The first day and night

The reason why we had chosen 21st as the date for our meeting was because of a 'Noise Market' gig which was coming up on the 23rd of March, 2008. Vinokur couldn't make it earlier. I didn't want him to miss the gig. 22nd would have been on the eve of the gig and we didn't want to risk anything on that date. So as usual, we had our practice session in the evening. I was totally energized by his presence. And probably as a side effect, we were doing good.

I had woken up late (at around 10 AM) and had found him smiling at me. I asked him when he had woken up; we had another session of amor before hitting the sack. He said he had woken up many hours ago and was trying to make something to eat. He had eaten an apple or two and had some chocolate ice cream that I had bought. He was not feeling all that well and wanted to sleep and get used to the new time schedule. I wanted us to venture out into the open and do some shopping and stuff. But he didn't want to do it. He said that he was feeling shaky and it was too hot.

Then the maid came. We had to dress up . Then, I introduced her to Vinokur. She was visibly surprised that my friend had turned out to be a handsome geront. She made some dishes for us and then left. I loitered around for a few more hours with him. We weren't involved in any intelligent conversation I remember. We discussed about the journey, how fortunate we were etc. He said that the house was lovely and that he thinks he'll get used to living here pretty soon. The only thing that he wanted was an internet connection which would set his world right. I already had an internet connection with Sahaab's laptop attached to it. To get his Macbook, we needed to install a router. We put that off for until the gig.

He had taken another set of pills in the morning hours hoping to catch some sleep. But that hadn't worked out. Just before I left for practice, he demanded me to get him a strip of the blue pills. He would try to sleep after taking two of those pills and would only want to be awakened after I came home. I decided that it was the only way out of the situation and gave him a pill. I asked him not to repeat the dosage until I came at least. I also asked him to not venture out of the house because he might lock himself out. He found it difficult to dial numbers and therefore, I dialled my mobile number on the land line so that he could use the redial function and call me in need. After all, I'd only be gone for a few hours.

During the practice most of the time, my mind was with him. I was wondering how he was doing. Was he still sleepy and groggy? Would he have eaten something? Would he injure himself by stumbling on something in the small cramped apartment with all the bags lying on the floor? Would he take more pills and knock himself out? I was freaking out. But I still kept my composure.

When I came back home, it was a rush of emotions; fear, hope, expectation, worry. I was glad to find the kitchen light on (I had turned of all the lights) before I left. I unlocked the door and I called out his name. No answer. Once more. No answer. Oh boy, what am I going to do! I kicked out the shoes and rushed in and unlocked the door. I found him lying on the bed with his shorts on sleeping peacefully. He was breathing alright! He had tried to get his ipod out to listen. He had got his earplugs on. The clothes were lying on the floor. The kitchen had an unfinished bowl of grapes, a glass of orange juice, a few crumbs of cake on the floor and the refrigerator door was ajar. I was glad and relieved that he had eaten something and had slept. His dentures were both lying on the floor by the bed.

Then I saw the strip of pills by the side of his bed. Out of the strip of 7, 5 had gone! He had taken three more! I was frightened at the prospect of overdosage. As I was getting into bed, he woke up and looked at me and said. 'Oh honey, I'm so happy that you are back. I had a terrible time trying to sleep. I tried eating something. But nothing would put me to sleep.' I kissed him on his lips and said, 'It's alright Allie, I'm back now'. We spent some time talking about what had happened. Apparently, he was getting bored and couldn't find anything to do in the apartment to keep himself engaged. He had tried reading the NYTimes on the laptop but couldn't figure out how to browse to another page. He had tried to ring me up but the phone didn't work.

I knew that he was not well. I knew that he was showing symptoms like those he showed after the fall at the supermarket a week back. I asked him to move out of bed and to walk. He was not able to walk properly. He was stumbling. I thought that it was due to the extra doses of the drug he took. He seemed to think that it was because of the suddent shift of places and time. He also attributed it to the side effect of the injection that he had been taking. I asked him if he wanted something to eat. He said no. I decided to eat the food that the maid had made and I said he should try it out. I finally agreed to have a little.

I warmed up a couple of plates of rice and daal (pulse) and the sabji (vegetable side dish). We sat at the table on which the laptop was kept. I noticed that he was finding it difficult to feed himself. He was spilling the stuff and was not able to get food into his mouth. He wasn't able to drink water of a glass easily. And on top of it all, he seemed distracted and had a blank expression on his face. He didn't eat much and after we finished, I put the dishes away.

He went back into bed. I undressed and joined him and we hugged and kissed. He said that he was not in a great mood for sex or anything. I loved the feeling of his warmth by me. He smelled like heaven. I stroked his arms and legs and slowly but surely we both were getting turned on. Soon we were like two teenage kids grunting and moaning. I was 'deflowered' in the same act and I loved it! Vinokur had his way of making love and he won hands down in the love department.

He and I were both tired at the end of it all. It was close to 5 AM and as I switched off the lights, he said he wanted more of the blue pills. I said no. I said that it was too much of a dose for anyone to take in a single day. He said there was no other way. He wouldn't sleep if he didn't have it. He said that there is nothing that he could do at the apartment while I slept and therefore, I had to agree to give him the dose. I knew I was doing something wrong. But I didn't have an option and we agreed to try and decrease the dosage in the coming days as and when he got used to India and he had more things to do (like browsing on the computer).

We drifted off to sleep hugging each other... I never wanted to be anywhere else but in his arms!

The day of union

The expectation was so high. I thought I was acting supercool. The day was crazy and started off with Mr. Flintstone installed a new A/C in the living room. I also learned from Mr. and Mrs. Flitstone that the little party that I had with Sahaab and R. the night before had elicited comments and raised eyebrows of the neighbors. For their defence, we had the windows open and we were laughing and joking around too loud. Then there were a string of people like electricians, carpenters who did all the minor glitches at home. I wanted the home to be as good as it could get for Vinokur. By 7 pm, despite me not getting even a single call from him from the flight (He had promised to ring me up twice from the aeroplane because of the state of health that he was in), I was still within my elements. The 'extras' had just left. With sawdust on the floor and the house smelling putrid, I decided to clean it up myself with the help of S. who I ran into in the locality. I was buying some fresh fruits for Vinokur.

With commendable efforts from both of us, we finished cleaning by 8.30 pm. The flight was supposed to land at 9.40. I was supposed to be at the airport much earlier. I started from home at 9.00 pm sharp. I was wearing one of the T-shirts that Vinokur bought me which said 'I love DR'. I was wearing the perfume that he had gifted me and one of the Skullies that he had sent me. This was all decided though. At 9.20 pm, stuck in the traffic jam near the Mumbai international airport, I decided to try his mobile number. He answered!

I was startled and excited and relieved at the same time. He said that the flight had touched down at around 9.00 pm and he was running about with the paperwork. I was ashamed to be late and I said that I would reach him in 10 minutes which I did. I sent S. and Ray messages announcing his arrival. As I got out the autorickshaw at the airport, I wasn't believing that this was happening. 8 months of love. The first time in my life. The biggest fucking moment in my life. I'm going to see him for the first time.

I didn't pick him. He picked me. It was all so sudden. I heard a muffled 'Kris' and then I saw this figure, which I adored, running down the ramp and hugging me. He smelled wonderful. He was wearing a check shirt, jeans, slip-on brown shoes and spectacles. I don't remember what I said. Something foolish like 'Wow, I didn't expect you to be early!' I was still in control. Not too excited. I really couldn't believe that it was happening. I followed him up the ramp to his luggage. He said that he was tired and he made sure that I had the blue pills that he needed. I noticed that he sounded different. So different from phone and Skype that I thought reality is different after all. He confessed that it was a problem with humidity. Seemed reasonable. This guy has come from subfreezing to near tropical weather!

He didn't look as short as he thought he would when he was with me. We agreed that as I tugged the trolley down another ramp to the Cab rental place. We had rented an A/C cab after I thought that he should be treated to some luxury. I had an argument with the cabbie and I could see that Vinokur was fascinated by the actual exchange in a language that was alien to him. We got in the car and as it moved along the streets of Mumbai, I started explaining what they were and stuff. He was holding to the handle on the sides of the car with his left hand.

I decided enough was enough. I grabbed at his right hand. Not sweaty. Ran my fingers up his hairy forearm. I commented on his much adored hand. I guess everyone who reads this blog must have come across my fetishes which include hands and forearms. We talked a little further and we were at home.

As I explained the locality to him, we got out the car and I paid the driver. I was getting his luggage out of the car and I remember him leaning against the wall, beaming at me. So devilishly handsome and sexy! I opened the doors to the apartment explaining the double locking locks and shit. I hauled in the luggage. Some trivial conversation had happened I guess. I was showing him the apartment around I guess. But I didn't see it coming. He grabbed me from behind, turned me around and gave me what seemed like a 1 minute open mouth kiss. It was in the living room and I said we have the whole night ahead of us.

After a while, we started talking about achieving the impossible and the regular crap. I noticed that he was a lot less talkative and the spark that was embedded in his style of speaking was missing. I guess it was tiredness. Time zone shift, language shift, social shift etc. He said he was tired. I asked him if he needed anything to eat. He said he was good. We unpacked and he gave me a couple of bottles of perfume as gift. After a while, we decided that it was time for him to get rest.

We undressed and got into bed. I was learning my way around him and he vice versa. It actually didn't take us long before we actually had a couple of orgasms. It felt like I was in caring hands for the first time ever. We were meant for each other alright! After a couple of hours of fun and frolic in the bed, my first time of sleeping nude ever, he demanded a couple of blue pills. I gave him those and he was asleep. Peacefully at first, but was restless most of his sleep. I was eating and sorting out the mess that we had created.

I couldn't believe it. It had happened. I called his sister and told him that he was fine. We had managed to get him into 'my arms', which should cure his illnesses.

The week before

It was the third week of February. Vinokur had, after a lot of 'pushing', had booked the flight tickets. I wanted him to come by the 15th of February. A lot of technical problems prevented us from carrying out that plan. He had booked business class seat on a good international airline. It would start late in the night on 20th of February and would reach Mumbai on the 21st late in the night.

At my end, things were hectic. I got the paper work for the new apartment done. I wanted the apartment to be ready by 14th. The landlod, who's affectionally known as Mr. Flintstone, behaved as if he was my friend Most of the evening time on that week went as usual with my band 'Noise Market'. We were preparing for a national level competition on the 23rd of the month.

The practice was okay with a few problems finding slots at the jam room where we used to practice. S. got affected by this a lot as he was the only person without his instrument at Rob's apartment where we practiced. The dream was big, almost bloated I felt at times. This was so true when I happened to watch one of the music videos of the competing bands. The song was called 'Sarhadein' by Nitesh Pirez Band the video of which you could watch here.

About 5 days before the journey, Vinokur set out for a walk to the supermarket. On his way back, he was pushing a small trolley of stuff that he had bought, he fell. He tried to get up but he couldn't. Thankfully, a pedestrian helped him up and offered to help him home. Vinokur noticed that he was shuffling in his gait. Short, small steps almost as if he's about lose his balance and fall.

Right after reaching back home, he gave me a call. He was still finding it difficult to walk. He thought that it was something as serious as a stroke. I asked him to relax and waited until his sister came over. I made her check his actual status and do some neurological examination. Everything was normal excepting his tendency to shuffle and fall.

I and he were both grave about what this could mean for the trip etc. After a while of questioning, I came to know that Vinokur had started taking a new medication whose mentioned side effects include gait disturbances, dyskinesia etc. He was also finding it difficult to type on a computer.

I asked him to stop that drug right then. I also requested him to be taken to an ER and have a check up. As usual, he refused. I was disheartened. But at the same time, I was sure that once he is here with me, I'm going to be able to take care of him and make him undergo the tests etc.

In a couple of days, Vinokur felt much better and the shuffling seemed to be going away, only persisting at times when he walked. We (me, him and his sister) decided that he should be making his trip to India and be with me. The 'cure' was too tempting!

He, was very anxious about thetrip. He wanted to sleep through it. He wanted to be knocked out during the flight so that he could wake up in my arms. That meant a lot of blue pills (for a 15 hour flight). I adviced him to not take more than his routine dose asking him to call me using Satellite phone if he felt weird.

On the day of the flight, he was feeling much better. The fears of him having to go inside the plane in a wheelchair seemed unfounded. I watched him go out of his apartment with his sister and her friend who was backing up. I was happy! In under a day, the love of my life, the man of my dreams, my dear Vinokur was going to be here!

The month before

This will be the first in the series of updates that I've promised. As one might expect, it starts from where I left of.

It actually must have started somewhere in late January. The telephone company 'Time Warner Cable' which provided Vinokur the 50 hours of cheap international calling facility per month discontinued its services. It was a shock to us. I mean, we spoke a lot. Upto 10 hours a day. Half on Skype in my night time and the other half when I was travelling. That's when the 'Alarm Cock' calls had to be stopped; these were calls by Alan which would wake me up in the morning (IST). He loved to hear my voice. He loved to be the alarm. That gave him such an important emotional 'shot in the arm' before he went to sleep.

This coincided with one day in which I didn't wake up to his routine calls. I was so tired and sleepy that I wanted to sleep a few hours more. He wanted to talk to me for a few minutes before hitting bed. I postponed this 'alarm' by an hour three or four times. And he was bored during the period in between. He didn't have nothing but The Jon Stewart show to watch.

Both of this, led to a period of about a month when he didn't have anything to do at night before sleeping. He got bored and tried to go sleep earlier. And because he had to sleep earlier, he woke up earlier and since he didn't have to do anything at the middle of the night, he had to take a second serving of his 'blue pills' to go to sleep.

Along with that, malaise set in which was the side effect of a drug that he was taking which was causing the discomfort. He found it difficult to even talk for a lot of time on Skype like how we used to in the first seven months of our relationship. The cause was not exactly clear. There was depression, anxiety and physical malaise ailing him most of the awake time that he spent.

He was also finding it difficult to manage the paper work (VISA etc) for the travel that is required. He used to tell me it was becoming increasingly difficult for him to concentrate on anything. Even a phone call seemed to be a arduous enough task forcing him to hang up much earlier that he used to. To cope up with the excess stress, he used to take extra pills from those which he was on. That included sedatives and specialized medication for coping with ADHD. Every morning, after he woke up he would give me his routine call. I would question him regarding how many pills he took the night before and he would claim to not remember he had taken twice the dose that was prescribed or not.

I really didn't act like a doctor then. I guess love overrides all stipulations of human behaviour. I wanted him to feel better and I thought he had things under control. In retrospect, this lackadaisical-ness from my side seems to have been the reason why the situation has worsened so much. All I wanted was for him to come to me and take it from there.

We knew that all of these problems were aggravated with the separation factor. Our union seemed to be the 'cure'.

Movies that I've watched

Because of the fact that I hate myself being dependent of sleeping medications I am trying to fall asleep watching movies. In that process I have watched so many movies.


  • Men in Black
  • Men in Black 2
  • Species
  • Species 2
  • Species 3
  • Back to Future – 1
  • Back to Future – 2
  • Back to Future – 3
  • The HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
  • Edword Scissorhands
  • Deep Impact
  • No. 23
  • Jaws

Uncertainty prevails!

Everything’s been nailed almost to completion! This should have meant an early arrival but that seems to be still up in mysterious clouds. Vinokur hates pressure and things happening too fast. He’s scared that he will leave something untended to back there and will be worrying about it when he comes here.

Well, I need him to be safe. I need him with me as quickly as he can. But that message is so hard to get across and even if understood in the right way, execute. Right now, the date varies from ‘tomorrow’ to about ‘3 weeks later’. I am going nuts!

I hope that I can make him feel comfortable for reaching her on the Valentine’s day. That would make it perfect as we could have a little honeymoon in a hotel and move into the apartment after the 15th.

Drug overdosage

Vinokur’s been drowsy and feeling weak for the past 1 week or so. I’m not sure what’s causing this. The side effects of the interferons started this and to get rid of this and to sleep, he started taking extra sleeping medications and opioids.

It’s just so weird after Heath Ledger’s incident! Vinokur’s taking half of the drug that Ledger was taking at the time of his demise.

The worst part about the whole thing is that I’m sure that I can make him feel better if I was with him. I badly want him to come here as soon as he can. I’m requesting him to do this. I hope he can!

Apartment finalizing

I finished the official procedures for the apartment. It went off smoothly in the bitterly cold winds of a weirdly cold February. This winter has been the longest of the winters by far as I’ve had to wear my sweater/jacket for about 2 months now. Last year, I had to wear it on just a couple of days.

It seems that I can move into the apartment on the 16th of February. I hope to spend a couple of days of ‘honey-mooning’ with Vinokur as he’s suggested to try and come on Valentine’s day.

The Boat Party

The last gay party had such a positive effect on me that I was looking forward to this boat party of the Gateway of India on a cool night in February. I had tried to look cool and fashionable and therefore had to dig clothes out of Sahaab’s wardrobe. That task is extremely easy as all of his clothes are fashionable and worthy of wearing, unlike mine.

Just to keep my lil’ Vinokur un-anxious, I had invited Sandy for the party. I had actually tried to get one of my gay friends to come with me so as to force shield me away from preying men at the party. But they weren’t free or interested. So I resorted to the option of Sandy. She was enthusiastic from the outset and considered it to be a privilege to be invited over to the party. In fact, when she told her sister that she was being invited, Susy also wanted to come!

So we met at an event at the Sheraton which she was co-ordinating and then took a cab to Gateway. There we spent a few minutes trying to find the jetty that would let us into the boat. We were greeted by Dee, one of the organizers in the party. The others were virtually strangers and to be honest to my blog readers, not even one one interesting guy was there waiting for the boats. Sandy was the only woman at the party and everyone was eyeing us curiously.

Once we took the ferrying boat to the actual boat where the party was happening, we got our beers and went on top of the first of the two boats. There I met my friends Dibs and Sam, lovers for an impressive 17 years. We exchanged introductions and couldn’t sustain the conversation because of the Sandy factor.

The party was just 50 strong by then. But by about 11.30 pm the boats were full and about 225 persons were there. I was surprised and ruing the fact that I had invited Sandy along with me because I wasn’t socially interacting with the other men there in the way that I had wanted to.

Sandy left early because she had to reach home at a certain time and after the time she went, I had a better time hanging out and trying to meet new people. It was a little too late for that and I hardly met anyone new.

Anyway, meeting old friends was a good thing and I was inspired to go for upcoming parties.

Happiness of earning

The fact that I started earning from music made me feel very good. I felt so good that I felt that I was finally off the pressure to prove myself taking the risk of losing my career and jumping into something like a hobby when I was so close to completion of my course. I rang up my sister and mom and told them this. My sister was happy and mom almost proud. That made me happy!

Shoonyas get kickstarted!

Dude, when things kick-start, they really do from all corners, don’t they *(only pun intended)? Nobody but who is part of my gang of bandmates would get the pun in this. But who really cares. I wanted to post it. So I did.

Just after ‘Noise Market’ got its first gig, ‘Shoonyas’ played their first gig at a college festival where we headlined. The gig was a success despite our performance marred with some technical and execution gaffes. I was playing the acoustic guitar (and not the acoustic bass guitar) and the drummer hadn’t turned up. The crowd was cheering us most of the time.

The best part of the whole thing was that we got paid handsomely. I did something that I do at home; strumming the guitar and singing along. And I get paid! WOW! This is the first time that I have earned from my music. I have told this to my family as well. They are also very happy. Needless to say that the levels of happiness of the Jew community around the world (especially) in the NY State area were increased by more than 4%!

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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...