Merry Christmas

I can't believe that it's been over 6 months since I last posted a note on this blog. I sincerely apologize. Just so you know, I had my last major bout of depression in early April 2012. Life has almost come around a whole circle in the succeeding 8 months or so. I'm at a very happy place in my life at the moment. Knock on wood!

So what happened in that period? The lack of motivation to share thoughts, which comes bundled with the package of depression in the brains of people like me, was the reason in the first three months. I cheated. I mean I lied, or, maybe I should say, I didn't come clean with the truth, in the last few posts. This was when I was really struggling to comprehend what was happening to me.

Supposedly, I was happy. I was in a promising relationship, had ongoing projects with three bands, one one of which looked like it would fulfill my dream of cutting an album, and my work-life was going smoothly. From out of nowhere, it hit me. I fell flat on my face and the people closest to me chose to give up on me. Within no time, I was dumped my my lover, rejected by one band, kicked out of another, and stranded by the third.

I was dazed and confused but I managed to not crack down under adversity, thanks to some excellent friends, who stood by me and saw me through, and of course, to my new shrink. Thank you, Billiards, for spending so much time with me on Skype virtually every night for many months. Thank you, Sujit, for helping me find a new shrink, which made me turn the corner. Thank you, my work colleagues, for providing me with the wonderful environment where I spend most of my awake hours. Finally, thank you Mr. Psychiatrist, without whom, wouldn't have known what it is like to be really happy.

The new shrink, almost magically, brought in a radical transition by switching me to a new medication and guiding me to cognitive therapy. He suggested that I should be weaned off of the previous psychoactive cocktail (low-dose combination therapy with escitalopram, clonazepam, and haloperidol) and started me on bupropion. Along with that, he guided me to http://depressioncenter.net, which gave me the insight about cognitive therapy - I meticulously maintained a mood diary for about a month, which enabled me to find out what were the real triggers, and thereby find the root cause of my negative thought cycles.

Sometime in late July or early August, I started enjoying life like I have never before. I guess I had more time for myself with most of my responsibilities as a musician, apart from my that as a solo performer, having vacated my life, and I started watching, following, and reading stuff that interested me and I started looking forward to spending time by myself. I restarted socializing - dating, drinking out, going for movies, etc. I also was able to get rid of my guilt to spend money for myself for entertainment and leisure. By September, I was dead sure - the period comprising the last three months or so was the happiest that I had ever been.

Then, in October, out of nowhere, I met three interesting men - all three attractive, single (well, technically, at least), and interested in me. All three are so different and yet seemed to offer me something that I had never experienced in Mumbai - dating. Although I'm good friends with all of them, I have spent most of the last two months with one of them - Jay - and it has just been a wonderful experience.

Thus, on the eve of Christmas, I sit by myself, content and happy, albeit missing Jay, hoping to spend the New Year's eve with him.

Merry Christmas.

Stay calm and hug a bear. Trust me, that works.

Double-movie date

I broke the shackles yet again. This time with a colleague, a newly acquired very good friend! I went out with her and watched Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Captain America back to back. We followed up with lunch at a restaurant that gave me fond memories of a wonderful dinner date that I had with Mike.

The most wonderful moment during the entire date was when my friend slept through the first half of Captain America (yes, it was rather boring for a Marvel movie) with her head on my shoulder! It felt really good!

About the movies – Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a very good movie – probably better than the Mark Wahlberg-starring Planet of the Apes (2001). It is a reboot of the franchise with a new story line. It’s a must watch for all classic sci-fi movie fanatics! 4 star!

Captain America is a must watch for Marvel lovers. But it’s actually disappointing. Especially, the unrealistic story and the plot (yes, even in comics, plots can be realistic). I would give it a 3 star rating.

Need For Humor

How much does humor have a role in your life? In my life, I would say almost 90%. I can’t live without humor. I can’t hang around people who can’t appreciate it. Those who don’t get my jokes go to the chopping block.

One of the first persons on this list was my sister. She stopped getting my jokes awhile back and our relationship has deteriorated since. Although my mother is a little dense, she still gets some of my jokes. My father, whose sense of humor is more developed than my mother’s or sister’s, still is weird. Only in actual physical conversations would I get him to appreciate my jokes.

Anyway, why am I on a rant? Because I have to go out with two people in the near future – one, who doesn’t seem to get my humor and another one who’s the jack of all kinds of humor. I’m sorry but I’m already having a bias toward the second one. The first one better be interesting, failing which he’ll have to be axed.

A crazy dinner date

It was another Friday evening. But unlike the last time, I was out on a dinner date. A dinner date with a new friend that I had acquired from the GB mailing list. Humor was the inciting factor that led us to communicating with each other in the first place - humor as a response to an e-mail from a very funny Parsee with whom people have been trying to compete in vain to be funny.

Anyway, I didn't know what to expect. All I knew that I was going to be treated to dinner by a fun-loving Gujju man. As I was getting myself out of the office after sprinkling myself with perfume, my colleagues were all curious as to who this date was with. I told them all that it was nothing special. Just a dinner date. To someone else, I had already shared a little bit of this interesting man's history - of having two committed relationships at the same time.

When we met at the Charni Road station, I was a little surprised. Not quite what I was expecting, but not something unpleasant at all. My friend showed traits of being a half heterosexual by being rather uncaring of how he presents himself to the world. The conversation was interesting enough until we reached his favorite adda - a veg bar/restaurant.

The idea of a veg bar/restaurant was itself quite unsettling. Then came the stories about his relationships. They were so incredibly exotic - many people from GB have campaigned against the nature of these relationships - that they did leave a unsavory aftertaste. That came with the overdose of vegetarian cuisine over Kingfisher lager beer. Quite unlike what I'm used to, to say the least.

As a respite however, I watched the Bangladeshi Tigers give a gem of a performance against the English Lions on the lone television in the restaurant. All in all, a crazy dinner date.

Delhi Trip - Day 1

Waking up in the morning and catching an early flight to Delhi is stressful enough. That too, to meet a person whom you have never met is almost terrifying with the weight of expectations, how much ever you try to control them. But I wasn’t really terrified - I was happy and excited with Madonna giving me brilliant company through the trip and FaceBook threads giving me enough entertainment as a distraction.

When I got down at the Terminal 1 of the Delhi airport, it was cold and overcast. I had to find a way to get to the new Terminal 3 (T3) - I found a free inter-terminal GVM bus which was rather convenient. At T3, however, as the time of arrival of my friend’s flight drew nearer, it started raining, it got really cold, and my anxiety was almost unbearable. His flight was slightly delayed and it took some time for him to clear immigration and get out. He couldn’t find me initially - and was wandering around the couple of exists for a few minutes until I saw him.

I called out for him and he turned around and we walked toward each other. He looked even more beautiful than I had expected him to be. He came over and we hugged each other. It was a surreal experience to have met someone so special within 7 weeks of meeting each other online. We took a cab to the hotel in the cold, rainy weather. Incredibly enough, the road leading from the airport to the city was lined by various things under construction and the rain made everything blur into a muddy mess.

However, the conversation was easy and smooth I felt at ease with his company. Our senses of humor were complementary – that is why we got interested in each other in the first place – and it was obvious that we made an excellent pair intellectually. And he was crazy and eccentric – just like the clown that I had grown used to on Skype.

For some reason or the other, the cab driver took us through one of the less beautiful roads of Delhi to the dirty Pahar Ganj area, a hub for cheap hotels. We were expecting the worst when the cabbie rode up a filthy side lane into a the Arakasan road leading up to our hotel. Our hotel looked a tad better than the rest of the other neighboring hotels and we were ushered into our “Premium” room. Despite it being late in the morning, we decided to have some breakfast and ordered in the complimentary breakfast.

After resting for an hour or so, we planned to head out to the streets. The room-boys told us that it was raining heavily outside – but we didn’t want to get stuck indoors. We took an autorickshaw to Connaught Place to check out the various state emporiums and showrooms of handicrafts along the Baba Kharak Singh Marg (NH8) and picked up a couple of umbrellas from a shop.

Connaught place was an incredible mess, with the rain spoiling everything. We took some time to find out an ATM and a currency exchange vendor before having a cup of average coffee at the Madras Coffee House at P-block. We asked around for Baba Kharak Sing Marg but we got confusing responses from the people that we asked. Finally, a boy pointed us out the right way.

We went and visited almost all the emporiums on the road. He wanted to take a look at silk scarves, bracelets, necklaces etc to see if he could make a reasonable wholesale purchase. It was incredible the way he interacted with the vendors. Cracking jokes, making them smile, and making them extremely friendly! They all loved him and he loved charming them! Although we didn’t buy anything, he got an idea about the various options that he had in Delhi (as compared to the open markets in Thailand, Bali, and Burma).

We then took the Metro from Rajiv Chowk to INA and went to Delhi Haat. By this time the weather had cleared up and it was a little warmer. Although we were greeted by a message at the ticket counter that some of the stalls are closed because allotment of stalls was taking place on that day, we weren’t all that disappointed. We walked in and found an incredible array of stalls featuring products such as silk scarves, pashminas, rugs, jewlery, paintings, paper work, puppets and more. There were some food stalls too – I took him to the Kerala Tourism Development’s stall where we had appam (which is apparently called “huppers” in Sri Lanka) and vegetable stew.

We bought a few scarves at a reasonable price and also bought a couple of hanging puppets for decorating his tents – he resells all these scarves/jewelry items in the US after setting up tents at various institutions, schools etc. We then took the train back to the New Delhi where we had to wait for half an hour to get platform tickets to cross to the other side of the station where our hotel was. That was the really annoying part of the entire trip.

After reaching back the hotel all exhausted, we relaxed for a bit before taking a shower and then venturing out for dinner. The most ironic thing is that there were hardly any good restaurants in Pahar Ganj where one can have a decent dinner with drinks. We found a recently opened restro bar called Delhi Den where we had a cocktail and tandoori chicken along with rotis and palak paneer. The food was delicious – that’s Delhi’s asset, the quality of the restaurants. And we called it a night after that.

I must confess that all through the day, I felt the most at ease that I had felt with anyone that I had met in a long time. It was almost as if we had known each other for years. That concludes day one of our adventure in Delhi.

It's finalized!

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Social clowning

It's a known fact that I like humor. I like clowning around and like to make a joke out of myself. But even more interesting are instances when I feel the urge to involve a total stranger into my web of humor. It usually happens with waiters and waitresses.

So, yesterday evening, at the gay party, I met this wonderful Kiwi guy. During our conversation, a particular waiter, who brought us a vegetable salad with a dip, interrupted us every 10 minutes or so. He was rather portly and had a sly smile on his face. On the fifth time, I asked this waiter:

Do you like this guy?

The waiter laughed and was visibly embarrassed and never returned to interrupt us again. I don't think I hurt his sentiments or anything, but I at least made him laugh.

Today evening, on my date with the same Kiwi guy, we went to a Café Coffee day. The waitress came up to us with the menu card. As we were trying to decide what we should order, she started advertising some merchandise (mugs and other items) that Café Coffee day is offering for the Valentine's day. I couldn't resist it. I asked her:

Do you think we two are dating?

She was surprised and started blushing and smiling profusely. I couldn't wait to come back in again.

In fact, we actually are. You have a good eye!

She smiled even wider - if indeed that was possible - and didn't know what to say. We consoled her saying that we'll decide on the items and let her know later. She went back to the counter and turned back at us and smiled. She did that at least three times.

I think I have gotten this habit from Vinokur. I still remember Vinokur's sister Cis saying to him that the words that he chooses to use during such occasions might be too heavy and harsh on his prey. I guess that holds the same for me true.

Straight date for a gay evening

I finally broke the jinx - I went out with the most beautiful woman that I know. That too, to a gay party. She is the aunt of my gay friend. It was a fundraiser party for the Queer Azadi March week. We met at the Bandra station. I was wearing a mix and match outfit with a kurta, jeans, and flip-flops. She was dressed as beautiful as ever in a saree and with a matching stole and shoes.

On our way to find a cab, one of the straps of her left shoe gave away. It was very embarrassing for her as she had never had a shoe-malfunction in any of her previous dates. We found a cab soon and got into it. However, the cabbie ran into his family by the roadside. He wanted to give them a ride back home and said that he'll find us a cab first.

My gracious and beautiful date was so kind, she let the cabbie's family travel with us - not only that she paid him a minimum fare too! I was moved by her kindness and generosity. In the second cab, we traveled to the venue of the party - Dios at Tardeo - the same venue where I had one too many drinks a couple of months at a birthday party where Cirkles were performing. On the way, we found a mochi (cobbler) and he managed to fix my date's shoes. We bought ourselves Kolhapuris as a backup for.

It turned out to be a good decision - one of the buckles on the shoe that my date was wearing came off as we were walking to the venue after getting out of the cab. We meet our common friend Dee at the entrance - he was surprised to see us two together!

It was just about 10.15 pm by the time we entered. We went up to realize that there were hardly any people at the party. I hardly knew anyone except for the male money-mongering whore who I had seen in a few other parties. We got ourselves a couple of beers and sat at a couch with a fantastic view of the moon in front of us and talked.

Soon, people started trickling in and my date found a lot of young men who she from FaceBook – yes, Facebook. She knows dozens of young men who seek her company and advice on FaceBook. She is a fantastic lady and she offers her heart and soul to all of these young gay men who don’t have acceptance in their families. That’s how awesome my date is.

I took a look around and I found a bunch of my friends from other parties. I hung out with some of them. I tried to work my humor, but some of them were so bitchy and shallow that they took offense. That’s part and parcel of humor and sarcasm, I guess. Then, I found my dear friend Craig who was hanging out with his usual bunch of friends. We bitched about like how we always do. We love each other so much!

Then, I saw this male-whore trying to butter up a cute looking Firangi. Not only did I want to talk to this Firangi, I also wanted him to be warned about this whore trying to extract money from him. So, as he made his way to the bar, I sneaked in and bumped into this white guy and warned him about the whore. After that, I hung around him to see if he would initiate a conversation with me.

He eventually did and we spent the entire rest of the evening talking to each other. I was a little worried about leaving my date alone, but she was having a good time with her boys. Before the party ended, I exchanged numbers with the Firangi guy and we decided to meet up the next evening.

On our way back, I was a little worried if my date had felt bad. But I guess she didn’t. So, it was a good evening outing. I should do this more often.

A Friday To Remember (part 1)

Yesterday was a classic day when I was called to combine all three facets of my life - work/music/gay socializing - in a manner which would envy most.

I woke up late, thanks to a late-night rehearsal, which resulted in me taking my pills later than usual. I had a hectic day at work with reviews of trainee assignments and a separate document to edit. At the end of the day, I was called in for an unplanned discussion about a client complaint on an assignment - one of the rare times I fucked up at work - that dragged my eventual departure from office even more.

I was late for soundcheck for my gig at Not Just Jazz By The Bay with Cirkles (Shoonyas). I messaged my bandmates to let them know that I was running late. Ironically enough, I reached the venue the first. I was a little anxious because I was performing a few original compositions of mine (for Ideat Savant). Ideally, I would have liked to soundcheck my set, but the band soundcheck got so delayed than we finished it at 10 pm, just 15 minutes from the starting time.

I was surprised to see my friend and shrink Dr. R and her husband Jay turn up for the event. It had been about a year since I had talked to them and I didn't know when to start. After pleasantries, I consciously tried to avoid the converation drifting to my depression and career choices. I must say that I was relatively succesful.

I was expecting a gay friend of mine, the date from the New Year's Eve party that I had attended to turn up as well. He didn't have company and since my old friends had turned up, I thought of hooking them up with my date. He arrived as were finishing our first song of the day. I beckoned him over and I suggested that he hang out with my friends, which he evntually ended up doing. I don't know if he would be comfortable, but I was hoping he would.

Well, our set-list got a warm response, and we played an electric set really tight to get a rousing applause from the crowd. Unfortunately, our vocalist was struggling with a sore throat, and we took a break after an hour and 15 minutes on stage. The break was rather long, and I took the opportunity to catch up with my friends and the date. We had a nice conversation and I introduced everyone to my bandmates. (continued...)

Loveguru and the second date

I have a new loveguru at office, and I'm her loveguru. She tells me what to do and what not to do for every relationship situation that presents in my life. She tells me not to call and wants me to play 'hard to get'. That's something which does not come to me naturally. But I will still try and follow her advice as much as possible.

For today evening's date, she said 'Coffee and conversation' first until I presented 'Dinner and stay over' as an option. She thought maybe that will be nice for such a depraved man in his early 30s. She asked me what I was going to wear for the date, and I said even I hadn't decided. She didn't push me much about anything, but she at least made me decide to buy myself a new aftershave. Maybe I'll just wear a nice T-shirt and three-fourths with sandals

I had almost decided to shave my stubble off to give my new 'Asura'-esque moustache (view photo below) some accentuation. But I'm not sure if I can find time to go to a saloon - I don't want to do it myself, you see. But anyway, I hope this turns out to be as good a date as the first one. It should - it was supposed to be a 'come to my gig, we'll talk date'. Now that the darned gig got canceled, I have my entire evening to play with. Wish me luck!

The French Connection - 2

The first date went so well that the Frenchman and I decided to meet up once more before he left for Paris. This time we met up at Churchgate station and went to Marine Drive. After spending some lovely time at the Marine Drive, we went to Pizzeria (Not Just Pizzas By the Bay) and had some nice pasta. Then we headed back for the routine of wine, sex, pipe, and photography. It was another brilliant date. Some pictures of me smoking the pipe have been taken. I’ll post them as soon as I receive them from the Frenchman.

Unfortunately, this will be our last date on this trip. Even though I invited him to the New Year’s eve party that I’m going to be attending, he said it wouldn’t be a good idea for him to party because he’s leaving on the same night. Until next time, bon voyage dear Frenchman!

The French connection

I have conquered the French now as well! A handsome, intelligent professor of French literature and I went out for a night out in Mumbai today. A wonderful way to welcome Christmas. I met him at the Barista near Regal cinema. After having a coffee there, we headed to the suburbs by the local train.

We smoked wonderful hooka from a friendly neighborhood gay-friendly hooka place called “Planet Rainbow” and went to Kareem’s to have delicious chicken and mutton biriyani. Then we bought a bottle of wine and headed over to the apartment. I had already gotten in cleaned a neat for the date.

At the apartment we drank wine, smoked pipe, and had wonderful sex. He gifted me a bottle of eu de toilette from Paris!  It was truly a memorable date. I only wish I would such interesting men would be willing to stay in India rather than just visit it. I will upload some pictures soon!

On the following day...

Well, I chatted with the 'romantic' guy again yesterday night. Surprisingly enough, the chat was pretty normal. I even mentioned to him that I had blogged about our 'romantic' conversation. He seemed to be pretty cool about it.

From what I know about him, I think he's someone who had a recent painful experience in love, and this painful break up is manifesting in the quasi-neurotic 'romantic' tendencies, which is something that is actually wants in a relationship. That's my pseudo-shrink diagnosis anyway.

We managed to get over all this and go cam to cam on Yahoo, and I was floored my his 'thick-as-a-brick' moustache. Also, I was able to maked him smile and laugh with my silly jokes. So, all this is going well, I guess. Touch-plywood!

The 'romantic' Yahoo chat

The other day, on a personals site, I stumbled on a filter, which when disabled, gave you a bounty of 'suitable' profiles (read men) that I could check out. (Gosh, there are too many commas in that sentence). So, instead of a 20-odd men to check out, I got 100s of men any of who could turn out into a possible date. I clicked through about 150 of them and found some interesting profiles. Out of them, the standout one that read 'A writer. Would love to hear new stories'. I sent a message to this guy hoping for a lot.

The reply came yesterday and within a few exchanges, we were on Yahoo chat. I, as usual, was trying to work my humor in. And this guy looked like he at least 'got' my jokes. We threw in some references at each other. I was able to decipher most of his. In contrast, my references were dealt with nonspecifc, sometime 'funny' romantic lines.

Soon he popped in the most unexpected -- and in retrospect, what turned out to be a trap -- question:

'What would you do if we were in a cool, dark room and I said to you ''I have been waiting for you all my life''?'

I was perplexed. Seemed hilarious and I said

'I would laugh hysterically!'

That didn't go well with him. He said I had spoiled the mood and the romance that was apparently building up. I tried to recover by saying

'Of course, after realizing my folly, I would come up to you (rather 'gropingly' in the dark room, I should have added) and kiss you gently on your lips.'

He didn't like this response either. The conversation went wilder with him including rose water and popping grapes into my mouth in the scenario. Of course I couldn't keep up with the mush, and I ended up being told that I was the most unromantic person that he had met and stuff. I thought that was pretty mean. Within half a hour, we ended the chat conversation without really being sure if we would chat with each other again.

Funny. And weird. I don't know what is more appropriate to describe this chat encounter.

(*Since I started typing out this post, he has initiated chat with me. Still don't know what would happen on Yahoo messenger tonight!*)

The date that smelled like a veterinary hospital

I started dating a veterinary surgeon. Mr. Lion was his nickname in the personal site that I met him, and he friggin’ was in charge of the veterinary hospital at the zoo. Also, remember that I am a pet addict and I have had a encounters with animals. Yet, I was not prepared for this. I wouldn’t want to call it an ordeal—just an unfortunate mixture of circumstances that made me feel icky.

So, I meet this guy at a personals site. His profile reads interesting and we exchange messages. Soon we exchange numbers and he calls me this Friday noon. The first thing that I hear after a “Hello” from his end is a “meow!” Now, I am not really “turned on” by animals per se. But in this case, my curiosity was aroused.

It turned out that he had two apartments and seven cats in total, with two in his study/work apartment. He sounded really nice on the phone and we decided on meeting up on Sunday evening. I wanted the date to extend to dinner but he had to keep his usual Sunday dinner commitment with his family.

On Sunday, we meet up at the railway station close to his apartment—on a platform, and not outside the station. Weird. The first thing that he explains to me is that he’s in an unfortunate situation where one of his “bois” might also arrive later to join us that evening. He explained to me carefully that it’s not going to be a ménage et trois. Creepy.

It was drizzling that evening. We walk on this dirt path parallel to the railway station, through a market, and finally take a minimum fare ride on a rick to his apartment building. It was an old building that seemed destined to undergo renovation into a high-rise or something. We walk up the staircase and reach his door.

The moment we walked in the door, this amazing veterinary hospital-esque stench pierces my nostrils. I saw one his two cats that was meowing. The room was ill lit to start with and to distract myself, I went after the cats. The walls were lined with bookshelves with all kinds of books. I find the two cats up on the couch behind the partition wall that separated the big room into two.

I hear him closing the curtains, thus filtering out the bare amount of light in the room. I could barely make out the cat feed which was lying in a bowl on the floor. I could see a bathroom (where the cats go and do their bowel/urinary evacuations) with an incandescent bulb which was streaming some light to the room.

Then the turns on this crazy blue 0-watt bulb. He invites me to sit on another couch on the other side of the partition. He pours two glasses of wine and we finally start a conversation. The cats join us in a bit—one chooses to snuggle up with us and the other curls up on top of the television.

In this under-lit scenario, we can hardly see each other faces. But the cats can do much better. The friendlier cat starts playing with me. He constantly licked, bit, and chewed on my feet, hands, and forearms. Trust me, it was painful at times. He wanted to really make a move on my face, but my hair was too scary for him, I guess.

The conversation was smooth more or less, but weird, primarily because of the atmospheric hindrances from my side. There were a couple of times where there was just the weird silence filled with growls and meows of the cat. After an hour or so of this intense creepiness, we finally stumble upon an interesting “I know your ex lover” situation and bitch about it for a while.

I was more than eager to offer him time to make a move to meet his family when a couple of hours drew to a close. During the entire evening, we barely touched each others hands for a couple of time. On the way out, I was thinking how a date could be disastrous just because of the weirdness associated with the location.

The lesson to be learnt from is this guys: please choose your date and location wisely!

Weekend disaster

Last weekend was a disaster. It was a double-day weekend, which occurs every fortnight and I was looking forward to enjoying it doing stuff that I'd normally withdraw myself from. Like going out on movie dates and other dates etc.

The weekend started out with a mood swing triggered my a flood of memories from the past when I visited CST after a long time. That was on Friday evening. I had reached Not Just Jazz By The Bay much earlier than my bandmates from Cirkles - we had a gig there, of course - and I had decided to take a stroll up to CST and see if I could pick up a book or two from my favorite pirated-book vendor. On the way, I passed Sterling and New Empire, which used to be my regular hangout destinations during my residency at the hospital.

To just relive the Sterling experience, I even picked up a Sub from the Subway there. I went to the book vendor and checked out the new books that he had. Not one aroused my interest. Besides, the guilt of not having read a book for a long time played its part. I was disappointed with myself when I walked back to Marine Drive having asked Babloo (the vendor) to get me a copy of Satanic Verses, something that I have been longing to read.

The disappointment prevailed until the gig started. Music triggered happiness and joy as always - especially while doing a rendition of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' to a packed house at Jazz. It was our (Cirkles') 2nd anniversary bash. I came back home with hope of living a dream weekend that started with a friggin' early movie date with a good friend and fellow blogger. Then came the real disaster.

I woke up late and stood my friend up. He was mad at me and I was angry at myself. My apologies seemed to anger him even further and that hurt. And that triggered my bad mood for the rest of the weekend. I cancelled out three other dates - out of which two were potential 'getting laid' dates.

I didn't go to the gym for both Saturday and Sunday. I skipped meals, stuck to the apartment, and brooded in misery. I said no to all sorts of possible help. That's how crazy I am when I'm depressive. The only way out was to get to work and start interacting with people who care about me. I waited for that and that happened. By Monday evening, I was almost back to normal!

My friends say that I should prevent myself from being alone during these long weekends. Maybe they have a point!

Seize your life's balls - and not the other way around

I have met someone recently - he's very handsome, erudite, intelligent, smart, and talented. But there is something about him that is simply incredible (It took some time for me to figure it out) - the peace, the ease at which he lives life! He prefers to keep it simple and ensures that everything in his life, which is not so essential as to attend to emergent, is at a safe distance.

Even in Mumbai, far away from his quiet, cold hometown half the world away, he manages to bring an unseen order and calmness to his life. E-mails are put off until he finds time to respond to them. Calls and SMSes are not answered until he's free from his work, which is perched at the top of his pyramid. It's incredible to talk with him and realize what a fool you are and how you are letting your life hijack and capsize you.

After being in awe of his lifestyle - a wonderful, spacious, comfortable apartment, a cat, 10 musical instruments to work on, books to read, new destinations to visit (while travel and touring), and truckloads of time in his desired surroundings - I have realized one thing. Life is out there for you to live, to choose what you want to do, and more importantly, for you to decide when to do those things.

'Seize the moment' was my motto a few days back. Now it is 'Seize your life' - by its balls, and savor it as and when you want to!

The curious case of self-flagellation

As I'm resocializing and resocia-gayzing rampantly these days, I am posed one question quite frequently - a little too frequently for my comfort.

'I haven't heard from/seen you in ages! How/where have you been Kris?'

My answer always has been in either of two forms. The rather bland and gentle one goes like this — 'I've been up and down a lot, more down than up. But I'm up now!' The more edgy answer intended to hurtle a jaw or two over a cliff goes like this — 'I have been suffering from clinical depression with suicidal tendencies. Thankfully, my friends (boyfriend in particular) and dear therapist (friend) managed to help me out of it. I'm on medications now — anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, and anti-anxiety drugs. I'm much better now. Thanks! Have you ever considered suicide?'

When I say 'up and down', I mean it. I'm suffering from type 2 bipolar disorder bordering on unipolar depression. If it is indeed unipolar, the times when I surface from the depths of depression (to near normalcy) represent the manic phases of bipolarity. Either way, my phrenus is fluctuant. A status message on my office private messenger summed it up nicely — 'Kris is up and down like a BMC-repaired road'.

This weekend was an uncharacteristically typical up and down one for me. Here’s a recap.

Friday night: It was a mad night at a music awards ceremony where I hung out with friends (read superstars and rock icons), got drunk, hit on a my-type-of-hunk singing legend and gave him my number, then got dared to take off my shirt for a Bollywood/rock diva in exchange for her taking her shirt off (this incident got covered in Bombay Times today), and finally retching and throwing up on my way back in the cab and in my apartment, before crashing.

Saturday morning: Woke up with a hangover and bilious gastritis — it was as if my liver was saying 'Get a life, jerk!' Then, for the first time in a year, I welcomed one of my dear office colleagues to my apartment. She was there to give me company during the shooting of a documentary film about openly gay people — the film title 'Engayging Lives' is derived from Here’s Truly. It was supposed to be shot a month ago and I was one of the main characters in the film; well, until my depression destroyed any possibility of me being a part of it. After starting therapy and somewhat stabilizing on it, I had gotten in touch with the charming girls from Sophiya college and they gave me another chance to be a visual part of the film — I'm doing the background score for the film anyway.

Saturday evening: After that, I had a fantastic gig with Shoonyas when we performed as an opening act for Agnee at VJTI college in Matunga. We did a quite remarkable set that was a crazy mix of rock and Bollywood. Three of my dear colleagues from my workplace were there to make the evening special. I can’t believe the support I get from my office - thanks so much! That, however, was the end of the high.

Then, I was set up for a traumatic and humiliating dinner invitation that I would not like to dwell on — apart from a salad that I tossed together, and a few moments clicking two lovers making out, I felt really horrible. My pills were there in the background but the self-flagellation was severe. This must have triggered my insecurities which led to me having an intense argument with Vinokur, which pushed me to the limits of masochistic depression. I could feel myself conjuring up plots and subplots in my mind, each and every step meant to hurt me a little deeper.

Luckily, thanks to just Vinokur, I was rescued once again and we somehow managed to get me to sleep without more mutual trauma! Sleep seems to be one potent douser of my flames.

Sunday morning: I woke up feeling much better and had a nice, long Skype conversation with Vinokur. Intense multi-tasking ensued and I started feeling like my old self — capable and confident. Moreover, I agreed for a date with a rather mysterious person, which I've been procrastinating for months if not years. A walk down the Juhu beach with him and his dog, and a relaxing conversation over tea later laid the background for an interesting prospect.

Sunday evening: After the date, I went to my first GB meet in months — mainly to meet up with the dear aunt of a friend. During the entire meet, I was keying things on my PDA, not speaking unless being specifically asked to. Later, I invited my favorite aunt to be my date for Valentine's Day! On my way back, a series of incidents including self-deprecatory humor, inability to remember the name of the book that I had read (Ellie Wiesel's 'Night'), and a couple of inflammatory FB threads bared everything in me in under half an hour. I knew I was going down to self-created whiplashes from my delusional world, but couldn't stop myself.

Ironically, an FB chat with one of my erstwhile co-residents from the hospital, during which my friend proved how narrow-minded, conservative and rude Indian society could still be vis-á-vis homosexuality and a coming out situation. However, I defended valiantly without losing my calm despite my pride being at stake. This chat made me realize that I'm good after all, and that my return to practicing surgery in the myopic and treacherous environment of the hospital would be difficult if not impossible.

It's amazing how masochistic depression can almost whip you down to nothingness. For those who are suffering from the same, or those who know of people who do, please help yourself and others to overcome this!

Gora for a dinner-movie combo

Earlier in the morning, I had found myself getting up late in the morning and thereby screwing up the day, and I decided that today I was going to end up doing something other than just stay at home. Since Mr. Bach had left, I haven't gotten around to meeting someone for a date etc mainly because of my own nerdy nature. Amongst the few people that I was 'supposed to meet', I decided to spend the evening with a someone who I find very funny and interesting. Funny, he happens to be a Gora too - and an American at that.

We decided to meet up for dinner and a movie at the magnificent Oberoi mall at Goregaon. We met at Crossword where he was shopping for the real version of Bhandarkar's frivolously popular work. The moment I saw him, I realized how Michael Stipe's looks have been plagarized by this body-face-double! Ergo, I'm going to refer to him as Stipe. So, Stipe and I went to the food court and over the most cliched of american fast food, ended up knowing about each other - I got to know more about him incidentally, because I sort was able to shut my mouth longer than what was expected - okay, the Sub did occupy my mouthspace long enough.

Funny to note that he had predicted the impending recession a year or so before it happened and had wanted to move away from some place which is as 'demanding' as the US to some place which has the vibrancy and character and spirituality as India, errr... Mumbai. He's now working here indulging in part time gigs in the movie industry and enjoying himself thorougly. The bizarre thing that we ended up doing was to sprawl up on a red-leather-upholstered couch kinda thing intended for kids orginally like lovers - staring into each others eyes while pretending to have an intimate conversation. That caught the decidedly homophobic and homo-unaware public by surpise which, I thought, was funny and wicked.

We wound the day up watching Bedtime Stories which was very entertaining to me - having gotten tired of watching lame slap-stick comedy on sitcoms meant for television lately. Adam Sandler and co did manage to charm us. On the way out of the mall, we were swarmed by a dozen or so rick drivers who were sure that we would end up paying more for the ride back home because of the gora-dom lurking in the shadows. But that obviously didn't happen. We took our own ricks back home and just paid what we were supposed to.

The curious thing of this entire exercise, as validated by the man himself, is that Gora-dom, or even better, Goritude, takes you places. He was greeted with polite responses from ushers, friskers, waiters and whom not - just because he's gora. He also gets this thing everywhere he goes and everything he does. For example, all the unsuspecting (yet hot [for him]) young Marathi bois in the city would love to sleep with him - just because he's a gora.

I don't want to take any credit away from Stipe. In fact, I want to give him some extra. Here's a guy who's talented, funny, intelligent and good looking. But he also is street-smart. He has learned enough hindi to get around. It makes me happy to know that there are goras out there who blend into India, who can work their in-built charm here without totally selling out and acting like jack asses. And it makes me happy that I have gained a friend during this exercise. Oh, and I think I managed to shake off tendency I have been having to make out/make love with a person on the first date.

(PS: Stipe has blogged about the same encounter. But due to his privacy issues, I can't link it up. I thank him for those wonderful adjectives that he used for me!)

A tryst with art in Mumbai - Part 1

I have been here in Mumbai for over three and a half years. That's how long it took for me do anything related to conventional art and culture. The first whiff of this wonderful world came to me during the first few months of my relationship with Vinokur when he used to tell me how wonderful it was to go to museums and art galleries in the Big Apple. We had our wonderful plan about injecting the brown Indian boy with a dose of art, at Mumbai to start with, when we would start living together for the first time. That didn't exactly workout that way as most real-life stories don't. But the desire kept nagging me on. I had decided during the months that I studied for the exams that I would start diving into the wonderful pool of art and culture that Mumbai had to offer.

The first instance came three weeks back when I attended the screening of a documentary film about Narendra Modi and his evil masterplan to remain in power. This movie, which was banned for public screening, is about how the BhaJPa had cooked up mock assassination attempts at Modi and arrested and killed innocent people in Gujrat, their only fault that they were Muslim. I could distinctly feel the amount of culture and intelligence disseminated in the audience which was evident in the little Q&A section after the screening. I'd be lying if I didn't confess that apart from all the culture, there were really attractive older men aplenty there. People with beards, aquiline noses dressed in graceful kurthas and talking about art - the Indian version of a talking Vinokur-blow-up doll!

The first time that I met Mr. Bach was at the Jehangir art gallery. He is the epitome of the filthy-rich south-mumbaiite who hate the suburbs and love their art. He took me in for a demo tour and ended up buying a sculpture of the bust of a handsome man with a long face and a long, but shapely, nose. He still denies any hints of narcissism in this purchase and such claims have been rendered baseless by the sculptor himself (at the gallery) and a couple of his friends and cousins who seemed to have the intelligence to grasp. We had carried on to another huge private gallery where he had purchased three pieces of a piece of modern art on the mythology of the Eklavya's thumb story - one for his own house here and two for his wealthy friends living in the Snakes.

Experiencing the various pieces of art hung up on walls of his fantastic house(s) in town was a de ja vu experience - two of the three men that I had dated prior to Mr. Bach had their share of art on display. One had Picasso replicas and others at his home and the other is a painter and sculptor who showed me his original work over whisky and soda on a wonderful evening that we spent together. It is quit evident that my sensibilities seem to home in on men with something or the other to do with arts, thanks to my mentor, my best friend and my ex-lover - the one and only Vinokur.