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.