The Palm Tree snaps

I really don't know why I'm doing this. Last week, I took a few snaps of this palm tree in the lane leading up to the apartment. I thought they were good photos. I think I would like to test that with the audience in the blog. What do you think of these pictures?

I personally love #5.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's a mess!

In the last two days, I've managed to shift all of my, S.', JD's and the other two band member's stuff to my new apartment. It is a big fucking mess. S.' apartment is not going to be ready until Sunday. So I can't move half of the stuff up to his place. My cupboard and bed aren't going to be ready until a couple of more days. So there are literally dozens of boxes, bags and musical instruments scattered around. I don't have space to put things after sorting.

Don't believe it huh? Here's some hardcore photography.







I've got the electrical work done. The plumbing required is too expensive for me now. So is a gas stove and a cylinder. And I have to cut down my expenses as well. I have a refrigerator, microwave, a toaster and a coffee maker. I guess that's a good start.

But for sorting out the mess, I don't know where to start. The relief is that my computer is up and running with a good internet connection and I have WorldSpace satellite radio blaring BOB round the clock.

Friendship?

All the paan stains that I had to scrub off yesterday would have led anyone to shudder and throw up. The tiles in the toilet, a wash-basin (sink) the actual toilet bowl! Aaargh! This is all thanks to one person; the one and only S. I think I've been kind and generous all my life to him. But how does he pay it back. By being lazy and dirtying the apartment, borrowing money and not paying back etc, being inconsiderate and being lazy.

The other two band members of 'Noise Market' have also been kinda ignorant of my need for help. They didn't even offer help for shifting apartments. How much can I ask people for help?

My new apartment

Check this out. My new apartment. The bare blue-print is first. The second image is the present plan. The third diagram is the future plan for the living room. Comments are expected! Please!

My friend's first dig at writing

A friend of mine from my adolescence has recently started his blog where he's pasting his first book as posts. I read the first of the posts and thought that it was funny and interesting. Since I myself want to travel through this road of writing, I decided to link his blog up to mine.

So, go check out 'Vicious Circle No. 1' and comment on it.

The beard, ageing and party

I didn't announce it here on the blog I guess. It was part of my overexpectant nature on the couple of days before the exam. I had taken out my beard and moustache for the exam. While the barber was wiping it off, he was skeptical. It was something whose growth he himself had been a part of. After the beard came out, I suggested to keep the moustache. I studied my face intently for about 3 seconds. Just the moustache (the kind which has almost vertical pattern by the angles of your mouth) looked good. But I thought about why I should risk any facial hair when it may hamper your exam odds? That's how it came off as well. After the entire depilation was over, I looked again at the mirror. Absurd! More adolescent than adult, I thought.

I came back home and hooked up with Vinokur on Skype. He was thrilled. As always, he loved my face without any hair. He explains that it helps to unravel my emotions. With the beard and moustache, the eyes are the only things which sort of divulge my emotions. This way, the clean-faced way, I looked about 5 years younger and much much more better. But still, I wasn't convinced.

The maid said that I looked better with the whole beard/moustache conglomerate. Her daughters, all six of them, indicated that they preferred the earlier me. S., although, suggested that I looked better.

Whatever it was, I HADN'T liked my bare face. I was determined to grow my facial hair back to how it was. Vinokur tried to persuade me from that. I thought, why not. I meant, why not 'not' grow it as that would make Vinokur happy!

Today, I tried this new look in public. Most of the people didn't recognise me. That was a shock. Just 4 months back, I was clean shaven. Now, people can't recognize me without the beard? Strange, ain't it?

In the afternoon, I managed to shift a lot of stuff to the new apartment. Despite me running low on cash, I decided to go for the GB party. I went with a fellow lawyer friend of mine and his handsome friend. At the party, a few more managed to make it evident that I had changed a lot.

I was getting a little bored with all the dancing, trance music and lack of conversation when I noticed this huge man with a black T-shirt which clearly indicated that he loved bears. Hanging out with him was this gorgeous bear, 45ish, who had a clean shaven head, a trimmed beard and a moustache. I thought maybe I could hang out with them. At least they presented as a welcome change from the monotony of rather boyish faces.

I went up to comment on the t-shirt to this 'bear lover'. There was hardly any response from him. It's almost as if he was repelled by my boyish looks. I hated that. I was missing my beard too much. For about an hour more, I hung out there hoping to make any acquaintances with mature, bearded, moustachioed men. No luck whatsoever. It sure seemed like I was a bad looking twink without the beard.

I thought it over. It looked like I was ageing. Maturing would be a much gentler word. The beard and moustache sort of made it evident. Finally, it had also somehow managed to make me accept my own looks. Once they came off, I was this much-older-than-a-lad guy who wanted to look younger. My maturity chopped off almost.

I had to rush home earlier because of boredom and this scary thought. I and Vinokur have spent a couple of hours over this and have agreed, for my own interests, to let me grow back my beard. At least, that should save me from this new cause of depression!

Exam's over

I thought I stood no chance whatsoever until I realized that maybe I could pass the exam by giving it a shot. My father's astrological readings suggested that I would pass. My sister seemed to have a feeling that I would. Maybe I too started feeling it without any reason whatsoever in the few days before the exam. It all resulted it the hiking of expectations within myself.

I slogged hard on the last 2 days. So hard that I didn't sleep on the night before the exam. Stupid of me to have done that I agree. But I was trying to sleep on a mattress which had bugs and having this weird feeling of a miracle happening at the exam hall. Some careless excitement for a naive mind.

The status became like this; Underprepared, overexpectant and under-rested. Whichever way you mix it up, the combination is horrid. And it proved bitter as well. I started doing well in the vivas. Then I fell apart. There were some weird questions which were responded to in a stupid fashion. And finally blunders happened.

I almost felt like crying. But I didn't. Instead, I started talking faster. My Mom and sister who got on the phone immediately after the exam might not have realized this. But I was disappointed. Totally. I felt that I had just seen my life slip away between my fingers. About a couple of months, I felt that Vinokur, and thereby life, was slipping away. About a couple of weeks later, I felt that my future in the band, and thereby life as well, was slipping away.

Why does it feel like this always? I don't have the answer. And I think I need to find the answer to try and find an alleviant. People with ADD (like Vinokur and his ex) have stuff like weighted blankets for comforting. They should try and invent such stuff for us regular people as well.

Anyway, I recovered quickly enough. Thanks to an extended session of drumming alone where I learnt a few more tricks. My left index finger is a little sore after the session.

I'm thinking - maybe I will get the better of such 'slip ups' in the future. I hope it materializes.

Swish'd!

Nobody, excepting me of course, would remember that back in 2004, I was inspired by a blog called 'Search for Love in Manhattan' by Faustus M. D. In fact, that was my first post on this blog.

Tonight, very late in the night, I got so bored of my books that I decided to take a break. As I settled with a cup of coffee in front of Vinokur (over Skype), I had this intense desire to revisit a couple of blogger that I have always admired. I googled 'Search for love in Manhattan' and got this revised link to the blog.

I was simply astounded to see that Joel Derfner (a. k. a. Faustus M. D.) had published his second book already. The book called 'Swish' is already reviewed highly by sites like Amazon.com! I'm inspired! I'm totally inspired!

On one side, there are people like Vinokur who urge me to read authors like Khaled Hosseni and Rohinton Mistry amongst the other books that I'm supposed to read. And on the other side (curiously enough, both 'sides' of this particularly cumbersome epiphany reside in the same city!), Faustus M. D. has just enacted my preferred option amongst my career dreams - to be a writer!

Premonitory tendencies

The one thing that I want in my life, apart from the rest of the 3498 things on the list that is, is that I pass my exams. I haven't prepared. I'm not in the mindset to prepare. The odds are totally against me.

But still, something inside tells me that things could be better. Maybe, a miracle would happen. Maybe I would be able to seduce the examiners to pass the exam. Wouldn't that be wonderful? I get to get laid as well as pass the exam! Even though that's not totally on the cards (sex outside the premises of the relationship is out of it's purview), that really gives me hope.

That's the reason why I'm trying to put in the last and only effort for preparing for my all important final exam. Wish me luck fellas, cuz that's the only thing that I can base my hopes on.

The opportunity

As gays mature, they become bolder. They think that the world can change because of them. They think that more people would back them to be gayer. These statements are true in my case. 8 years into my life out of the closet I'm considering going the full distance; speaking on national television about gay issues, especially Section 377.

Parry sent me a message late in the night asking me if I was interested in joining a show about 'Homosexuality and it's social implications' on NDTV. I certainly got a rush of blood. But with exams just about a few days around the corner, I thought it was not worth the risk.

This was my first potential brush with the media regarding homosexuality. I didn't take it this time. The next time, I will. Well really, I might.

Coming out to parents?

I had decided not to a few months back. My favorite uncle, my sister and my circle of friends advised me not to. But I guess I'm getting a little frustrated with the wait. So when my parents visit me, there is a good chance that I will come out to them.

I want to have a framed photograph in my living room of that gorgeously handsome lover that I have . That's going to take them by surprise! If that was the starter, how am I going to explain about the prosperity of my new apartment with all the kitchen utilities? How can I conceal the fact that I chat to Vinokur hours every day? There will be a few bottles of his medications that might need explaining as well.

The shift

Madame Lahiri did the trick. What else could have incited this remarakable shift in my feelings for my parents? I think it was the first of the stories from 'Unaccustomed Earth'. It was about the relationship between a daughter and her father. I'm not going into the details of it but the point is that the plot somehow brings to life the desperate efforts by the daughter to breathe life into the relationship with her father which was suffocated by herself when she broke away from the family in her early adulthood.

The effect; I talked to my Mom and my Dad. I told them about this new apartment that I'm getting. In fact, I invited my Mom over to help me out with setting the new place up. She was surprised. But, as she has been through this phase of my life where I lost my way around my career, she was kind and offered help. It seems that my parents might visit me next month and stay here for a couple of weeks or so.

I'm almost certain that all this chivalry is ephemeral. But trying is better than regretting later in life.

From the ashes he rose...

For all those who have been writing in, thanks a lot. I've been going through a weird time lately. My final exams (which have been sort of a tragedy with me not being in my mental state to prepare) are going on right now. The theory part is over and practicals are happening in a week's time. I'm trying to put in some reading in the final few days to give myself a 'freak' chance of getting through.

But, the main thing that has been worrying me, that is Vinokur's health; I can't be happier to tell you that he's getting much better. He's back home and recovering and slowly getting back to normalcy. I've been feeling a lot more positive about life since the onset of this recovery. We are chatting daily on voice over Skype and it's been a real pleasure reclaiming what once was such an important aspect of our relationship.

Apart from that, my hindi band is taking a break before hitting the studios next month or so. If things go as planned, we'll be releasing the debut album late this year. The english band is also shaping up well after we played at the prestigious 'Not Just Jazz by the Bay' at Marine Drive earlier this month.

I've been reading a lot of books including works by Jhumpa Lahiri (Unaccustomed Earth, Namesake and The Interpreter of Maladies). Coincidentally, my sister and Vinokur have been enjoying her work lately. It's a nice unexpected triangulation. For those who haven't read her books; it's amazing how balanced she always seems in her prose. All of her works are supreme examples of the fallacies of relationships. Please read them when you can.

I've met May and Ray in the last week. Both are doing well in their lives. Ray and his latest 'Dad' have been going on well for the past few months. But Ray seems to want to not stick on to a person, like me. Instead, he's more like a migratory bird.

Once again, I apologize for the extremely irregular, delayed updates. Please bear with me, like you always have!

Further updates

I'm tired and sleepy now and I wanted to give more updates. But I think I'll postpone it until tomorrow or something. Two reasons - I'll get more privacy starting tomorrow. One of my flat-mates is leaving tomorrow. Secondly, I have decided on a lot of stuff about my life.

I'll tell you all about that. Thanks for reading and sharing with me your thoughts! I love you all!