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.

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...