorder meets Asperger’s syndrome’ somewhere near ADD land. The date would fall between the 16th and the 23rd of February in more humane terms.

To be telling you the absolute truth, days have been growing shorter for me with added responsibilities of time-sharing and the necessity to be in conversation with Vinokur, the name that Alan loves to be known by. And we’re increasingly growing tired of this physical separation of a few trillion gallons of saline water and a 3.6 million sharks which inhabit that.

Apart from everything else, once he comes, I think I’ll get a hold on my feverishly erratic life and redeem it to somewhere more stable. I really can’t take it anymore and want him here with me, by me, in me etc. Uh oh…, did I reveal my sexuality a bit too much?

Clash of priorities: the victory of Love

The Aerosmith song ‘Falling in Love is Hard on the Knees’ makes sense to me now. My life has changed so much since July 4th, 2007, the day when I met Mr. Perfect and fell in love. Before that period of life, I never really understood why all the famous musicians should write so many songs about love/break-up/separation et al in relationships.

Pre-love, my life consisted of two things which have been prioritized by the unfortunate social situation to be Career > Music. I, being a little meek and scaredy, never really bothered to do what I really wanted. I never set out for what I wanted. I realized that after falling in love. That’s when you get to know your own heart closer.

Now I realize that what I really want to do in life is music. Not anything else, but music. Let my life lead itself. I don’t want to lose out on the precious time that I have left trying to make a base on which I can indulge in my real needs. Ergo, I can’t really push away any opportunities in the music front that I might get.

Post-love, my priorities are categorized as this. Vinokur >>>> Music > Career.

Do I hear smirks and muffled laughter?

I don’t think that’s skewed! Come on, give me a break!

The saga of love continues

Four months! Such an incredibly long period it seems... rather is.

It would seem impossible for a freak like me to not blabber about my own life. Even having nothing going on, I used to type and post and blog and all that shit!


And now, I am in this fucken incredible relationship with the most amazing person that I have ever met, and yet, no posts!

The reason is simple. Straight forward.

I don't have time for anything but spend time with him - Anchel Vinokur - online!

I love him! I really do!

Noise Market

Well I needed to have some shot in my arm to breathe again after the disappointment fiasco with Xander. And purely coincidentally, that came in the form a Hindi rock band, the most unlikely thing, if you consider my yester-life.

Basically the story started on the day after the aforementioned fall-out. I was invited to check out by my Shoonyas guitarist to jam and to discuss some issues. What I was treated to was pure, innovative, orginal music; something that I was dying to play bass for. I was invited to play bass for this band which calls itself ‘Noise Market’.

I gave them a hint of my limitations. But there was no way that I could refuse to play with talented, committed, professional, sane musicians who didn’t have ego problems. Therefore, I’m part of a second band: ‘Noise Market’. We’re planning to hit the scene with lives shows and a demo CD! See ya guys on the radio and television!

Finality: The Xander chapter ends

It took about 5 years for us to realize that it’s not going to work. Not work at all. We fell apart just as easily as we had been made. The seething times let themselves grow into full-fledged hatred, leaving us with scathed and seething souls which longed for some respite.

The actual incident is dirty. It, as usual, involved a lot of passion and hope from my side, and lot of ego and alcohol from Xander’s. From a silly argument about a song’s rhythm pattern, we resulted in insulting each other so much so that we never want to see each other again. He threatened to physically harm me and was abusive to everyone dear to me including my dear Vinokur. That hurts. That hurt. Badly, it did. The spectator/mediator for the whole ‘event’ was a helpless E-boi.

I realize that, the sequelae are going to be severe. I consider Xander to be the most talented, but wasted singer who would fit in snugly into my dreams to make a band and I’ll miss him sorely. E-boi doesn’t have a different opinion. And Xander, I don’t know what you feel about all this now, but I think you will also agree to this someday. We’ll be the ‘super-band’ that never ever took off!

Our birthdays!

Wow, I had a ball! I’m going to have more! It was mine and Vinokur’s birthday on the 6th/7th of November.

I had gifted my little Vinokur using the wonderful powers of the internet a couple of Tantra T-shirts, a couple of Indian classical music CDs, a bouquet of flowers, a chocolate birthday cake. He was so happy as the gifts arrived one by one on the 6th of November!!

His gift to me was obviously pre-dated; my spanky new P1i phone and a brand new Yamaha acoustic guitar! I love you, Al!

I had a wonderful party thrown by my friends at a fantastic restaurant in town. I was gifted by all of my friends; things ranging from wonderful headsets for my mobile phone and my mp3 player and a bottle of champagne.

Thanks Sandy, E-boi, Xander, Parry and the others whose names I wouldn’t want to reveal in this blog.

And I did one of my social rituals-necessities. I came out to a couple of colleagues from my hospital. One of them was dumb-struck!

This was also the last birthday that I'm going to not celebrate without Vinokur!

Back with a bang

I know that I'm not posting as often as I should when I'm at the prime of my life. I'm fucking in love and the whole world's changing, my views on leading my life, my priorities, the way I have orgasms ... every fucking thing has changed.

But the one thing which hasn't changed is this - the love of scandalous news... about my gayness and 'out'ness! Apparently, May came out about me to her mother! Yeah! One more social obstacle removed!

Manohar Kadam gets beefy

Look at him! I mean, look at him! Doesn't he look fat? Me, Dr. R and to an extent Sahaab have been feeding him with Chicken, beef, fish and eggs to make him like this. Does he look like Garfield? Anyone's heard of liposuction for cats?

 
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When it does seem too long

Despite me having gone through the tallest of zeniths of my personal life, I've not been blogging. Something which gave me all the thrills of humor, creativity, language, imagination. I'd shirk to ruminate over the whys.

Yet, it is hard to overlook this. The simplest way to put it is because of apparent lack of time. But then, it's so hard to see why it's so. I'm at my easiest phase of work as a resident in the hospital. I'm being more creative than ever. I'm getting more inspired than ever.

The reason lies (or sits reading this) somewhere across the atlantic. An elderly balding jew is being allegedly suspected for this. Yes. It is true. I'm spending most of my blogging time with Al. Weird Al. Funny Al. Cute Al. Lazy Al. All these various life forms of a single person is flashing through my days and nights when I'm supposed to blog.

Is it okay? Well I don't know. I figure I should have more time for all this. More time to dwell on my thoughts. Be indulgent. Self-indulgent is more appropriate. Like giving yourself a treat : hot-oil-massage succeeded by a couple of hours in a jacuzzi? I have never done either of these in sequence or separate. That makes me look phoney. But I'm gay. I can do such stuff.

Today, I feel happy because of the fact that I cleaned up my room and took a bath and feel all privileged to be in my beautiful room. This despite my roomie (Sahaab) arguing over his overgrown adolescentish fiance over the phone which makes me hard to concentrate on what I'm typing here.

To make things worse, I just realized that the argument involved our closest friend Dr. R who's on tour with Dr. T.

Whatever, I think I'm back to blogging at least partially. But I hope I've not made mah lover lose more hair over the allegations. ;)

Xander gets reviewed

Last Sunday, we went for rock show at our favorite guitar shop which featured one of the biggest rock bands in India - Metakix. They were just brilliant. Powerful, tight and professional. To top it all, they covered Alice In Chains' Rooster and Again.

So after the show, being the PR guy for the band, I went and bought the Metakix CD which was on sale and like a 13 something post-menarchial girl, I went around getting autographs. Of course, the package was bundled with brownie points of getting in touch with the band members and talking etc.

I complimented all of them for the show as well as for AiC covers. I told the lead singer about the Xander's skills in that genre. While they were winding up, the lead guy came up and asked me where we jammed and stuff. Apparently, he was interested in checking us out.

I was so thrilled, that I almost wetted my panties. (No I don't wear any, you junkheads! And take your hands off your...) He asked me to scrap him or Orkut, which I did. In fact I sent him the cover version of 'Got Me Wrong' (AiC).

Today morning, while I was doing my stupid Powerpoint presentations on the computer in the hospital, I happeened to check my scrapbook. The guy had replied saying that Xander's version kicked ass.

Oh, I was so glad that I was jumping up and down the office on alternate legs like a teen lolita who gave head to a 9" black throbber. I called Xander, Parry and E-boi and Sahaab about this.

Maybe, just maybe, Shade would still work.

Sheraton from front

 
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The Beach at Thiruvananthapuram

 
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Swinging Palms on the Juhu Beach on a Sunday Afternoon

 
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The illuminated corridor behind Taj at Gateway

 
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The Gateway of India

 
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Victorian marvels

 
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Victorian Architecture

 
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The Black Beauty

 
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The ITC Grand Central

 
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KEM Hospital campus

 
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KEM Hospital campus

 
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Bandra Promenade

 
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Deutsche Bank

 
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Manohar Kadam on my guitar case

 
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Falling in love, for the first time

It does seem improbable. Unrealisitic. Almost Utopian. But it has happened. I feel the knot in my tummy. I feel happiness. I feel gleeful. I feel content. I feel funny. I feel happier than ever. And that, my friends, is referred to as 'Love' . And, my friends are the ones who actually inferred it as 'Love'.

It is official - I'm in love with Vinokur from NYC.

The online Ditch

I was supposed to meet a certain Scotsman on a date. I was very disappointed when he returned my message saying that he's not interested because he thought that he was not appropriate for him. I can't think of a reason. That shouldn't have happened. I want an explanation and he has not given it to me.

This is a big disappointment after the much-heralded 'Back to Sex' weekend got publicized in my close-friends-circle a few days back.

Now, I'll have to find solace in something called voice-chatting with my new 'cyber-lover' from NYC.

Online friends and things

I realize that I live a big part of life in the internet. Blogging, chatting, C2C affairs etc. Something which will be considered almost pathological amongst shrinks and self-help websites.

Now, I've started something different. Talking to my e-friends online on Skype. Yesterday I talked for a couple of hours to a new guy called Alan. Oh the conversation is so interesting! I was captivated by the content. This is fun.

Movies and moving ahead in life

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Wednesday) was the only movie that I saw in the past week. I had expected quite a lot but it turned out to be a disappointment mainly because of the fact that I hate unsure adolescent minds. I think it's part of the hate that I have about myself! ;)

Rating - 3 out of 5.

Apart from that, I'm looking forward to this great weekend that I'm hoping to have when I re-start my dating!

Practice with a metronome

Every bloody website on guitar says this. Over and over again. They make you feel like you have been heinous criminal all throughout our lives for not doing it. That's was part reason by I did buy a metronome. And now it's wonderful. Everything's on the click. And I realize that I'm very good at playing with it. No real problem. But my right hand technique on the bass) still requires a lot of training.

And something else - This metronome has it's beeps tuned to the note of B. That's unheard of, everything is A as far as I have known.

The metronome and the headset - another impulsive evening

Okay. So me and E-boi finish up the debts that we have had the music-instrument store that we frequent. Sumit's giving back the money that he owes me. That would mean that I would be really rich as compared to the pathetic situation that I'm always in.

In the same breath, almost, I have to say I figured out how it goes. Impulsive buying - something like a pathologic disorder. We go walk on the Fashion street teeming with Mallus who are decided on selling you everything from Perfumes to Porn DVD movies.

And like 60 year old dignified Daddies (;)), we walk past all of them, ignoring them with an air of dignified indifference. We walk past the music store again run by a Mallu without even bothering to turn our heads. In a spontaneous effort hovering dangerously close to conspiracy, the familiar bearded guy from the shop, who almost looks like the Mallu 'Jesus Christ', call out aloud - 'Hey, guys aren't you checking in and seeing the new stuff we have?'.

We are polite. Yeah, we are. Both me and E-boi. Another Mallu inviting us meant that we had to go. We went in. And the rest, as they say, is history.

In about 12 minutes and 24 seconds, we purchased 5 grands worth of stuff like a headphone set, metronomes, strings etc.

After having checked them out at leisure just before this post, I feel happy and satisfied. Brilliant stuff. Stuff that could make a differece in my life.

But I'm still broke.

Amazing websites

I discovered three separate websites in this last 24 hours which are brilliant in their own right. Each could easily be discoveries of a month on one of those computer magazines.


  • Expert Village.com: This brilliant website features amateur videos fo self-appointed experts from all walks of life for free. So much of stuff to learn that you'll be feeling like an idiot when you realize that it has beena around for some time. I found it out after a stupid argument with E-boi on how to play the jembe. There are 20 or so different videos with Jembe lessons here!

  • InsideHomeRecording.com: A website with brilliant podcasts featuring two professional musicians on Recording music at home. It has amazing content with reviews, how-tos, interviews of recording artists on a monthly basis. Obviously it's been around for a long time. It's very interesting to listen to to. And the quality of the recording make me feel like buying a condenser microphone.

  • G8 - collection of photographs: A random websearch on something led me to this amazing website featuring photographs which are so beautiful to look at that you will want to learn more about the art of photography. It's a collaborative website with contributions from many photographers.

Sivaji - the leader of Tamil Entertainment

After 2 weeks since it's release, I was ashamed of not having seen the biggest movie of the year in terms of Box-Office numbers. I'm talking about the Rajanikant movie Sivaji. I wanted to watch it in Aurora. But fate made me and E-boi watch it at an exorbitantly priced Rs. 200/- ticket at Metro Adlabs.



For the movie, it had everything that you expected out of a Rajni flicks. Gimmics, Surreal fights, Stupid dance sequences and a demi-godly attitdue of the protagonist. I should say that I didn't have too much fun. But being a South Indian, I had to watch it. And I did! It gets 1* for the way it is.

Jembe, Guitar Stand and Tambourines

Our collection of musical instruments is deemed to explode cuz When it comes to buying musical stuff, there is no one who could challenge us. Me and E-boi bought a jembe, a cheap 3-guitar guitar stand and Tambourines today evening and we went to Vikkie's place for our jam. WOW, now the prospect of acoustic recordings is great.

The Double-Bill's back

E-boi was away this weekend and I utilized his absence by going for movies alone. He had asked me to try and avoid that. I did that until 7.15 pm when I checked up the reviews for the movies. That made me impulsively do something that I love; going to movies alone. So I did. I went to the favorite movie double-bill. This was done with amazing alacriity, so charecteristic of me. Again, Sterling Cineplex.

What did I do? I took tickets for both the movies at the outset. The first movie was 'Queen' at 8.00 pm and 'The Epic Movie' at 10.15 pm.

'Queen': Simply Amaaaazing!



I didn't know about the movie before I saw the posters on the Times since the last week. Lots of signs representing awards etc. had convinced me to make it a point not to miss it. Helen Mirren is breathtaking. Screenplay is witty and entertaining. But most of all, it is about something that we've all heard a lot about. Yet we don't know the real version. Go watch it! Easily 4.5*!

It stretched a tad little further than the estimated 10.15 pm. So I jumped out of my seat as soon as the credits started appearing and ran to the next screen to watch what I expected to be a laugh-riot.



The Epic Movie: It was far from the laugh riot. Just because of the fact that there were a lot of scenes which were indigestible. I don't know why I should feel like that at this point of my life. The most disappointing thing is that the best scene is one in the trailer - regarding the Superman. I expected more. And therefore; just a single *.

The practice session at the X-ray clinic

Today was ultimately strange. Morning was traumatic with my professor insulting, purposefully, me and my co-registrar for not 'being upto the mark'. Fuck it. He's crazy everyone in Mumbai knows. The only problem was that the after-effect of that left me irritated at the OPD where I normally am quite cool.

Then, in the evening, after an hour of chatting with my latest online crush, I ended up at Vikkie's place for jam. Since his home was under re-furbishing (redesigning), we moved all of the stuff into the X-ray clinic across the corridor. Wow, it was nice fun. The room itself is nice with great acoutics. We didn't jam for long but how much ever we did, it sounded awesome.

After the jam, I was tired and was relieved to have a plate of plain rice and curd with my Mom's special 'chammanthi podi', a kind of dry chutney to be had with rice. I was planning to go to my books but a very delicious looking Scot (I mean a man from Scotland) ruined my plans as we chatted for about 1 hour on the internet.

Now I'm chatting regularly with three men - A Brit, A Scot and a US based, erstwhile Russian jew. All of them are interesting!

The movies that I slept off watching

Because of the weekend Alien marathon, for the last three days or so, I tried to watch movies which have been with me for some time now. This is the list.


  • Batman Begins
  • Batman and Robin
  • Superman Returns
  • Crank
  • Starship Troopers 1
  • Starship Troopers 2
  • City of Angels


This really doesn't mean that these movies are that bad. But I don't know. Either I'm too tired or they are not fun enough.

Ray's clairvoyance

It's been a long time since I posted about my friends. My justifying sense made me search for excuses for this behaviour. I could think of many clever ones for people like Chuck, May etc. But when it comes to Ray, I can't lie. His life is so interesting it makes my life look inert. And by his life I mean sex life.

The last time I posted about him, he was having this controversial emotional relationship with a guy who was insisting that being gay is sinful. Since then, apart from a host of cruising experiences in the buses and cinema halls of inland Kerala, he has had sex with two Dads from SilverDaddies.com and has had the most interesting of all 'hit-on's on the road.

SilverDaddies.com is such a life-changing event in our lives. Once Ray had to travel to another state to have sex with a senior who has a farm house. That even was far from satisfying.

The latest Dad from SilverDaddies.com is an authentic, cream of the crop, quintessential Mallu Dad who, justifiably demonstrating the amazingly blessed 'down-under' department, has 'named' himself as the organ which he is apparently famous for. His organ is so famous that he's a virtual 'call-man'. He gets calls from famous personalities and ministers, a few of whom I would die to have sex with. Or so he claims. I can't divulge any names here.

Coming to think of it, because he was narrating his past experiences to Ray whilst cuddling in between two episodes of passionate love-making, there is no real point in lying about it. What it does confirm that Kerala is full of men in lust of other men. Probably confirming the coastal state as the Ground Zero of gay sex in India.

If you are wondering what the title of this post is about, you'd have got a clue as to how he senses the opportunity to have a pass at anyone who's worth it. Someone else did the vice-versa on him. Picture this. This happened three weeks earlier on a wet evening at Cochin. Ray got out of a movie theatre and is waiting to cross the road to go to the bus stop. He has an umbrella and it's raining steady.

As he was about to step to the road, an elderly gentle man in dhoti/shirt and all, suddenly walks up and asks if Ray could help him cross the road dry under the umbrella. Ray says yes. If it were to be taken in a Hollywood flick, the rest of the scene would be in super slo-mo.

'Thanks for giving me a 'lift' under your umbrella. You have been nice to me.'

'It's not a big deal. I was just trying to help.'

'You are a handsome young man. If you don't mind I would love to suck you off sometime.'

'Uh.. wha..'

'Yes. Right now if you want it. We can go somewhere you know.'

The funny thing is that they are not yet even halfway across the 2 lane road they were supposedly crossing. The elderly gentleman decides to get a little physical.

He puts an arm around Ray's waist and says 'I want to do this now.'

'Errr, I'm not that sure.'

'No, don't say no. Please agree.' He presses harder.

Ray's dumbstruck. Fate's playing with him. All these years, he would do the same thing to get all the fantastic experiences that he's had. Now someone's hitting on him in the middle of the road.

The man grabs his hand and presses hard. Ray starts feeling uncomfortable.

They finally cross the road. And this man raises his voice. Ray is so scared that he decides it's better to go.

'I'm sorry. I'm not interested right now. Sorry.' and rushes to the bus parked at the stand.

WOW! This is why Kerala is the spot on India to start cruising!

Live Free or Die Hard OR Die Free after watching it


E-boi's outta town visiting a friend of his he always refers to as 'Didi' (meaning 'sister' for those who are not well-versed in Hindi). That meant that I didn't have anybody to go with for movies. I had tried my patience on Friday night and Saturday afternoon. On Saturday evening I sent out an SOS to Parry, Sandy etc. but no one was willing to join. My roomie, who is neck-deep in his USMLE preps, refrused as well.

Today afternoon, I had vowed to go watch Live Free or Die Hard. I had a lot of silly chores to wind up as well. Chores like buying Marvel Comics, going to the bank etc. Uhh well, sorry for passing the Marvel Comic thing up as a chore. I know it isn't. But still, it had to be done.

So after a careless nap watching the Alien 3 (about which I'll write elsewhere), I jumped out of bed, slapped my chest with both upper limps like a gorilla and screamed 'I wanna watch Die Hard.'. That didn't help convince my roomie though and I left alone. I like that actually.

In the process of reaching the Sterling Cineplex, I learnt a few lessons in life. One thing, I travelled in the Central lane south of Parel for the first time in my entire life... or so it seemed. It did seem a lot less congested and somehow easier to travel in (as compared to the Western line). Then came the lesson of a life time. Never, ever, get into the Fort ICICI branch on the 2nd of a month at 6.22 pm. I had to complete a transaction for my roomie. It took me, to the minute, 1 hour 13 minutes to set out of the bank after completing a lousy 30 grand pay-in transaction.

In the process, I ran out of battery on my Zen Micro, I ran out of patience again trying to outwit my own predictions as to when my number on the token is going to be announced. It was a heavy ordeal. Something totally unexpected. It also left me short of time to search for Marvel (Gotham) comics on Fashion Street. But I eventutally ended up buying a few old comics out of a store which seemed a lot smaller than the other shops.

At the cineplex (I love the name), I was greeted with pleasant surprise as I got a fantastic seat despite coming late; somebody wanted exchange for getting a pair of seats close by. And I was so happy to get into Screen 1 (the best screen by far at the Cineplex) and to find that it's an awesome seat.

The trailer of Transformer, for which I'm eagerly waiting for, set the tone. But the movie was fantabulous. Really! Screw Spidey, Fantastic Four, Jurassic Park etc. Bow to amazing special effects and animation! And to top it all, a very very funny script! The whole movie theatre was in raptures through out! To top it all, Bruce Willis!!!!

Even without the Bruce Willis in the equation this movie is 4 star. Maybe even 4.5 stars! Go watch it... cuz you can Die free after you watch it!

Alien Movie series - 1, 2 and 3

The Sunday shall never be wasted. I got up late enough to make any teenager proud of the feat. I didn't need to go to the wards. It was overcast and with sprinkles in between just to let Mumbai feel that it's not out of the monsoon's fury. I wanted to do something different. I thought I'll complete that song. But I felt lazy in the afternoon. Therefore, I decided to watch a movie. I ended up watching almost three.

I had this brilliant pirated DVD with the five parts of Alien and Two Starship Troopers movies. I didn't hope for too much. But hope is always something which ends up making itself worthless. Oh wow, I didn't mean to put the whole Oprah Winfrey fiasco down so badly!

So, I watched the entire part 1 and 2 without missing a single dialogue on my headphones. I loved them both. Seriously scary and concept-raising experience. The negative point of the movie is the negative portrayal of the alien and the apparent lack of motive for its actions. But still a great watch. I actually was very glad to find the reviews of the movies on RottenTomatoes.com standing by my judgement.







The third part was kinda lame but there were a lot of British Men to look at and listen to. So it's fine as well.

All in all Alien (Part 1) - 4*; Aliens (Part 2) - 4*, and Alien 3 - 3*.

Apart from that I tried a lot to progress in writing that song which I'm writing. I was really stuck at melody. But by late night, I was having a lot of ideas without connecting pieces. I've recorded it all. But I don't know when I'll complete it.

My New Song

It's called my new song. I wrote it after I got inspired totally listening our jam sessions. Man, we really sounded tight. Especially me and e-boi. VN was singing amazngly well for a first practice session.

About the actual song, I don't know what made me write this. Or rather, I don't want to know why I wrote this. Here it is.

_new_song

I was walking down the street in search of what I wasn't sure of
I looked around and saw a huge swarm of people all around me
Of every possible colour, age, race and religion but
Almost everyone seemed to be frozen a state of emotion

If I were able to freeze the time and take a look at
Why, oh why, do we get so carelessly stuck
To our own end, priding our own self and
fly high and lonely on our own hot-air-head-baloon

It must be so cold there
Don't you feel alone there

I know it's not easy
But its worth a try
Try coming back here
Believe me, it's worth a try

It might make you feel like you are precious
But hey, its a pretense, its almost deception
You are so high that it is so hard to see
The bottomless pit that you are staring right at

Like this cold and cloudy autum morning
We're all clothed in different shades of gray and false-glory
Let yourself free like drops of rain and let the
Warmth of the sunshine find its way back to the open

It must be so cold there
Don't you feel alone there

I know it's not easy
But its worth a try
Try coming back here
Believe me, it's worth a try


Initial reviews suggested a good song. I have a riff to it as well. Lets see how things go.

The amazing practice session

Wow, Wednesdays are looking better as each week goes by. Despite me being groggy and stuff, we end up practicing like crazy and today's session was a great one. I have a recording and I'm yet to listen to it. Oh wow, I'm inspired. Finally my musical career is showing signs of going forward!

The conversations with Parry

It's been over a months since I went to Xander's for a jam. Now if you are wondering why I'm even contemplating that, even I'm not sure. The one thing that seems certain is that Shade is not going to work out practicable. Xander is obviously a 'differently abled' singer/songwriter predisposed to episodes of extreme drunkenness. The relationships between Xander and me & Xander and E-boi will keep on fluctuating like the the climate of London.

So that's the reason why me and E-boi have shamelessly, in super-stealth mode almost, started a new band with Vicky without even informing our previous jam/band buddies. Some might feel that this is creepy. It is even creepier to realize that the person typing this belongs to one amongst the 'some'.

So, when Xander or Parry calls, I pretend to act as if nothing has changed. Maybe they will get to understand that something is going over at the other end. Now the official excuse is that my bass amplifier is blown. Even if it were to be operational, we would still be 'recording' 'Severity' at E-boi's place.

You might get the gist of all this. I'm unhappy with this feigning. Why can't we, like in comics, go right up to each other and explain that we don't exactly gel in jamming and musical ideas. Oh yeah, I know why we can't. Because life isn't like a comic book. Forget like. There's not even one mutant detected. Forget Spiderman, Fantastic Four etc. Sorry for going overboard on my Marvel addiction!

Even today I had a talk with Parry. About 20 minutes of generic talk on how things are going on in the world, what I'm shopping, why Parry is feeling like his muscles are getting atrophied and stuff. But we didn't ask each other if either of felt not jamming was okay. Oh! Men and our clandestine ways!

And the news is that Parry is finally moving over with Xander! Whoa!

Stolen - Dashboard Confessional

E-boi might still rant about how 'Pop'ish this song/video is. But still, I love it. I still claim that I think Dashboard Confessional and Chris Carabba are the American version of The Stereophonics and Kelly Jones. Maybe it's a little understatment in overrating. Whatever! Check these awesome videos out!





Also, I've been thinking that if I could somehow time-encapuslate blogposts with music, that would make a lot of sense. I mean, my life is 33% music, 33% emotions and 33% actual life. So if I capture the 66.67% in this little blog, I could recollect it pretty well in the future. Any way that we can do it?

Monday dinner

Today, me and my roomie, whom I would refer to as 'Vishy' went for a dinner at our local bar/restaurant. It was a nice meal actually meaning the food was good. We talked a lot about music, my life, the I Pod that he's about the bring, emigrating to the US and stuff.

In between, the topic of marriages, arranging them and her fiance came up. Then he opened up saying that there are christian nursing students in the hospital who are interested in me. In fact, he promised me to take me on a double-date with this particular lady who has a crush on me to a disco and stuff.

Oh, how urged did I feel to come out of the closet to him. Then I thought, as Dr. T always tells me, you don't need to Kris.

Shopping on a wet wet Sunday

For a long long time, I've been keeping chorese for tomorrow. That tomorrow finally came. On a wet, wet Sunday, when the skies opened up and shut up with the regularity of bulletins on Headlines Today channel, I walked all the way up to Dadar market and bought the following.


  • A study lamp
  • A sexy table lamp with shade
  • 3 Curtains and all the stuff needed to hang curtains.
  • A table fan
  • Marvel Comics - 5 of them
  • Navi Mumbai - Road Guide
  • Hot Wheels - Ferrari car model with suspension
  • Toileteries


Along with that I had wonderful afternoon meal with Fish Fry at Madeena.

In the evening, e-boi came down before part 2 of our shopping to jam a little bit of Snow Patrol and Dashboard Confessional over amazing Beef Burgers from the Mama Mia.

Classic, Classic weekend!

Another jam session

The jam session at Vicky's featured a touted guitarist from their office. But why does everything bad in my life feel like a Fantastic Four movie? The guitarist was so hyped that we expected far too much. The actual situation was that he wasn't even able to play basic chords and keep in time. He provided with a lot of irritating distraction for jamming. Otherwise, the jam session was good.

Especially after I learned the bass for When I come around and Speed of Sound properly. I now have confirmed that I believe in this band and it's future more than that of Shade.

Breaking and Entering - !

With the Red Swastik, Fool 'N Final, Pirates - 3 and FF - 2, E-boi was suspecting that our splendid series of watching only good movies was fast fading away. We were so disappointed with watching that stupid Fantastic Four movie that we felt like getting rid of the curse immediately.

Although anything would appear better than Fantastic Four-Rise of the Silver Surfer in terms of quality in movies, Breaking and Entering provided us with more than just a good movie. It was a small capsule of the daily emotional strife of metro life without no aftertaste which drove away all the acidity caused by the aforementioned comic sequel.



Jude Law was hot. So was his friend. The screen play was catchy. E-boi liked the female counterparts. What I loved in the movie most was the they portrayed basic instincts of a teenager, a mother and a bored middle-aged man perfetly well.

Four stars!

Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer

Marvel Comics! I have crazily posted about how cool the Marvel Comics are and how exciting it is for me to watch a Marvel Comic movie. Therefore, today morning, when I got up, there was a shine on my face.

No, I was not smiling in front of a mirror after chewing a HappyDent White chewing gum (referring to the wonderful ad that's on the TV these days).



Just that I was so excited to realize that F4:RotSS was being released today. And as usual, I picked up my morning Times and went through the listings. I rang up E-boi once I finished. He wasn't free early evening. Therefore, I decided to go for a 7.45 show at the Sterling Cineplex. I called Sandy as well as it had been a long time since we met. She agreed as well.

My routines were over early evening. I had to visit the Musician's Mall to pay one of the installments of my bass guitar. I drove all the way on a fantastic Mumbai evening with all shades of colour in the sky. I really felt like taking photographs. But I didn't.

At the Mall, I checked out an amazing Variax Acoustic guitar from Line6. It can play custom tones of 14 different guitars with customizable presets. Add to that, the ability to tune to any possible tuning. I was very surprised when the guitar player at the shop gave me an invite for the bassy in his band. Apparently their bassy had quit and they wanted someone like me. The only problem with me being that I won't be able to tour all over India in the coming months as they had a tour in view.



Then came the Ultimate disappointment. The movie. I still remember that I was so hopeful of what I was about to watch as I kicked myself for missing a turn on the way to the movie hall from the Mall which eventually delayed my arrival by 10 minutes. Alas!

This post was actually meant to be a satirical one. But then I ran into this Rolling Stone video movie review which just beat me at the satire part. Hence, I'm just going to put up a link to it. Watch it and you'll understand why the line 'Remember, you have a choice.' makes so much sense.

And for the people who can't watch the video, here's the text review.
Rise of the Silver Surfer is the perfect summer movie, that is if you're eight years old or under. For the rest of us, the sequel to the first Fantastic Four that miraculously amassed more than $150 million in 2005, is a plotless, brainless, witless bore. It's not egregiously awful like the first film. Just plain awful in that formula way that kills your spirit and all hope for summer movies.

This time the Fan Four -- if you need their origin stories just Google them for pity's sake -- are out to stop the evil Galactus from destroying the Earth. Jeez, aren't they always? The Silver Surfer is the new wrinkle -- he's sent by Galactus to give Earth a head's up. Go figure. There are two sleek, shiny special effects: Jessica Alba falling off a building naked (OK, you don't see much, the flick is rated PG) and the Silver Surfer himself -- the computers designed him as the coolest surfing trophy ever. The rest goes quickly to rust. With all due apologies to the Marvel Comic that started in the 1960s, the Four hardly cut it as Fantastic onscreen.

Let me ask you: what is there about these F4 flicks that turns good actors into rank amateurs. Take Ioan Gruffudd, the Welsh newcomer who was so impressive this year in Amazing Grace. He's stiff as the Surfer's board in the role of Reed Richards -- Mr. Fantastic to you -- the workaholic brainiac who can stretch anything except his talent. Even on his wedding day to Sue Storm (that's Alba) -- The Invisible Woman to you -- he's more into designing the Fantasticar. Talk about your eight-year-old mentality. Alba, who has one playful scene in which she makes a zit on her forehead invisible, has more chemistry with Chris Evans as The Human Torch, which is a little creepy since Evans (named the third hottest body of the year on Gay.com) plays Sue's brother Johnny Storm. That leaves Michael Chiklis -- Emmy winner for The Shield -- to play a brick wall named Ben Grimm. Everyone calls him The Thing. I call it stupid to bury an actor with Chiklis's chops in brick latex. Kerry Washington is back as the blind sculptress who has a thing for The Thing. And so is Nip/Tuck's Julian McMahon as the dastardly Doctor Doom.

But it's hard to imagine you or anyone out of grade school giving a damn about the lame shenanigans director Tim Story keeps throwing at the screen in the hope that something will stick. In truth, one line from the Surfer (voiced by Laurence Fishburne, no less) has stayed with me. "Remember you have a choice," his silver tongue intones. If you get the choice to see Rise of the Silver Surfer, by all means choose to stay home.


A single star? Or does it need one even? How about just one Sun? ;)

Dharm the movie




Every now and then, Bollywood dishes out, another classic. Namesake, Parzania, Black Friday etc. and now Dharm. It is so wonderful to watch that I couldn't help but believe what people were doing with stuff like Red Swastik, Raqeeb and the worst, Fool 'N Final.

I'm not going to give any spoilers. It's about Hindu-Muslim communal violence in the heart of Hindu land, Benares. How the story evolves is for you to watch. But Pankaj Kapoor and all the other actors really do a wonderful job. Pankaj Kapoor did look a lot sexy to me from my point of view.

The coolest part of the movie is the cinematography. Every shot is worth capturing on a DSLR camera. Really it is.

Go watch it!

3.5 to 4 star!

Fool 'N Final - Finally Fooled

Should all Mondays go with a movie or something of that sort? Today, I had sternly decided that I wasn't going to watch any movie. But then the persistent coaxing of E-boi and tempting ticket rates at Premiere lured me into one of the darkest periods of movie history.



Fool 'N Final is despicable. Apart from Paresh Rawal antics, nothing, and I repeat - NOTHING is good. Johnny Lever's rendition of a Malabari keralaite is better than anything other than Rawal in the movie, but by goodness, that sucks even!

I watched the movie without shut eye not to miss the Paresh Rawal shots. Something about him gives me hots. Maybe the bhaiya accent. Maybe the hirsute. Maybe the Seth look. I don't know. All those son's out there, what's hot with this Daddy?




A patient has a crush on me - I'm doomed

Get this. Yesterday, I got a phone call (as usual) from one of my old patient's relative (actually, her sister). She says that she needs to meet me and talk to me about the patient. I say 'Fine, lets meet tomorrow. I'll be there at so and so ward at so and so time. You can talk to me then'.

Today morning, almost by noon, this lady turns up and says that the patient is doing fine. She had severe form of Osteomalacia with bilateral femoral neck fractures and was bed ridden for a long time. I was in charge of this patient more than 1 and half years back and had not been in follow up of the patient. So I ask around and say that patient could be given physiotherapy to improve the condition.

Blah, blah, blah. Cut the crap. Get to the point.

'Doctor, if you wouldn't mind... if you wouldn't take in the wrong way...'.

'No, I wouldn't.' I'm half curious and half anxious.

'Please, go on.'

'You promise me that you wouldn't tell it to anyone else.'

'That's why we take that oath for!' I muttered.

'Actually, she likes you very much. In fact, she's in love with you'.

I caught hold of the proverbial railing on the side of the staircase by the side of which we were standing to catch myself from falling. 'That's okay. I hope she gets better. Tell her that she would become better'.

'Would you like to meet her?'

'No. Yes.. yeah, when you bring her for physiotherapy, if I'm free, I'll come and meet her.'

'But still what should I tell her?'.

I don't reply. I pretend to ignore.

'So we'll meet later. I've to meet some other patients now. Bye.'

And I walk away.

I break the oath the moment I find my colleagues inside the office. I break the story and everybody is amused and suddenly I feel ashamed of breaking the oath. Why the fuck did I do that. Besides, none of those who I broke the news to are my close friends. What was the point of doing that? Stupid me!

Sanjay Gandhi National Park


This had to be the craziest thing which we have done. We had been planning to visit the Sanjay Gandhi National Park in north Mumbai for over two months now. This weekend was not going to happen because we had plans for both the evenings of Saturday and Sunday.

Therefore, we took it easy on Sunday. I got up leisurely almost close to noon. Immediately I got a call from E-boi saying that the jam at Vicky's home was cancelled as Vicky was busy with something. In a split second, we agreed to go to SGNP.

I rode to E-boi's place and by about 2 pm we started. The ride to the proverbial 'lungs' of Mumbai, which is often compared to the Hyde Park of London and the Central Park of Manhattan, was cool excepting a little stretch of 2 km north of Malad. I was so impressed with the Eastern Express Highway and the Jogeshwari Vikhroli Link Road. The junction of the two is possibly the coolest looking junction in India. It's like an 8 lane road joining 10 lane road with a fly-over and you could see about a kilometer in all directions!

Anyway, we reached the park by about 3.15 pm and were pleasantly surprised to find out that motorvehicles are permitted inside the park. It was getting late and we had to get out by 6.30 pm.

We headed straight to the 'Lion/Tiger' safari which was fantastic. It is actually a disappointily short bus ride across arid, dry landscaped enclosures for lions and tigers. The tigers were visibly beaten by the heat of the afternoon and were laying down for tiger naps. There were three including an albino. This was the first time after my little affair with Mr. Lion that I was seeing tigers up so close. Probably because of the unkemptness of the whole thing, I wasn't amused as much as I had expected myself to.

The Lion enclosure, or the lair, was a much better spectacle. The mane of the lion really makes them appear proud and contended as compared to the tigers. There were two lions (or lionesses; I still can't pick them up from a distance) which were hanging out by the side of the narrow dirt-track. That made us for great camera snaps which E-boi gobbled up using his Sony Ericsson 810i. After that, we did some trekking and took some nice photographs of Powai and the Mumbai landscape from on top a hill inside the park.

The ride back was the coolest. It was like driving through a foreign land esepcially that bit of road connecting the Jogeshwari Vikhroli link road to the Eastern Express Highway.

The movie double bill

Friday must mean a couple of movies these days.

Ocean's 13: is not simply breathtaking because of all the Clooneys, Pacinos and Pitts in there. It is fast, intelligent, sophisticated and funny. Although it gets a little repetitive (11 and 12), I still enjoy the blue-collar theft/burglary they carry out. The amazing plan (which unfolds) through out the movie and an amazingly laid back classy soundtrack keeps you entertained throughout. 3.5 to 4 stars.




The second one was not necessarily by intention. E-boi didn't want to watch the movie. It was a grade B Hindi porn movie. Dressed up.

The Red Swastik: The posters always give me a nice guide to what to expect. But this one's fooled me. I expected a better story and screen play. There is a lot of nude skin on this with an almost funny (unintentionally so) story. I kept on laughing throughout the movie. I have to say that it is quite bad. 1 star.

The fantastic Acoustic Bass

I played an acoustic Greg Bennet, the erstwhile Samick, a Korean company which makes guitar at Furtados today. It was breathtaking. The first time I played any acoustic bass guitar ever. We (me and E-boi) tried the guitar with some AiC songs of their fantastic unplugged.

I felt like buying it. Impulsively. But I didn't have money. Neither will I have money to do such feats in the near future.

Day Extraorinaire

Today was the starting day of Palm Expo 2007 where a drum clinic by drumming great Gregg Bisonette was about to take place. Sumit and VN were supposed to make it. I finished up quickly at the hospital (purposefully) and departed on my rickety scooty along the Western Express Highway.

I reached there very quickly. Wow! The NSE is absolutely big! The stalls were amazing. Everything about sound and cinema from capreting for floors to custom made acoustic guitars were there. Of course, there were the rival stalls from Furtados and Musician's Mall. Both of them featured an amazing guitar range. MM had a gig thing going on. I thought that the bands were kinda shitty.

The drumming clinic though was awesome. Greg was funny, intelligent and really inspiring.

What came about after that was the extraordinaire part...

E-boi, who was literally 2 hours late, and I, decided to head to Powai to meet one of our old friends. We went to Powai had Mallu food and went to Hiranandani complex and played bowling at the mall.

Surprisingly, I won clean! With two strikes and three spares! I was clearly 50 odd points in front!

Then, we came back all the way down the Eastern Express highway. I dropped E-boi at his home and came to my hospital.

That's like travelling the whole of Mumbai in one evening!

The new band

I don't know why I've been so late in posting about this. Over the last few weeks there have been less personal posts. That's why. I've not been getting enough time. The heat of Mumbai is draining all energy.

Whatever the excuse is. But E-boi had a ruffle with Xander about a month back. And he called his colleague from office Vicky for jamming. This happened before E-boi shifted apartments to the fantastic new apartment in Chembur. Ever since then, we've been doing steady progress at forming a new band with VN on vocals and guitars.

It's been a month or more since I jammed with Xander. I've met him a few times though in between.

Nowadays, we're assembling every piece of gear that we have at Vicky's place for jamming and recording. We are even harbouring plans to soundproof the room so that our long-term band plans materialize.

This seems so unreal. Really. About a month back, another month after all that stupid tension after the apartment thing, I'm moved so far away from my initial dream of forming a band with Xander. Now, I'm already in another band. Well, not really. But almost.

Actually, the first jam session at Vicky's was a disaster. I blew up my bass amp which has gone for repair. We also managed to blow up a guitar processor adaptor.

Today was the second official jam session at his place. Today things were much better and for the first time ever, I feel like we're progressing on our way in realizing the dream.

Dr. T's father's ailment

Dr. T. is on leave for a few days from the hospital. She's tending to her father who's ill and is admitted in a private hospital for Prostatectomy. He's a diabetic and a Renal transplant patient who also went into acute renal failure. The stress related to all this is really cracking her up. She talks in a strange way. I get to talk to her once or twice and week and try to listen to all that she has to say. I want to meet her but then apparently she doesn't have time for that. I hope that her Dad becomes a'ight.

The Ultra-heavy emergency

Today's emergency went like a F1 race. Fast. I couldn't remember anything. All I can recollect is that I'm, as usual, trying extra hard, to run a municipal hospital's Orthopaedic emergency as efficient as it could possibly be. This is almost futile because what happens is that I work extra thus giving room for the servants and the other staff to relax.

Needless to say that I enjoy doing it; or else, I wouldn't be doing it in the first place. What it does is that it makes me so tired the next day that the day is of no meaning to me.

G - spots on the guitar

Some things that E-boi sometimes tells me to get me irritated does good for me. The other day, when I was playing a Dave Matthews Band riff, he said I can't still play the 'So Much To Say' riff. That's it. I wanted to prove him wrong by learning it. I did that in a jiffy. It came so easily.

And I love it. It is simply amazing how people like Dave Matthews and John Mayer find the G-spots for riffs on the guitar.

The snare stand and the first jam session

Today was a Monday, meaning pre-emergency. I and e-boi had loads of plans. The only problem is that on an extremely humid and sunny Mumbai afternoon, we rode all the way from the north to South to back North of Mumbai in search of a new hi-hat stand.

As usual, we were short of money, but wanted to buy the world. So we went to the Musician's Mall. Mr. Bharghava, a demi-god for me at least, granted his mercy to us poor brethren once more. On a loan of more than 10 grand, he gave us a cymbal (brand new, Sabian set and a hi-hat stand).

Excited, although understated, were we when we finally started asssembling the set in E-boi's hot-oven of an apartment. And by 10 pm we finished.

The feel of the drum sticks hitting the skin-heads was amazing. That too after about 3 years. For E-boi it must have meant something like heaven. It's been alomst 4 years since he touched a drum set.

We jammed some songs with me altenating on guitars and bass. Oh, I can't control my excitement.

Cheeni Kum

Cheeni Kum at the first go was spoilt by Xander and his chest pain. Today, after hanging out at E-boi's apartment, in the midst of shifting mess, we three (us and E-boi's brother) went to the amazingly cool Fun Republic to watch the amazing Cheeni Kum.

Tabu is simply fantabulastic. The screenplay is fresh and riveting through out. Amitabh Bacchan, as I've always thought, was a little too over the board in dialogue delivery. But he's so much better than the old generation actors like Dharmendra with the fuck-all fake teeth. The oh-so-controversial 'Sexy' character is also nice. I don't think that it is a social injustice to label a 10 year old female childe 'sexy'. It is dark and it is intelligentl so.

Loved the movie hard core. 3.5 to 4 stars.

Shifting Rooms

Today (actually yesterday night) I started shifting to my new room. It feels so great to find some space, both figuratively and literally. This new room is on the 3rd floor as opposed to the one on the 1st floor now. It's airy and more spacious and less dusty.

I think I've found a good roomie as well. I'll refer to him as BG. He's a bengali psychiatry resident and has a sophisticated way about things. Apart from our common interest in computers, internet, books, movies, WorldSpace etc., he seems like a nice guy. A drastic change from all the previous roomies that I've ever had.

I've shifted about 1/2 of my stuff excluding clothes and computer. I'm looking forward to a nice year with this guy.

Oh and by the way, T. has many a time admitted that she's in love with BG's good looks. He's actually cute. But already engaged and therefore, very straight!

Raqeeb - I'll kill myself for this

I don't know why I ventured out to watch the next one in line at New Empire. The only reason that I could still think of is the fact that Rahul Khanna, my favoritest MTV VJ, was there donning the lead role. The reviews online raved about a modern murder mystery with suspense till the last.

My opinion about the movie is simple. Rahul Khanna doesn't know how to act or how to deliver dialogue. I felt like I was in 1978 when I understood the plot as it unravelled. The editing, directing and cinematography was idiotic. The story was faltoo. And the suspense which was supposed to come up last didn't come up at all. Instead, there was a lot of goofiness in the last few minutes which made me (and a few others in the movie theatre) laugh.

After all the killing for the day, I felt like slaying myself... I give a 1 out of 5 for the movie.

Ek Chaalis Ki Last Local - Bloody Entertaining


Today morning, I was still tired after the weekend jam session at E-boi's place. I tried to pull myself up by putting on, for the first time in what seems like forever, tailored trousers. I thought I looked good in them. The only problem was that I was not able to feel the tightness on my waist which has increased from 30 to 32+ over the last year, and therefore, they always seemed like slipping down. But I looked at myself in a full length mirror. They are pretty damn good.

The morning routine at the hospital was mundane as usual and I was relieved to be relieved by early afternoon. My present roomie, who has joined as my senior in the unit, did have some irritating comments during the pre-round discussion but still I was in a good mood.

After my lunch over the first 15 minutes of the hilarious 'Another Gay Movie', I decided to sit down and study. It was afternoon and I had had a heavy lunch. It didn't last for too long and I was somnolent in about 15 minutes into the session. All that I tried didn't prove to be enough and I had to fall back on my routine pre-emergency plan of watching back to back movies.

New Empire Cinema saved the day yet again for me. It was running 'Ek Chaalis Ki Last Local'. Despite the bad reviews in the dailies, I felt like watching. Just to reaffirm my hunch, I'd looked up the reviews on the internet and was very happy to read positive reviews, one of which ended like this; 'If you loved Bheja Fry, you will like this.'

As usual no spoilers. The movie is a dark comedy highlighting the clandestine ongoings in the city of Mumbai. Although there is a lot of fun in the script, it fails to rise upto the whacky levels of Bheja fry. The movie has nice twists and turns and is fun to watch. Although I must warn you, there is a lot of blood and killing in the movie... a bit like Pulp Fiction.

All in all 3.5 stars out of 5!

Chest pain de la Xander

During the interval of 'Shootout', E-boi had this idea of seeing another movie. What else could be better than a movie featuring the Big B (Amitabh Bacchan), Tabu and Paresh Rawal running at a theatre across the road from my hospital with tickets at 80 Rs. for upper stall and which is 2 minutes of walking from the theatre showing Shootout. Too tempting it seems. It actually is. Or was.

Because we took that option. The only problem was that Parry called me up and said that Mr. Xander was having some chest pain since evening. So we were not sure whether to go or to help him in case he needs to go to the hospital. So I rang Xander up.

He seemed to be drunk or getting there. I asked about the pain and stuff, the usual history taking for doctors. To be frank, I was alarmed to understand that his chest pain looked like angina, the chest pain due to ischemia of heart, or in more common terms, a pre-heart-attack. But that's about it. Nothing else was positive in the history. I concluded that he needed an ECG. I suggested that he come over to my hospital as fast as he can. He said that he thought he was okay. I persisted. He insisted that he was not going to come out of the apartment.

I knew there was no way we could do anything about it. I asked him to call him if he feels so.

So we went to Cheeni Kum. 20 minutes into the very entertaining first half, we got calls from Parry. I replied with SMS saying that I'm busy. E-boi didn't hung up once saying that we wer at the movie. We got more calls and we kept on not picking up. Apparently, Xander's pain was increasing. And Parry wanted us to see if we could do something.

Irritated, Parry sent me an SMS 'Bye guys. We will meet at Xander's funeral.' I again didn't know what to do. E-boi didn't want to come to Xander's place after the last weekend when apparently Xander insulted him a lot. I decided to get out of the movie and ring up Xander.

When I did that, it turned out to be that Xander's pain was increasing gradually. I thought I would go and see if I could get him to the hospital. When I reached the apartment Xander opened the door. He was looking alright. I checked his pulse which was steady. I asked him to dress up so that we could go reach the hospital quickly.

He did that. I was not sure if I should take him as a pilion rider on my scooter. Xander said it was fine. So we rode to the hospital in double quick time. Once inside, I got his Xray Chest and ECG done and everything was normal. It turned out to be some muscular pain which was relieved by a strong pain killer shot.

Soon Parry joined us and we had dinner. Another uncomfortable one though. I really don't know whether I did the right thing by choosing to go for a movie when my friend was in distress. On the other hand, is there anything wrong with doing ignoring an almost the almost-somatization disorder in a near-life-wreck? Maybe too strong words, but this is how I felt.

I got this SMS which meant a lot 'The relationship which need a lot of effort to maintain are not true and those relationships which are true don't need to be maintained with effort.' It isn't all that poetic and deep. But it makes a hell lot of sense to me.

Shootout at Lokhandwala


Today, the day started with an early morning surgery. I had to disarticulate the arm at the shoulder of a young male patient who had sustained a rail trafic accident. The surgery finished by 7 AM and I had enough time to read my newspaper while sipping coffee in the early morning sunshine at the mess.

After I showered and got dressed, I headed straight to the Operation Theatre. There I was informed that I was not supposed to wash up for surgeries as there were adequate hands. Instead, I was supposed to take rounds. I was doing that when I was called to assist another surgery.

I obliged and was happy to be assisting a relatively common spine surgery, done by someone who everyone looked up to. As I was washing up, I remembered my conversation with E-boi earlier on in the morning. He had asked me to arrange for tickets to Shootout at Lokhandwala. I asked a very faithful servant if he could do the job for me; a ticket for two at the second show at the nearby theatre.

It was the First Day of this mega blockbuster movie. I didn't have any hopes of getting tickets before the show. To my utter surprise, the servant said yes and as I was washing out of the surgery, he brought me tickets. But he did flash the news item all over the OT; 'Kris is going for a movie with a date.' he had said.

I looked at the tikets and was alarmed to see that it was for the first show and not the second. I immediately rang up e-boi and told him that there was a change of plans. He said he'll still make it.

Therefore, after my afternoon OPD, after a liesurely cup of coffee at the Tata Memorial Hospital OPD watching the Indian batsmen winding up a day of 'whacking' of the Bangladeshi bowlers, I headed to the theatre. It was almost housefull by the time I reached.

E-boi came on time and we were happy to have decided to come for this show.

Once it began, everything fell apart. Yes! Including the thousands of bullets and the building complex at Lokhandwala, everything fell apart. Bad direction, screenplay and songs. Everything about the movie was bad. Except probably the fact that it was a piece of history. I felt educated about that bit.

Also, Sanjay Dutt was amazingly sexy! Whoa! What a role he had! And what big hands does he have! Oh my goodness, I can't even think of the possibilities.

Engayging Life has moved to WordPress

Engayging Life has fully moved to WordPress

Yes, I am alive and I'm still blogging. Regularly. But on WordPress because offers an easier workflow for me. Here is a selection of wh...