A twitter movie reviewer, I have become

THIS

is a consequence of THIS

Just watched "Into The Storm." Pretty sure that the actual apocalypse will be a tornado apocalypse.
— Krishna Kumar V. (@krishna_kumar_v) August 11, 2014

and THIS.

It turns out that #GuardiansOfTheGalaxy is not as visually spectacular as #IntoTheStorm. I enjoyed the latter better.
— Krishna Kumar V. (@krishna_kumar_v) August 11, 2014

Day of packages

After the two-day weekend, when I reached work, I was greeted at my desk by a package that hard arrived from my Mom. It contained the ‘idli podi’, the kind of dry chutney/masala that you have with dosas and idlis. I was very happy. But that was not the end of it.

In the afternoon, I received a package from @WOMWorldNokia with a Nokia X7 that I am supposed to test for 2 weeks. For those who don’t quite know the saga behind it, you can read it  here.

The first impressions when I opened the box were not very encouraging. Despite the surprise and the awe after receiving the package, almost everyone thought that X7 looked bad. These are the various reactions that I got.

'Ugly', 'Not Good Looking', 'Looks like a coffin', 'Uggh!', and 'Okay'.

I came back home and made dosas and had them with the idli powder. I also opened the X7 package and found that it doesn’t have a user manual in English. So I was even wary of putting it to charging. But eventually I did.

The only good thing that happened after that was that it immediately hooked on to my Wi-Fi at the apartment. I tried browsing on the default browser. It sucked. The screen resolution sucked. The you tube videos won’t load on full screen. There is no pinch zoom. The screen is not as responsive as you would like.

So, I downloaded Opera Mini and Opera Mobile to test. Both got downloaded (and probably installed). But I can’t find them. That’s it, I can’t find my way around the phone. The interface also sucks. The home screen is not as customizable or user friendly as the Android ones are.

I haven’t sill put a sim card in it. I’ll probably do that tomorrow/Thursday. Let’s see if it stops sucking even a little bit.

Shor Bazaar's own "Savita Bhabhi"

Shor Bazaar, my band, have just released a single based on the porn comic strip heroine "Savita Bhabhi." Personally, I believe Savita Bhabhi.com is a very genuine and creative concept - at least, from the point of view of our society. I see her as person who defied the stereotype of an Indian woman, always bound by restrictions and rules, suffocated of a right to express her feelings and desires.

It is unfortunate that our Government decided to ban the website. I feel that the echoes the discrimination towards sexual minorities. Hence, this song feels like a liberation - a tribute to freedom of expression, the freedom to be yourself.

Shor Bazaar's "Savita Bhabhi" is out for free download all over the internet. I'll list a few sites below. I request all of my fellow blogger friends to listen to the song and if possible, talk about it.. on blogs, forums, networking sites etc. If you do, please send me a link so that I can share it with the band and the rest of our fans.

- Shor Bazaar Blog: http://bazaarshor.blogspot.com

- GimmeSound.com: http://www.gimmesound.com/ShorBazaar/
- ReverbNation: http://www.reverbnation.com/shorbazaar/
- MySpace: http://myspace.com/bazaarshor/
- MyBand.co.in: http://www.myband.co.in/Shor_Bazaar/
- Chordvine: http://chordvine.com/
- SoundClick: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=927184

Also, these are some links to Shor Bazaar on the internet. Again, please feel free to send these across to your friends and families. Promote free music. Promote freedom!

- Twitter

- MySpace

- Shor Bazaar Blog

- FaceBook Fan Page

- FaceBook Group

- Orkut Group

'Straight' out of nowhere

I was one of the few invitees to the screening of 'Straight' yesterday at Fun Republic preview theatre (Parvati Balagopalan, Vinay Pathak, Anuj Chaudhary are just a few names from the attendees of the screening). I was skeptical because of a lot of reasons - a cynic by my side, a 'gay-friendly' movie from Bollywood on the screen and a theatre full of people whose natural instincts are to scream and holler on instinct at the slightest of jokes and faintest of hints of positive gay-vibe. The 'Dostana' nightmare still lingers on, you see. The first few minutes of the movie added to my wariness as some unexpected and cheap animation tricks to 'charter' down a family tree were unfurled on the screen.

Thankfully, that was just about it. The movie had me forget about all the things that could go wrong. It was fast paced, witty, clever and intelligent. The character development was just at the right pace leaving scope for the plot to become really interesting. It's funny how performances simply become good when you get rid of all the 'stars' and get some real actors into the mix. It is not at all surprising that I'm itching to add an 'unlike Dostana' tag to each and every sentence in this little post. But I'm not a movie-critic and I'm not writing because I needed to feel like one. Let's get to the point here.

This movie is so positive with regards to gays and their rights that it pales everything else that has come before it - 'Fashion', 'Dostana' you name it. There is NO gay stereo-typing. There are no banal jokes about homosexuals. Homophobia was dealt with classy treatment which would make even the homophobes enjoy the movie and possibly change their mindset. There are so many instances in the movie which stress about gays being regular people, about gays being not obsessed with sex and only sex, about arranged marriages destroying lives in the gay-context and finally about gay relationships being simply like any other relationship; with all it's virtues and fallacies.

We have campaigned for 'Milk' and we have cheered for 'Dostana'. I think 'Straight' is the movie that we should really promote as the judgment at the court is around the corner. I applaud the efforts of all the people who were part of the movie! Please go watch it!

Something relevant

Being a musician, I find it natural to enjoy gigs of other bands. This is what I used to do before I had a band. I have not lost the slightest amount of vigor to be an excited music fan. But things are not the same with my band members I guess. Sometimes I feel it’s a mixture of pride and ego. Other times I feel it’s their innate tendency to be reclusive. I can’t take either as an excuse though, at least for myself.

So, I was at the branch opening of a famous chain of musical instruments retailer playing with Shoonyas. It was a cozy, in-house gig and we had a good performance. Even though the actual ingauration ceremony featured a performance by  big-shots like the most famous percussionist drummer from India and the one of the most succesful music composer team from Bollywood, what attracted me was the band which was playing after us.

The band is called ‘Something Relevant’.  They are pretty famous and have been around for a few years. They are somewhere between smooth jazz and big band. I had an argument with Rob the other day about the genres and I was startled to hear him ridicule my genre-listation. But anyway, they are very pleasing to the ear with their orchestration of keys, trombone, saxophone and percussions along with the regular mix of guitars, bass, drums and vocals.

But their most interesting aspect is the lyrics. They wrote about stuff like mosquitoes, traffic jams and other mundane things in life in a clever, captivating way and the singing was complimentarliy soulful.  I enjoyed them very much; so much so that I was part of the entire group of people jamming with them with all kinds of instruments at the shop. I met with a couple of band members after the gig. They sure seem worthy of a listen. I would recommend them to anyone with a bit of class.

Why Dostana is a must-miss movie

I don't know if I even qualify to give a critique on Dostana - I couldn't stand it. I walked out of the near deserted theatre yesterday, 5 minutes into the interval. The reason might just be that in the last few months, I've been keeping myself from watching anything but classics from Hollywood apart from those that I watched at the GB film festival and Humsafar highs.

Dostana as a movie is simply bad. I couldn't see anything which was good enough from the movie critic point of view. Bad acting, bad direction, bad screenplay, tepid humor - all ensured that I spent the time that I was in the theatre surfing and checking e-mail. John Abraham's butt was by far the most emotive amongst his body parts and I was reminded of an episode of Will and Grace where Jack plays a butt-double for a famous Hollywood actor during a shower scene.

I actually liked the Boman Irani character - which I thought was a dig at Meryl Streep's role in the Devil Wears Prada. Despite his character being effeminate and rather homo-sexual, he had the guile of an 'actor' to pull it off well. I haven't watched 'Fashion' yet and I presume I would like it better than this.

From the community standpoint, I suppose it was a positive move from Bollywood. In the campy jokes that fly around, I average homo-agnostic or homo-neutral person would become more familiar our presence. The kind of acceptance given by the Ms. Chopra's and her aunt's characters in the movie is refreshing. I was touched personally by the scene in which the character that plays Abhishek's mother has an epiphany about her 'gay' son.

I guess the other half of the movie has maybe another instance of such an instance which could touch an average gay guy who is comfortable with his sexuality and maybe I should have bothered to go through a couple of dozen pages of the Wikipedia at the theatre to pass time until such a scene surfaces.

After reading the positive reviews about the movie from inside the community, I thought this movie could be the one movie which I could coax my Mom and family watch before I come out to them. Now that I have seen at least half of the movie, I would not even dare to let my sister watch it for purposes of homo-acclimatizing - because it simply isn't a good movie.

Rock On - truths and lies

A couple of days before, I watched the quintessential movie for the Indian rocker – Rock On! I don’t know how I had managed to withhold myself from committing to watch it on the first day itself as a month before I would’ve watched even a B-grade hindi movie on the first day. The movie, in my opinion as a rocker, was good. It does not get any better adjectives for one simple reason – some bad acting and a spotty screenplay.

No, I’m not going to write a review of the movie as there are hundreds of them out there to read. But as my life is almost entirely entrenched in the movie, I thought it would be fun to give you an idea as to how I felt while I watched the movie; how realistic the movie actually was. Here are the good parts of the movie which are so true that they brought a deja vu feeling to me.

• The struggling amateur band with talent and a lot of hope: there are hundreds of them all over India. Most give up soon and end up taking up jobs like the band mates in the movie.
  
• The monetary crunch: Every musician artist goes through this in India, I believe. Well, not if you are a Bindra of course. The movie truthfully depicts the budget that we look at and the bankruptcy that such bands face.
  
• The exhilaration of performing on stage: This is unbelievably true. Every rocker wants to play his instrument. But to play live to an audience cheering us on and to act cool on stage is a feeling on it’s own.
  
• The reality show: The competitions are fiercely fought and everyone will remain nervous. Since we happen to win a competition like the one shown in the movie, I will tell you that we felt jublilant at winning that. I still remember coming back home and smooching Vinokur and breaking the good news!
  
• The ‘lost’ feeling in other jobs: This is very truthfully represented although at times, it is a little exaggerated. Purab Kohli’s character typifies it.
  
• The record label: Even though we have been fortunate in this aspect, most record labels tie down the bands with creative restrictions. This is something that all artists hate!
  
• Bollywood songs and other stuff: Seriously, none of us like singing ‘Dekha hai pehli baar, saajan ke aankhon mein pyaar’ on dandia beats. We might like the songs but we would like to perform something original people. Ironically, the college crowds will never ever want to hear originals. They would always root for a cover of a Bollywood (trash) hit or a Paki-rock song.
  
• The mediocre music quality in bollywood: I respect Anu Malik for the role he plays. It is very truthful to the state in the music industry where creativity and ingenuity are forsaken for commercial success.
  
• The pressure from family: That is very true. Most families would disagree to let their son/daughter chase their dreams in something as wild as rock.
  
• Misunderstandings and ego clashes: Another very true aspect of being a rocker. Our egos are usually quite big and we all have very creative ideas. It’s easy to arrive at a disagreement and easier to get into an argument or a fight.

As in any movie from Bollywood, there were a few thoughtless scenes and concepts which would remain myths if someone like me would not care to explain. So here goes...

• The jamming pad for the average Indian Rocker: In the movie, the band called Magik rehearses at their jamming pad – the spacious, vacant, unused basement of a building which the band gets to use for free. This is by the far the farthest fetched thing in the movie. It is impossible to get any space for jamming, that too free. Only rich, rich bastards can afford to jam in such luxury – rich bastards such as Farhan in the latter half of the movie. In reality, we get cramped up rooms with an exorbitant charge and the slots are very hard to find.
• The bass guitarist: The major glaring error in the movie and it’s story line is that the band doesn’t have a bass guitarist, probably the most elemental part of a rock band. A few would presume that I’m blowing my own trumpet. I’m a bass guitar player alright, but that is not why I state so. Ask any rock musician and they would swear by this claim. The drummer and the bass guitarist really form the background for any rock band. The thing which is even worse is that despite lacking the bassy, there are two guitarists in the band. If there was no bassy, one of them should take up the bass guitar and complete the band. For reference, the only major band which didn’t have the bassy is ‘The Doors’. But I’m sure they would have used bassists in their live performances.
  
• The awe-inspiring rock shows: There is the footage of a Rock On concert at the CST (Chatrapathi Shivaji Terminus - railways)  in the movie. It is fantastic to watch that. But believe me, such things don’t exist. I still remember the troubles that Farhad Wadia, the man who conducts I-Rock, had to face for setting up the show at the Gateway of India two years back. Despite getting all such permissions, the police denied permission to stage the event an hour before it was scheduled to start and finally the event had to be postponed by about a month! So, such shows are just figments of imaginations. And even in a show which is held in an arena, the public response that you see in the movie is simply overrated. Nobody jumps for every beat of any song. In reality either nobody, or a very few dance when the songs are being belted out live.
  
• The bad vibes between the bands: When we go for a concert/competition, there is nothing like pushing and shoving happening backstage! In fact, we get to be friends with the other bands and members and at least I do my best to cheer for them if I find them nice or their music nice. I don’t hide my appreciation for anybody else’s music even if it were a direct competition to us. So, we end up being friends with competitors and often have fun being with them.
  
• To get out of traffic jam and walk right into a show: This was by far the stupidest part of the movie. You simply can’t do that. To perform at a concert with any level of professionalism, there is something called a sound-check – this is where you plug in our instruments and set the mixing and levels before the show. Once it is set, when we come on stage the guy at the sound will set the levels according to the sound-check. In the movie, Arjun Rampal walks right into the concert with his guitar and starts playing. This simply doesn’t happen and if you try to do it, the results are usually horrible and pathetic.

The 16 rupee dosa plate

In the drudgery of daily life, we often fail to enjoy the wonderful things that you stumble by. We forget to take note of the beauty that our life has to offer and act benumbed shirking away anything that do better with some recognition. We run to the same bus stop every morning, catch the same old-bus to the railway station, board on an amazingly overflowing compartment of a local train oblivious of the smell of the guy standing next to you and reach your work place. Just to start another working day – eating, chatting, blogging, e-mailing and of course working.

I am strangely above such limitations. I don’t have a daily life. I don’t have a job. I don’t have a routine which takes the fun out of life. I have a truck-load of time which could be used in creative processes. But I don’t have the prowess to manage time. Yet, startling similar to others in the above category, I (hardly) eat, chat, blog, e-mail all around the day when I can. And the price that I pay is simple – poverty.

But with the money that I have, I am still able to enjoy the finer aspects of life that some other might not. For example, going across the road and eating this amazingly tasty dosa plate at a road side shack for just Rs. 16. Maybe it’s the hunger of not having had anything to eat for dinner or maybe it’s the memories that come flooding from my childhood when my granny used to make dosas for me – when the first bite gets chewed, I feel really good! In less than 7 minutes, I finish up 5 dosas (thin, medium sized ones) return back home content and peaceful.


For all of you people, who think that life’s getting too boring, try these shacks when you get time. They are on the Link Road, Andheri (W); on the right side of the road when you go towards Lokhandwala just after Star Bazaar and just before the turn to Veera Desai road. It’s simply an astounding experience!

Interesting blogs and more

I have been doing a lot of blog-hopping and I stumbled on to a few interesting posts I would like my readers to take a look at.

• Joel Derfner: This blog is what inspired me to start blogging in the first place as is evident here. His latest post is so ironically true.
  
• Aamir Khan: I like the way he writes and stuff. The design is also neat. But, can you believe that he wants us to log on to his website with username and password to post in a comment? Do you agree to this shoddy stand?
  
• Amitabh Bacchan: This latest post about one of his fans complaining (bitching really) about him and his team of 'stars' not fulfilling 'promises' is very interesting. And you can see how the Big B annoys even his fans by using uppercase for a couple of lines. Curiously enough, my comment criticising this has not been published on the page!
  
• Jabberwock: You should read this post about the reaction from the Indian public to Bindra's gold. Remember the TOI comments about the repeal for section 377. This is even worse!
  
• Miscellaneous blogs: Very interesting posts about straight relationships
  • Mirror Cracked - by Nikhil Kumar - Read post
    
  • Blessed Curse by Oxymoronic - Read post

Believe it or not folks, I have got a couple of offers from other sites/blogs to write there. I really don't have a friggin' clue as to why people would want me on SiliconIndia.com or Mutiny.in. Especially in the former as I may find CEOs of tech corportations like Intel reading my posts about why the Greek soccer team should be awarded gold in the Olympics just because of their sex appeal.

So, do all of the 8* readers approve of this significant step for the GayKind?

(*as assessed on the 14th of August. Miss Quested's extensive commenting gave her/him/it a status of 1.78 readers which was rounded up to 2 in the final standings.)