How NOT to Share Feedback with Artists

My search for performance coaches has not yet yielded a viable one. These individuals are highly accomplished and trained individuals whose fees are like sledgehammers, something someone making a living in India will struggle to meet.

Hence, I turned to my extended friend circle and asked around. Basically, I texted a select few friends to query if they had such a skillset, and if they did, I asked if they would be interested to coach me. In all fairness, it was not so difficult to find the likely candidates. Both the people I got in touch did have the skillset, one of them, said they could work with me. Yesterday evening, I had my first meeting with the one.

It’s a he. It’s a he who I have had a physical relationship with. It’s a he who has been there for me, by my side, in some of my darkest phases. It’s a he who has given me unforgettable experiences of various kinds. It’s a he who has been consistently welcoming toward me in the several versions that I have iterated myself through. I’ll refer to him as SP.

SP, in a nutshell, said that the most important thing that I need to do is to believe in myself and my potential. He wants me to be confident to ‘market’ myself and work on my networking skills. He thinks that one needs to have a certain blend of arrogance and indifference toward the world. Our meeting ended with the promise of a few more at the very least.

I was also left with an assignment. Somewhere in the middle of my narration of what I thought ailed me in terms of sharing the output of my creativity with the rest of the world, I mentioned that I have had a few traumatic experiences while attempting it previously, with some of them being with people what one would refer to as “friends”. He asked me to write down two such experiences, which will immediately follow this. I am to share these with him and we are to discuss these in our next meeting.

Traumatic Experience #1

Age: 21
Year: 2001

I had just recorded and mixed my first original song called Castle Without A Rock. The song/lyric writing, and all the performances (guitars, bass, drums, and vocals) were by me. The song itself was about the experiences that we (my close friends and I) had had around our first-ever concert as part of the New Year's Eve celebrations for the coming of 2000 (Y2K).

The landmark album Parachutes by Coldplay had been released only a few months before, and the hit song Yellow was on everyone’s minds. The reason I mention is that I thought it was a masterful song arranged relatively simplistically, which is what I was attempting to go for in my song.

It was late afternoon on a mid-summer day. As soon as I finished a decent mix for the song, I exported it in the mp3 format, copied into a portable USB drive, and ran over to my friend’s place—our usual meeting place.

The house was that of a friend who was much older than the rest of us. He was a music connoisseur and had been collecting CDs and records for years. He had a high-end hi-fi at his place. On that particular day, we were three—the older friend, a younger friend (who since then went on to be a drummer in many bands I have played with), and I.

I excitedly announced what I wanted to share with them, and I figured out a way to play the song on the hi-fi. My friends did not demonstrate any excitement. In fact, halfway through the song, the older friend started laughing, which prompted me to stop the playback. In the ensuing conversation, I explained what my intent was (in terms of artistic style). I only remember getting more chuckles and laughter. At the end of my explanation, I remember receiving some critique (on the following lines) from the older friend:

“Such work will never be received well. You might as well as give up on writing/performing music. You shouldn’t set high hopes for being a professional musician.”

Years later, I would take courses on Coursera, with some of them being on songwriting and musicianship. One of the important aspects of every such course is the importance of learning to share feedback with peers. The entire focus is on the need for kind, constructive feedback, with strong advice against harsh and hypercritical ones. I guess my friend did not know this, despite him being a popular and successful teacher in accounting.

I don’t remember my younger friend sharing anything on the song. This despite him and me having been jamming regularly for several months and having dreams of being in a band and writing songs. Years later, I remember him coming around and admitting to how highly he thought highly of some of my later work.

This incident was followed by another traumatic incident with the younger friend’s family. These two incidents were triggers for my eventual move away from Thiruvananthapuram. The incident also started the gradual severance of the friendship with the older friend. Although I continued to work with and be friends with the younger one, things have never been really the same.

Traumatic Experience #2

Age: 28
Year: 2008

I had just released an EP of five of my songs on MySpace. Although I was sure of the quality of my songwriting, I was aware of my production and performances not being up to the mark for radio airplay. The songs were actually recorded with the aim of a submission for a talent hunt by the premier indie record label then. The idea was for me to showcase my work so that they would consider me signing with them as an artist under their label.

Back then, I was actively involved in networking in the music scene, being part of two popular bands on the rise. I also personally knew many active musicians and was friends with some of them. Internet chats were popular. I had just struck up a chat conversation with one of the scene guys on MySpace.

He was someone who I respected and looked up to at that time. He was funny and charming and was part of at least two successful bands. Later on, I’d realize that he belonged to a clique of musicians who were fortunate enough to know each other from their school days, with their collective might propelling them to the top of the indie music scene.

I remember thinking that I will ask his opinion as to how to go about taking my project on live touring, considering that he and his bands were doing that consistently for a few years. I had shared the links of my songs and asked him for his opinion. The lasting memory that I have of this conversation is him telling me this:

“Who is this fucking singer, man! He is so baaadd, oh my god. I have never heard worse singing in my life!”

I left the conversation with him and have never talked to him properly since then. This crushed me in ways that I can’t even describe. It triggered my reluctance to share my work with my friends and “scene guys”. It also created roadblocks for me to share songwriting ideas with my then band, which I partially overcame in the coming years.

Like with the previous incident, I experienced a life-changing traumatic event soon after. This time, I would almost lose my partner to near-fatal health complications during his visit.

He had come to Mumbai from New York City, with the intent of figuring out a way to eventually move to India to be with me. In the course of the next few weeks in India, and in the following months in the US, he would go through multiple devastating health events which would render him in a state of dementia, where he would not even recognize me or our relationship. This wiped out our bank accounts, and would eventually result in me failing my exams for the first time in my life.

The series of unfortunate events triggered the darkest phase of depression I think I have gone through. I would spend several months toying with the idea of suicide. Eventually, with the help of some close friends and the partially-recovered partner, I started taking medications for depression. I somehow found the courage and drive to give my post-graduation exams, and would eventually pass them on second attempt.

On the positive side, this incident also guided me to explore ways to improve my voice, and I eventually even found a vocal coach, who restored a lot of the confidence that I had lost. Eventually, I would find the courage to share my work with a select few friends, and most of them would end up having startlingly different opinions.

The band that I am in right now includes two such people. I remember having played my songs on the car stereo on a ride back from a rehearsal. I was only seeking feedback on my choice of guitar tones. After listening to a few songs, they would tell me how awesome these songs are, why I hadn’t yet shared these with them, and that they would love to work on these songs in a band project.

PS: The one thing that I realize after my first meeting with SP is that performance coaches (and performers, as a matter of fact) are those individuals who have figured out ways to overcome their self-doubts and negativity in a consistently replicable manner.

Julie

2345 words | 13 min

Note: This is a long, dark, graphic post. User discretion is recommended.

Julie was my pet dog through my late adolescence and early adulthood. One of the plausible reasons why I haven’t written about her is that I haven’t gotten over the trauma of the evening that I had to part with her.

I’d, in fact, realized that I had not written much about Julie, after my search for the same returned just two superficial references (Monday Blues [2004] and Animal Instinct [2011]). I did the search for a special reason, which I’ll write about in my next post. In fact, it was at the end of writing that post that I decided that I needed to write about her before writing about anything else.

I had adopted Julie from an animal shelter ran by a lady, who was featured in the Young World supplement that came along with The Hindu on Saturdays. Along with Julie, I had adopted her name, which was originally assigned by the lady. I chose Julie over the other available options for adoption because she was unlike any other puppy/dog I had had a chance to interact with.

While I wrote the previous paragraph, I cringed at my choice of words that imply my omnipotency in the matter, almost ignoring Julie’s role in it. These choices do paint me in a cruel, insensitive, materialistic light, which is fairly close to how I’d expect myself to come across by the time you reached the end of this post. I reckon I must have been like that when I was younger, at least more than I’d like to admit that I’m now.

I remember being told that Julie was about ten weeks old after I had properly looked at her for the first time. I was seventeen at that time, having just finished my first year at Medical College. I was also let known that she did not have a known direct lineage that she was aware of, which plainly meant that Julie had been rescued from the streets.

She was a short-haired, mixed breed dog (a “mongrel” or a “mutt” for the ease of comprehension). She had a predominantly brown coat whose shade I can only describe as somewhere in between syrup and cinnamon brown. Fair warning:the overexposed, poorly framed photograph I share below—the only one of hers that I was able to find—would suggest otherwise.

Her paws and the tail tips were white, complemented by an almost perfectly symmetrical white jacket with collars seemingly sown into her pelt, with the white hairs trailing off while making their way to her underbelly. Even as a puppy, she had an unusual skeletal structure, which over the years would fill up to make her appear shorter than stouter, and heavier than unhealthy. I guess my lack of awareness of what constituted a healthy diet for dogs could have also played a role in these morphological transformations. 

Her eyes were a blend of caramel and chocolate brown, conveying a wonderful blend of naughtiness and maturity. She had a dirty pink nose that was so soft that I often had the urge to bite it off. Thankfully, I did not need to resort to such extremes, and had instead ended up kissing the nose and booping her at every chance I got.

Her breath was fresh enough for making a strong case to burn dictionaries for the fallacious definition of dog breath, and the scent of her paws and toe beans could be mistaken for the fragrances of fermented rice cakes. She is the reason I bury my nose in the paws of all my pets!

But the real reason why I went for—or after—her was because she got along well with cats, which was an important criterion because my household had around half a dozen cats of varying ages at any point in time. In fact, I’d gone to that particular shelter because of it being a safe house for both cats and dogs.

Before adopting Julie, I had little experience in being with dogs, especially at the collegial level that I find myself with them these days. She taught me things that no man or woman could ever teach, and I think she groomed and mentored me as much I did her.

This is not to imply that ours was a perfect relationship, with me having a longer, shallower learning curve after having being with felines as companions for much longer. I must have felt frustrated and alienated with her like how most people that you would come upon would feel about cats.

I remember the sense of liberation when she would take the lead, without quite dragging me along, in our walks around the neighborhood, which would extend beyond our little housing colony as she grew into an adult. I guess a more appropriate term for describing my neighborhood would be a tiny township and not a housing colony.

I would eventually take her to grocery shopping and on walks to my cousins’ place a kilometer and half away, which is a significant distance between two locations in Thiruvananthapuram. As a couple, we would attract strange looks and conversations on the way as well as at our destinations.

At that time in Kerala, dogs were mostly relegated to an ancillary security role, spending most of their daytimes chained or locked in dog cages, hardly getting any human playtime. They would be let free at night, during when they would run around the houses within the confines of the compound walls and gates barking at street dogs, cats, and passersby.

I was surprised at how fast my feline pack warming up to Julie—the lack of significant size differential must have helped. At the time of her arrival, Julie was definitely smaller than the adult mom cat and was only slightly bigger than the youngest kittens/cats at the time of her arrival.

Yet, it seemed too soon for my cats to assume that a strange puppy/dog would be safe enough to let their guards down, considering how the dogs in my neighborhood never stopped chased them around. I guess Julie was more intuitive than I gave her credit for at first, which also manifested in her knowing what (literal) lines to cross and not, at home.

I must remind everyone that I lived in a Tamil Brahmin household in Kerala. In houses like mine, different mammals and genders were assigned different lines that weren’t to be crossed. They were also allowed different privileges, whose mere allowances needed to be viewed upon as offerings of kindness and modernity that had somehow infiltrated the dungeons of regressive thinking. This was one of the many reasons why I would eventually alienate myself from my family—the immediate one and the extended one alike.

Julie would end up donning the de facto maternal role among the band comprising my cats, myself, and her. Julie was a better ratter (I should really say “mice-r”) than my cats would ever be. I remember many a time when I could sense the disappointment in her eyes on the days when we would all be on a loft or on the terrace, playing the role of exterminators. She would watch her feline peers be sloppy in executing the members of a mischief fleeing for their lives, and would have to cover for them, almost too casually.

She would extend this to protecting the kittens from all sort of threats while I was away or when the mom cats (I would end up having two of them eventually) would be away fighting or fornicating. Most days, she would end up being the lone warrior fending off all the tomcats would arrive for the genetic cleansing of their rivals’ progeny. I could only be a facilitator for the true guardianship that Julie offered, by opening doors and gates when the need arose.

Julie, along with the cats, would give me company at early mornings and late nights, while I was studying, reading, or rehearsing, regardless of whether I was happy, sad, anxious, or hurting. She was not much of a sleeper in bed, probably because she felt like she should instead protect her dependents—which included me of course—who chose to (or needed to) sleep in the bed in various physical combinations and arrangements.

She eventually became the lone liaison between an estranged son and apathetic parents. Yet, her strength proved to be too little to prevent the widening of the chasm, resulting in my moving to Mumbai. This, in turn, resulted in the decision of her needing to be returned to the shelter. After a year of me being away, my parents had finally admitted to a combination of being frustrated with the need to, and their inability to, take care of Julie, demanding that I take care of the situation.

On the day of my separation with Julie, I vaguely remember what I had felt before I arranged for a rickshaw for the trip. I must have felt like a murderer with a motivation that could be presented as relatable in the hands of a masterful storyteller. Someone about to commit a heinous act that could be painted over with the kindness and morality they would show in their future toward others, allowing for at least a partial redemption.

In retrospect, I realize that this experience is one of several in my life that have consolidated the fact that losing someone alive is far more damaging than losing someone at their death.

Yet, on the day, I remember the rickshaw ride being unremarkable except of a mild feeling of betrayal toward Julie. The anger, frustration, and resentment toward my parents must have been overpowering the dread and pain of impending loss and separation.

I wonder if the expectation of the impending phrenic amputation had lent itself as an anesthetic. Maybe the evening traffic on the road to the airport helped a little. But I guess most of the credit ought to go to the scars from the past of the wounds in similar scenes of stowaway violence and trauma.

As an even younger child—and by that I mean the pre-Julie phase—I had many experiences of needing to either discard litters of kittens or be complicit/responsible for their death. The former because no one would want to assume the responsibility of taking care of them. The latter because I was solely responsible for taking care of the kittens and cats that I would dare to take care of, which meant that if they fell ill or were hurt, I would have to figure out ways to transport them to the veterinary hospital regardless of the urgency warranted.

As a child, I did not have the means or the knowledge to transport kittens safely. This meant that I’d have to endure multiple instance of kittens dying—in my arms or in ill-ventilated boxes/bags/baskets, in rickshaws or on my bicycle, in transit or after reaching the hospital.

I’d eventually find myself cocooned in a state of surreal shock in a pool of cold-blooded reality overlaid by the sights and sounds of loved ones grappling with death. These experiences left me with no one but myself to blame, for having allowed them to happen and having allowed myself to be in such situations.

Julie must have had at least a vague feeling of being discarded, but she did not act it out until I started walking away from her after handing her, in leash, over to someone at the shelter. I don’t even remember if I’d met the same lady who had handed over Julie over to me seven years ago. She must have thought highly of me then—a young medical student wanting to adopt a stray puppy who will get along with his cats. What a magnanimous, charitable gesture.

I must not have even looked up at whosever’s face that I was talking to, while casually and indifferently delivering my rehearsed reason to justify what I selfishly needed to do. To take care of myself, at the pretense of taking care of my parents, who I needed to get far away from, both physically and emotionally. As I walked I away, I did not have the courage to acknowledge Julie’s yelps and cries, which reeked of betrayal and hurt and sadness.

These audibles haunt me to this very day. I wish I had carried a pair of headphones that evening, so I could shield myself from the world. Or that I would have had the thrum of a waiting rickshaw engine to do the same. Or that I had asked the caretakers to take Julie inside the house and keep her distracted while I snuck out. Or that I would have had the courage to not commit this cowardly act.

But the fact is that I didn’t do any of these things, and did not even think of the possibility of other options I could have chosen. Instead, I stubbornly, selfishly, and meekly chose to discard Julie and walk away—the same Julie who trusted her existence with me and with whom I trusted mine with.

In the following months and years, in my visits to Thiruvananthapuram, I would mull over giving the shelter a visit. I never did do it for fear of the re-aggravation of trauma. Each time, I’d hope that Julie would somehow have forgotten the cats, me, and my parents. I’d hope that she would have gotten over the trauma of separation and would have found joy and happiness in the shelter or with someone else who would give her what she deserved. It was not me; it was never me.

Today, if Julie was alive, she would have been an unlikely twenty-five. It is eighteen years since I did what I thought I needed to, and I still bear with me the hope that, someday, I’ll be able to find forgiveness from her and from myself.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

When I saw the poster for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood on BookMyShow, I thought that it looked funny. Throwback color schemes, Tom Hanks looking overly a in a light red sweater, and the words neighbor, icon, friend in an oversized font.


Source: https://cdn.flickeringmyth.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/a-beautiful-day-in-the-neighborhood-600x889.png

The movie was one of the three running last week that seemed worth watching. Judging by the relatively sparse listings, it was also the most "indie" among the three. Unlike most passionate movie-goers, I don't do much research on movies before I go watch them. Because it is the Oscar season, I generally end up having even better experiences by immersing myself in something that seemed to have happened more by chance than by meticulous planning, which is what my life seems to be more than I'd like to admit it is. And this is why I decided to try and gobble the movie up as the first chance I could, despite the scheduling gymnastics that I needed to do.

The movie began with an '80s looking shot of Mr. Rogers--the character Tom Hanks plays--sounding and looking funny. It was fairly obvious that his intended audience was not people like me. I guess the director wanted people like me to feel just that because I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. I guess I ought to clarify that I had no idea what I was getting into. Mr. Rogers was not a thing in my childhood, which technically started in late '79 and must have ended in the early '90s. My household was without a television until 1987 and without cable television until '94. The first thing that I remember looking forward to watching on TV was Giant Robot and Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman, that too on the national broadcaster Doordarshan. Since then, almost all of my non-sporting leisure time was usurped by the once-great MTV once I had cable.

In other words, I was an absolute virgin for Mr. Rogers and his famous TV show for kids. In fact, the movie is about a character--the jaded journalist Lloyd Vogel--who was pretty much in the same headspace as I was at the beginning of the movie. Lloyd is a cynic/critic who writes harsh articles about celebrities in Esquire, who, when given the assignment of writing a 400-word flattering piece on Mr. Rogers, reacts with a mixture of shock and disappointment. He thinks Mr. Rogers is just a TV show host putting on a fake character to get fame. I might have felt like Lloyd at the beginning of the movie, but by its end, I was like Lloyd's wife Andrea, who cherished the show and had uplifting moments in her childhood because of the show.

Lloyd is an interesting character--from my perspective--himself. His cynical self is probably a result of a troubled childhood/early adulthood thanks to a traumatic relationship with his father. Lloyd is still recovering from the trauma of watching his mother succumb to cancer after a painful terminal phase. He feels betrayed because his father Jerry wasn't there to support the family during this phase. Jerry, on the other hand, seeks help from other avenues of support while grappling with the loss of his wife, ends up in a relationship with a woman (too soon for the likes of his son), and eventually marries her. Lloyd also has an elder sister with whom he shares a complex relationship. Lloyd is married to Andrea, a grounded woman with a different upbringing, and is now coming to grips with the responsibilities of a father.

It is at this phase when Lloyd's employer assigns this task. Over several interviews with Mr. Rogers, Lloyd begins to unravel the mystery of the charm behind Mr. Rogers. At the same time, Lloyd also gets perspectives on his life, his relationships, and his responsibilities, thanks to the sagely insights that Mr. Rogers offers. Lloyd loses the cagey skepticism about Mr. Rogers and also about such people in general--the people who find a way to be empathic to others no matter what the situation is.

Mr. Rogers was/is everything that I wanted/want in my life to set things in perspective. He seems to have a bottomless well of kindness and is a master at making people he meets and interacts at ease. He is someone who can talk about something and would make sense to both children and adults without making either group uncomfortable in the way they are being talked to. The body language, the expressions, the choice of words, the tone of voice--everything seems to be perfect for an empathic connection. On top of all of this, Mr. Rogers is an actor, performer, musician, composer, songwriter, and much more. The topics that he addresses are dark concepts like anger, jealousy, death, hospitals, friendship. And yet, the words and the phrases that he chooses to use in his songs are available for everyone.

Fred Rogers seems to have been every bit what the poster said: a neighbor, an icon, and a friend. Mr. Rogers, through his show, its characters, its songs, and its conversations would end up educating children about the mysterious, difficult world that they were being ushered into without much preparation. This is the sort of thing that everyone needs, regardless of the time they are in or the age they find themselves in. Like Lloyd, I felt like watching clips of the show and learning more.

There is nothing more in the world that I seem to want than someone like Mr. Rogers in my life. Someone to help me find my empathy and lose my eternal cynicism.

The story of Ugly and my response

*For some weird reason, My friend and fellow book club member forwarded me a story of a cat called Ugly (see attached image). Although the story is graphic (in a negative way about Ugly being treated badly), it ends with the author(s) being positively influenced by the valiant cat.

(*Edit: Since I published the post, my friend and I had a conversation. She thought that despite the sad story, this was a a good example of unconditional love by an animal, which I would related to because I'm a cat lover; of course, her intent was not to make me feel bad or to trigger traumatic memories. This conversation happened on the book club group chat, and one other member pointed out the perils of feel-good stories: "Always missing the point that not everybody reacts to the same to a scenario."  A very valid point, I think.)

I have had a storied life of being traumatized by experiences of cats in peril. Ugly's story thus forced me to respond in the following manner:

Sorry for the essay response, but I had to.

I don't know if you know this, but I have been at the wrong end of cats being mauled. In Kerala, I have always had cats/kittens with me. Some of my dearest cats have died grueling deaths thanks to packs of dogs mauling them. I would be woken up in the middle of a rainy night just to hear the last part of the fight, and I would be so bitter and upset with myself of not having been there to help them. The next day morning, I would have to find their bodies and bury them. Happened to me at least thrice, and I have always had a problem trying to get over this.

In fact last year, there were a couple of nights when I couldn't sleep because I thought Spock (image below; Spock with KiKi), who was a kitten then, was getting mauled by dogs (or other cats) and I have been out searching for him late in the night, after apparently hearing sounds of a cat in distress (which others didn't hear). I eventually found only his mom and his litter mates and would come home and be on the verge of a panic attack and would have had trouble falling asleep. None of the others would "get" my feelings/panic. J would realize that there was something that had triggered me like very few other things do, but was unable to exactly understand the gravity of the situation.

Both of these Spock nights had a happy ending (so to speak) because I would leap out of my bed at dawn and go out to search for him, and I would find him safe and happy somewhere. However, these did trigger a few of my older (PTSD-triggering memories) and have been the focus of a couple of my therapy sessions.

About cats dying in my arms -- yes, I have had a couple of such experiences as well. They were not directly due to mauling, but because of infections because of mauling or abuse. Those are such strong memories, and I think, just like how this story describes it, are life changing.

Unlike the author in the story, I have never really gotten over these in a positive way. What this has made me is to be fiercely protective of the people/animals that I love, which sort of manifests in me being extremely aggressive toward people to mistreat animals. At least people who were at the table at the last Annual Meeting party would remember how I was about to pick a fight with a waiter because he was trying to shoo away a cat that was rubbing up against us under our tables.

In conclusion, I don't know why you specifically tagged me, but it made me revisit a strong/painful series of memories. But it hasn't evoked a panic response yet. So I guess it's all right. :)