Engayging Life: April 2008

The update list

Here's the first in the series of updates. I'm posting them in a retro-spective manner so that the post date actually goes with the happenings around that time.

(PS: I would like to hear from the readers of the blog on how they would have reacted to the situation that I was facing in the updates section. This would be insightful and helpful for me I guess. Thanks for reading these posts!)
(PS2: I was thinking of putting all the updates in the chronological order. But that seems like impossible as I get dragged down by the sheer emotional needs of recollecting the situation about a month back. Therefore, with due apologies, the other updates are added as well. I hope you won't mind! ;))

Realization of unlikeliness

Today, I realized something. Something so grave that I did not know how to react to it. Vinokur confided in me earlier in the evening that he can't fly back to Mumbai and stay with me. The whole plan of us living together clung to the idea of him staying with me in Mumbai until I had the dough and a job/course in the USA.

I love him very much. More than ever! I can't understand what to do?

I can't leave the band. If I leave the band I won't get this opportunity once again. The band is the only way that I can earn and save money without ditching something that I can't live without; Music. The only other thing that I can't live without is Vinokur!

During the whole evening, I was trying to figure out what to do. Do I stick to the band (and India) for another year until I can save up enough money to fly over? Do I quit the band and get a tourist VISA and fly to work there as a waiter at a restuarant and live my entire life as an illegal immigrant?

The only thing that I want is justice. I and Vinokur have not shared a single moment in our lives when we were 'normal'. Give me a break! I can't think straight about this problem.

Having pondered for so long, I have regretfully resigned to adopting the safe way out. I think I will try to earn as much money with the band as I can. And I'll try to go visit him as much as I can.

Does that seem like a reasonable settlement?

Computer-fucking-problems

In the past months, when internet communications were the only necessary thing in my life, I neglected the rest of my computer. Viruses proliferated. System crashed regularly. For the last two days, I have had to go through more of this shit. Finally, it resulted in me and Jay deciding to format the hard drives and install Windows. We did that.

Now, things seem to be better. But it's my computer! It's as unpredicable as the weather in Mumbai!

Vinokur's back

For those who have been following my blog, this post must be confusing. This leaves a whole month of (lack) of updates behind and jumps right into the present. I decided to do that because of one major event in my life.

Vinokur is back! Vinokur is back home from the hospital in NYC! He's back on Skype. He has lost about 10 pounds, looks emasciated and lost his gorgeous stubble... but all the same, he's back!

It seemed impossible about a couple of weeks back when I was in tears for entire days. When so much of confusing things happened. When he was admitted in an ER unconscious and deteriorating!

I talked to him for a few minutes today on Skype! I'm relieved!

Dreaming about books

It might seem strange to you. But I'm dreaming about books. I'm dreaming about buying books off bookshelves in bookstores and reading them. In the past week, I've been to a bookstore 5 times, each time wanting to buy at least a dozen books and actually buying none.

The reason is simple. Poverty. I don't have enough money to indulge in books. Fuck, this life is pathetic. Here I'm on the verge of becoming a rock star! Forget that. I have almost completed 23 years of gooddamned high-standard education. See my plight?

I've been reading excerpts from books by people like Rushdie, Lahiri, Ben Elton, Asimov and many more! I want to read more books.

Seriously, books seem to be the only way that I can reasonably hope to get lost from the current state of mind that I'm in. They hardly ever, though I must admit that at times they do, remind me of those memories and the immaterialized hopes and dreams that may never ever come true.

I'm currently reading three books at home. 'A Catcher in the Rye' by J. D. Salinger, 'Nightfall' by Isaac Asimvo and Silverbirg and 'An Interpreter of Maladies' by Jhumpa Lahiri!

I'm also reading 'Chart Throb' by Ben Elton at the Landmark store in Infiniti mall!

The GB movie fest

I was getting tired of being home hoping that something interesting would happen. Nothing seems to happen anyway. All what transpires is a few hours of jamming with a distinct undercurrent of uneasiness between most of the band members. I don't know if I alone am feeling this. But anyway, things were never like this about a couple of months back.

Anyway, to get away from the pain of having to stay home expecting some 'jamming' to happen, I go out and watch movies. Today, Sunday, we had a GB movie fest in National College, Bandra.

Previously, I had been to a single GB film festival. It was the first month of my stay in Mumbai. I had to rush out halfway through the second movie when I got a call from the hospital. But I remembered that the quality of movies on offer was excellent and the crowd, interesting.

Hoping for the same, I headed. I wasn't disappointed. Three excellent movies. The first one was a French movie which feature the tragic story of a weird love triangle set in the holocaust time. The second one was a tragic Israeli movie set in the early 2000 which featured the Israel-Palestinian political tension. The third one, the only Indian movie, was a laugh riot which ended so gloriously with the father of a gay guy accepting his sexual orientation and asking him to marry his boyfriend!

I enjoyed a hell lot despite being flashed-back, as always is the case these days, to the time that I and Vinokur shared in the last few months. I was so ab-normal from the usual Kris that I didn't respond in any way whatsoever to somebody who said that I looked handsome and that he liked my looks. Fuck, I'm weirded these days!

Hope and a little sugar

This time, I went downtown and watched this movie at my favorite theatre in town - New Empire. At a meagre 50 Rs. per ticket, with great Coffee and Samosas, this is the best movie theatre downtown!

The movie itself is a good one. It reminded me a lot about Vinokur as the story is set in Manhattan! Everything that I do in my life makes em realize that I'm missing out on the best part of my life due to unfortunate turn of events!

Spiderwick Chronicles

I watch movies just to kill time. I seem to have a lot these days. Especially in the morning when things get so depressing at home. S. is sleeping with the AC turned on to freezing tempratures. Dash is sleeping in the bedroom. And I am haunted by memories and the things that I could have had.

There are two options for me for this. Either go to a mall in the morning. Or head to town in the evening. Today, I went to the Infiniti Mall in Lokhandwala with this book that I'm reading called 'The Naked Sun' by Asimov. I wanted to watch a couple of movies. I could only watch one as the others' show was cancelled.

'The Spiderwick Chronicles' - I rate it at 3 just for the concept, good screen play and good acting by the kids in the movie. I had a good time watching something which is closer to science fiction that reality - fantasy!

Asimov's 'The Naked Sun'

It's been years since I read a detective novel. It's been even longer since I read an Asimov novel. When they both combine to provide something so tantalizingly eerie novel, there is nothing like it!

The Naked Sun is a brilliant novel. It's brilliance is once again charecterized by the concepts that Asimov spins out of things like the cycling between day and night that we take for granted.

I'd taken this book out of a lending library. I gave it back and took another Asimov classic; the novel based on the astounding short story 'Nightfall'!

Inadequacies of life

It has been a few days since I've been to the gym. For some reason or the other, I'm startled to type this myself, I'm not feeling like going to the gym. For example, today morning I felt like typing a few blog entries. As soon as I started remembering what happened in the last month and half or so, I started feeling down and depressed. I guess I really can't help but feel that way. But I want to update the blog anyhow. I think that will give me an opportunity to deal with the situation with more maturity. Besides, I'm already on anti-depressant medications.

Basically, nothing interesting is happening in my life these days. I type in some blog entries every now and then. I read the newspapers thoroughly. Sometimes, I even read the NYTimes as much as I want. Then comes the jamming. Most of the times, it is also not as interesting as it used to be. Must be something to do with the eviction of S. and shit.

Anyway, after my blog entry, I slept off again. I am ashamed that I got up at 10.30 by the calling bell. Maid had come and she made breakfast for me. I got up lazily and had my couple of toasts with a 5 egg white - 1 egg yellow omlette. S. was still sleeping in the living room with the a/c blast. I turned it off, pulled the drapes, opened the windows and sat reading the newspaper and watching the news channels. Again, anything relating to NY or Americas pulled me into feeling how unfortunate that I was.

I am basically stuck to my life here. I don't have an option to go be with him. I don't think that there is any reason to believe that he can be here any soon. In fact, the more that I think of it, the less likely it seems that he will come back to India.

Apart from that, I have been trying to talk to him as often as I could. There is a period in the night (EST) when I can't call him. I talked to him for 10 minutes each twice today. Basically he is very scared why he is feeling so tired. A new drug which has been added to his regimen since the last few days is causing tiredness and sleepiness in the morning. But the same drug is causing him to have a good night's sleep. I am trying my best to get him to be as cheerful as I can.

We love each other. We want be with each other. But we can't. Life's like that.

Dan In Real Life

Today morning, I got up and sat by the living room window with the copy of TOI and spent a whole hour watching news on TV, reading the newspaper and sipping coffee. That is so similar to my entire childhood and adolescence and my early adult life when I used to do the newspaper coffee thing at home. It felt nice. It distracted me from thinking too much about my situation.

The drumkit was now assembled in a croner in the living room. We could practice with circumspect drum-playing at home. That really kicked the band back into action. We actually progressed at a couple of the songs and made drum parts for a song. According to somebody's law, if things have to go wrong, they will. S. was at it again. Another unceremonious cancellation of jam time. I think for spending time with his girlfriend. Whatever be the excuse, I hate doing that. I hate being subjected to that. Despite the amazing sequence of events in the past few weeks regarding him being kicked out of the band and then being ushered back into the band basically due to my request, he is still careless. I don't know if I have done things right with him.

He is so careless, that he hadn't successfully transferred the money that he was supposed to transfer to me. I went through the darkest phase of my life; when Vinokur was critical in the ER, without money and it was because of S. He basically doesn't bother about such things. I hope he'll be forgiven by the rest of the bandmates for the stuff that he does.

In the evening, I actually managed to be the "AlarmCock" for Vinokur. I woke him up from sleep after about 2 months. It felt wonderful to relive the times of our lives. But he was tired and wanted to go back to sleep. I got bored and decided to go for a movie in the night.

The movie was fabulous. Titled "Dan in Real Life", it is simply the best movie that I have watched this year. Amazingly funny and riveting screenplay round up a well acted movie. The uncomfortable situations of the movie really made me relate to my life. Everybody hated Dan. Everybody in my family hates me. I find it hard to be with my love. Dan finds it too. Fuck it! The movie gets almost 5 out of 5.

This must be getting boring for you guys. But it's true! Everything that I watch, do etc. reminds me of my life and it's depressing features.

The Bucket List

Whatever that I do in my life makes me remember the times that I and Vinokur were together. Nostalgia should be warm and wonderful. But for me, it's painful. Mainly because of the unknown future ahead. I also think that I didn't raise myself upto the need of the situation and cracked under the pressure of taking care of Monsieur. I got myself all stressed out and that reflected on the way that I behaved with him. You know, when you walk down a street all alone wondering when you will be together with your soul-partner for life when he's not doing all that great at the other end of the world, it's not great to feel that not too long ago, you refused to take a walk with him when he pleaded to.

Yes that happened quite a lot of time. In most circumstances like that, I would say in my defense that I was tired and sleepless and all I ever wanted was to sleep. Is it right for someone to reject such an offer in any kind of situation? All these months, I've been longing for a walk outside with him by my side. I'm sure he must have been too. And then finally, when it came to the actual execution, due to the aforementioned situation, I didn't do it. Should I punish myself for that? I'm not too sure. I don't know how I should react to that.

It saddens me to walk across the mall that we went for shopping, the movie theatre that we went to etc. Why should love be so hard? Why is it that I and my love are separated only because of the fact that we can't afford to live together? Anyway, all these questions linger in my mind almost throughout the day. This makes me a desolate person even when upbeat. I long for privacy. I long for isolation. I wish I could be there with him by his side when he's going through this. I wish someone would offer me a tape-recorder with which I could 'pause' my life in India and fly over to NYC. Alas, I don't have the fucking money. I don't even have a VISA! Fuck it!

Anyway, today early in the morning, I decided to go to my hospital and finish off some of the certificate work that I had to finish. I didn't even bother to check if it was a holiday. It was actually. Ambedkar Jayanti! I made it very early travelling differently. I travelled in a bus to my hospital. Once I realized that I couldn't do anything, I decided to go watch the movie that I have been wanting to watch all this month. The movie 'Bucket List' starred two of my heart-throbs - Morgan FreeMan and Jack Nicholson. I didn't know the story line or the motif. It was supposed to be a great movie.

The movie itself was so serendipitiously entwined to my life as every movie seems to be these days. Both the protagonists donned by the aforementioned actors were elderly ailing cancer patients who were facing the end to their lives. They meet in the hospital and decide to complete a few activities which they always wanted to do in life. The so called 'bucket list' of activities were supposed to be completed before they kicked the bucket. Apart from startling similarities to Vinokur, both of them reminded me of him. Jack Nicholson's physique, skin and sense of humor. Freeman's intelligence and wisdom.

I gave the movie a 3.5 stars out of 5 for the wonderful screenplay it had. It gave a lot of importance to feelings of the heart, especially love. That really moved me. I was just wishing if Vinokur could have a share of the wealth of the Jack Nicholson character in the movie so that we could live together.

My Bucket List

To Live with Vinokur until I die. Period.

I'm sorry

Life has been very cruel to me in the past few weeks. I feel like I'm walking on a tight rope of euthymia and any trivial force can push me into the pangs of depression.

About a couple of months or so back, I was writing about the real aetiologies of depression. I think I have found one profound one. It's called 'separation'.

That's the reason why the promised posts are taking more time than they should. I can't type more right now. Until next time...

Engayging Life