Forgotten facets

I seem to have forgotten what it's like not to think about anything at all - like staring out of the bus watching faces, buildings, and landscapes fly by. I seem to have forgotten what it's like to come bach home and not have an agenda to follow - like find something interesting on television and watching it. I seem to have forgotten that the time that you spend for eating is not something that should be avoided to fit in for variables - like late buses and traffic jams.

I also seem to have forgotten how what it is to live with happiness. Coincidence?

The case of Artists vs. Audience

So you are an artist - a musician, a photographer, a painter. You have fun doing your thing and the product, or in the other words the 'final' product, is supposed to showcase to the world the thought that went inside your synapses when your were making it. This final product apparently has the charm to win over a million hearts, thereby catapulting you to the fame and acknowledgement that you richly deserve. Sounds good. Sounds fair too. But what about the world?

The world's turning around in a frenzy, almost chasing it's own tail. And its inhabitants are busier that a humming bird's wings trying to make ends meet. Most of the world really cannot stop and stare at a painting, a photo, a song, or a poem and figure out the brilliant neuronal foreplay which climaxed in the final product. Apart from time being at a premium, majority of the world isn't wired like the artist - not even like AN artist. The world too is right!

So the artist complains to the world 'You are not being kind to me. You don't even find time to appreciate my final product and and pass on some comments. Unfair!' The world says 'Honestly, it's not that I don't care. First, I don't find time. Besides, I don't even get your art. I can't understand it. So why are you complaining?'

The court decides that artists and the world come to a truce under under the following reason: artists should go back and enjoy the process of making art! Let the product be a by-product.

On a similar note - why is it a given that art has to be appreciated equally by everyone? What if the masterpieces are just hyped up? Who decides what is good, and hence should be appreciated and emulated?

The Circles of Life

The gig at Hyderabad was wonderful. It felt really good to be performing on a big stage in front of a sizeable audience. But even more important for me was my life had completed a circle - one that had started in Y2K.

Back then, I was in Kerala, was in my Final year of MBBS and I had been playing guitars for a couple of years. S. was studying in Kochi and I had gone to visit him. S. took me to meet his friends from the band named Evergreen. We had gone up to their rehearsal pad - a room on the fourth floor of the building in construction that had been converted into a cozy jam pad.

I still remember standing (and in due course, sitting) in awe at the professionalism with which the band was doing their rehearsing. The drummer sounded like a metronome, the guitarists were playing on fucking huge amps, and the bassist was trying to pen in some lines - right in front of me!

I was mesmerized by what I saw and was inspired enough to make me feel that I too needed to reach this level of musicianship and professionalism. This, somehow coincided with the demise of the music TV channels from not just my life, but from our entire generation.

 

Thankfully, I found an immensely satisfying replacement in WorldSpace, the satellite radio service that had infiltrated majorly into my life. I was a big fan of - I still am - the modern rock station BOB. I was listening to Linkin Park, Nickelback (the good old days of the Canadian band), and Coldplay.

Around the same time, I heard a compilation CD called the Great Indian Rock. That CD featured the song PSP 12'' by the band Zero. That was the first time that I had fallen in love with an Indian alternative rock song. It reminded me of what Indian rock music could do – make groovy modern rock. Suddenly, things fell into place. I wanted to write songs like that - I did actually, not quite the same standard, but that's beside the point - some of them are online!

That song was written by the drummer of the band - the multi-talented musician/comedian, Sidd Coutto. Ironically, I hadn't realized that until really late, from the horse's mouth actually, on one night when he was performing at a gig in Mumbai this year.

Now, how does the friggin' circle get completed?

At the Hyderabad gig, I performed on the same stage with both Evergreen and Sidd Coutto (with the band Ankur Tewari and the Ghalat Family). Not only did I perform, I drank, ate, fooled around - all with my rock idols, who inspired me to be what I am.

Now, isn't that sweet!

I'd like to take this opportunity to credit all the idols/icons who I've performed/played with or shared the stage with, in the order idol-hood attainment:

• Rex Vijayan (Avial, former Motherjane)
  
• Sunil and Evergreen (the entire band band)
  
• Sidd Coutto, Bobby Talwar, Rajiv Talwar (from Zero)
  
• Jai Row Kavi, Johan Pais, Sidd Coutto (Helga's Fun Castle)
  
• Teemer Chimulkar, Aniket Waghmode, Janus Sayal, Gilroy Fernandez(Sceptre)
  
• ZomB Menon, Sheldon Dixon (Metakix)
  
• Tony John, Rex Vijayan, Mithun Puthenveetil, Naresh Kamath (Avial)
  

Thank you all for inspiring me me and making me realize my dreams. I hope I can inspire someone to be/do something someday. I'd love to be tagged if you decided to write about it!

The irrepressible Sun

I've always wanted to write - bestsellers, preferably in the Asimov mold. I, unfortunately, can't. This title is dedicated to that dream. If you are wondering WTF - I'm at Hyderabad for a gig with Shor Bazaar and I have just come back from soundchecking under the blistering sun. I almost had a heat stroke. This gig brings my life down another circle - I'll explain that next time. Now, however, lets get me back to the only thing I'm really good at - lamenting.

Once my good friend Dennis had said a decade or so back: 'You've got to be extensively-read to start writing, Kris'. I had nodded, albeit in part-disagreement - I hate being told I'm not good enough - it reminds me of my childhood, when everything about me was judged by performance at academics. 'Son, the only reason why we are proud of you is because of your scores and otherwise, you are just a bag of shit'-type comments plague me still, you see.

I had been forced to fall prey to the sleazy educational system and my conservative lower-middle class upbringing, where the only goal in life was to score well in exams. On top of that, I chose something - I must confess that I love Medicine and Orthopedics, but they are just too restrictive - which wrecked any chance that I had to explore the loopholes in the system.

Now, I'm staring down the hill, with the best part of my life over, with very few memories that I can cherish and carry forward. I have a pathological uneasiness to get into discussions with others about books, music, paintings, movies because I feel ashamed to have not read/heard/enjoyed/watched them. I have self-esteem issues and am pathologically approval/attention-seeking and depressive.

The message is this - please choose to have better childhoods.

Confessions of a chronistically-challenged soul

Here's what I do in life: (a) Full-time day job which is interesting but taxing on the brain, eyes, and my time (b) Full-time musician who plays for four active bands (c) Full-time PR guy for at least two of the bands that I play for.

This amounts up to one thing - Bull-shit personal life. From no time to talk to my friends to lack of sleep, from not running errands for weeks to not getting time to read the newspaper, from closing the browser when someone pops up on chat with 'Hey, long time!' to not getting time write/rehearse by myself.

People, I'm sure, must have made a wonderully elaborate explanation about me and my excuses. There are a few people who I promised to meet up (for dates) with after a telephone conversation. They must think that I'm acting pricey. My friends who call me up when I'm in the middle of something and end up getting an answer 'Hey look, I'm really busy now. We'll talk later.' Well, this is how you lose friends.

Sooner than later, this will take it's toll. I realize the need to be away from the knife's edge. My schedule needs to ease out. I don't want to break down. It's my only life!

My latest goal in life

Most of who know me know that I'm a teenage girl trapped in a man's body -insecure, weak, and terminally depressive. However, there are times when I turn into this ruthlessly aggressive persona, and use my words like curare darts and end up hurting people who I love. That's probably I relate to Fiona Apple's 'Criminal'. She's so fucking honest and brutally naked in her lyrics. My latest goal/aim in life to be as cool as her, write such songs, and sing them as well as she can. (Sigh!)

Fiona Apple - Criminal (1997)

I've been a bad, bad girl
I've been careless with a delicate man
And it's a sad, sad world
When a girl will break a boy just because she can

Don't you tell me to deny it
I've done wrong and I want to suffer for my sins
I've come to you 'cause I need guidance to be true
And I just don't know where I can begin

What I need is a good defense
'Cause I'm feeling like a criminal
And I need to be redeemed
To the one I've sinned against
Because he's all I ever knew of love

Heaven help me for the way I am
Save me from these evil deeds before I get them done
I know tomorrow brings the consequence at hand
But I keep living this day like the next will never come

Oh help me but don't tell me to deny it
I've got to cleanse myself of all these lies 'till I'm good enough for him
I've got a lot to lose and I'm bettin' high so I'm begging you
Before it ends just tell me where to begin

What I need is a good defense
'Cause I'm feeling like a criminal
And I need to be redeemed
To the one I've sinned against
Because he's all I ever knew of love

Let me know the way
Before there's hell to pay
Give me room to lay the law and let me go
I've got to make a play
To make my lover stay
So what would an angel say, the devil wants to know

What I need is a good defense
'Cause I'm feeling like a criminal
And I need to be redeemed
To the one I've sinned against
Because he's all I ever knew of looooooooooooooooooooooooooove
Yeah yeah yeah uhh uhh uhhhhhh...

Hey hey hey haaayyyyyyyyyyyyy yeahhhhhhh yeahhhhhhhhhh hiyee ehhh...

(PS: If I ever were straight, I would totally make a pass on her.)

Dates

What's there in dating, you might ask? Most of us have achieved varying degrees of satisfaction in finding someone, and being with that person, in a relationship. Some of the lucky ones still are with their special someone. For the rest, there is a choice.

A person with relatively high self-esteem might sit back and hope that some magic will happen and justify 'When you look for something, you won't find it.' A person with the same level of self-esteem, but with a desire to reach the goal, might re-start dating and still have sufficient immunity to heal the process of emotional wounding.

However, for people like me, with varying moods and a whole extra-large pack of depression and low self-esteem, it's a minefield. Every date is a potential dagger being thrust into your back, so that when you fall, the dagger can go no way but in.

I'm like a decorticated dog in a Pavlovian experiment - which failed to get de-conditioned to love and pain. I wish I could stop this vicious cycle. I can't. So be nice to me.

Shor Bazaar's Savita Bhabhi (video preview)

It's here! The "Savita Bhabhi" video directed by Varun Agarwal (from Last Minute films) has just been uploaded on FaceBook. We don't yet know how to upload it on YouTube. Until then, here's the link.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=234123750370

I think too much of my yellow teeth is showing. But I still love it! What do you think?

The Queer Azaadi march

Update: For more details on the march, please visit the Official Queer Azaadi blog.

Dear friends,

A few weeks back, when the Delhi High-Court read down Section 377 of IPC, I felt liberated. I was ecstatic - most of my friends would remember. I'm touched by the wonderful support that I received from my friends and their friends (unfortunately, not too much from my family). Since then, however, a few staunch right-wing religious fanatics have filed cases against the ruling at the Supreme Court, and the court will now decide with the government about implementing the High Court ruling.

Yes, that’s right - the government, ministries, and the Supreme Court will now decide the fate of millions of gays, lesbians and other sexual minorities in India. Currently everyone at the Centre is playing it safe, and despite realizing and confessing unofficially that criminalization of homosexuality is primitive and unethical, taking an equivocal stance. We have a long road to go ahead, a tough battle to fight, and quite honestly, we need support.

This weekend, on the 16th of August (Sunday), Mumbai will have its 2nd annual pride march titled "Queer Azaadi March." The march will start at around 3 pm on Sunday at the August Kranti maidan, go towards Girgaum Chowpatty, and finally come back to the maidan itself. You can expect the colorful participation of the minorities, a universal phenomenon at all pride marches.

How can you help me/us? By marching with us, of course! It might sound redundant, but I’ll have to state this – You do not have to be queer to march. Throughout history, straight (heterosexual) people have always shown their solidarity toward sexual minorities by choosing march by our side. You can give us tremendous support us by marching with us, as would my straight friends and band mates. 

Why is this important? If the turn-out is huge, the march will be a huge success and that will be a strong message to the important people at Delhi. It will definitely help tilt the stakes in our favor for permanent decriminalization of homosexuality.

So, I request you to please come and march with me! I'd be most grateful for the support. I will add the details of the march below. Also attached is a Time-Out Mumbai article, which had photo of me, about the pride march written by my friend Vikram Doctor (TOI/ET).

Queer Azaadi March ‘09

• Day Date & Time: Sunday 16 August 2009, from 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm
  
• Pre-March Assembly Point: August Kranti Maidan (Gowalia Tank) at 2:30 pm (Nearest Railway Station - Grant Road)
• Route: August Kranti Maidan => Nana Chowk => Opera House => Girgaum Chowpatty and Back.
  

The march will take place from 3 to 6 pm. Like last year we will start from August Kranti Maidan at Gowalia Tank, from where Gandhi gave his call for the British to Quit India, and we will march through Nana Chowk to Opera House and to Girgaum Chowpatty - but where last year's march ended there, many organisers felt this was too short for all the enthusiasm, so it will probably be extended to march back to August Kranti Maidan.

Thanks to the success of last year's march, and the enthusiasm created by the Delhi High Court verdict, a lot of people are coming for the march from other parts of India and even abroad. Celebrities like Celina Jaitley and Milind Soman will probably be there. It’s going to be a blast! 

But while we hope everyone has fun, there is also a serious reason for marching. We have won a big victory in the Delhi High Court, but it is being fiercely challenged in the Supreme Court. We need to call with all our effort on the honourable judges of the Supreme Court and the government to respect the verdict of the Delhi High Court and to let freedom stand for the queer community across India. Last year's March was to call for azaadi; this year's march is for it to stay.

You could help just by persuading friends and relatives to come - we are VERY keen on extending this march beyond just the queer community to show that this is a human rights issue for all. Or by offering to host some of the many people who will be coming for the march.

Despite the Delhi High Court victory we do realize that many people will still be wary of marching openly. We respect these concerns and have accommodated them, like last year, by making lovely, colorful masks available for free at the venue (just come a bit early to make sure you get one). Apart from this there's the fact that, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, we have deliberately broad based the march to make one not just for queer people, but for anyone interested in basic human rights issues. 

A lot of mainstream supporters will be coming, so if it is a concern, please be assured that being seen at the march will not necessarily label you as queer - but it might label you as someone who believes in human rights for all!

See you at the march!

From TimeOut Mumbai: Why We Want To March

Vikram Doctor, Mumbai

When the Delhi High Court delivered its wonderfully liberating verdict on Section 377 the most obvious and immediate opposition came from religious homophobes. Their dogmatic diatribes must and are being countered, but there’s probably little chance of any real dialogue with such blinkered people. But I’m hoping that’s not the case with other strains of opposition or discomfort. Like the one articulated by antediluvian Congress politician, Vayalar Ravi. “As far as I am concerned this is an issue of the elite with which we do not agree,” he said, using the standard tactic of political elites to dismiss progressive issues that don’t fit their agenda. 

 

A more nuanced argument came from those who welcomed the verdict, but warned that too bold a coming out for the community could invite retaliation and also confirm the homophobes’ charge that this was a flamboyant Western imposition on Indian values. “Will the nasty jibes stop now that gays are ‘legal’? I’d say ‘Hold those exuberant celebrations’. The time to pop the bubbly is still a distant dream,” warned Shobhaa De in The Week, while Santosh Desai in The Times of India noted that blatant displays of difference could backfire: “Imitative acts of protest, like some of those seen at the gay pride parade make it easier for those already anxious to label the movement as being frivolous, derivative and elitist.” 

 

They may have a point. When you’re trying to convince people gays and lesbians aren’t frighteningly different, it is perhaps not the smartest thing to do to march in public decked in rainbow colours and having a blast. “Milord, these people, they want to have fun,” spluttered one of our opponents’ lawyer during the Delhi High Court hearing, and it certainly true that a Gay Pride march, along with its many serious messages, is also an occasion for much fun. So why, at the time of writing this, are queer groups planning to organise another Queer Azaadi March just like the one we had last year? 

 

Because, in a way, it’s the real answer to Mr.Ravi’s dismissive remark. With a few honourable exceptions, the elite gay and lesbian crowd and their friends were never really involved in the campaign against S.377 because their position meant it never mattered for them. Ms.De, always the social observer, described this world in The Asian Age: “educated, urbane, well-travelled cool guys as comfortable in Miami as they were in Mumbai. This new breed was predominantly gay… but determined to stay in the closet.” She went on describe a power gay mafia in the entertainment and fashion world who employed gay stylists, designers, music directors, cameramen… who all created images of muscular, sexualised males and skinny, desexualised females for their private appreciation, which the unknowing public lapped up and internalised. 

 

I have to say I find this a bit glib. Of course, I know gay people in Bollywood, though hardly in the numbers Ms.De seems to know. (I also know plenty of straight people who create the images she describes, and plenty more who appreciate them quite simply because both men and women like looking that way). But what I don’t get is a direct connection between them and the fight against S.377. Yes, their use of gay themes raised the issue in India, but very few have been publicly involved in the fight, apart from Wendell Rodricks. In general the elite gay crowd has never been much interested in gay rights, because they had faced no problems, and perhaps even feared some with a more open gay culture. 

 

So who wanted the law to change? The ordinary people who faced real problems. The gay college students who was bullied and called names and saw his name and number written in the toilets. Their mothers, who support their resistance to the bullying. There’s the butch lesbian woman who got dirty looks, and sometimes even direct confrontation, when she got into the Ladies compartment in the local train. Or the hijras who face the same problem, and even worse treatment from the railway police, getting beaten up and even sexually abused, which they don’t dare report, because the law makes them criminals. 

 

Then there are the workers at organisations like Humsafar who have government funding to distribute condoms and spread awareness about AIDS among men who have sex with men – but who are still abused and harassed by policemen as they go for their work in the evenings. Or there are the two women who fell in love in a small town in Punjab, but when their relationship was discovered they had to run for their lives, and now struggle to survive in the big city. Or there’s the gay couple who have been together 30 years, but are afraid that when one of them dies his family will throw the other out of the property to which they have no joint right. When they tried to buy a flat, their loan application was brusquely rejected because their relationship was illegal. 

 

I could put names on every one of these ordinary Mumbai stories and, and still have more such stories of people whose struggles to cope are made all the harder by the knowledge that the law considers them criminals. None of them would consider themselves part of Mr.Ravi’s elite, yet these are the ones who have organised to fight S.377, who have contributed from their small earnings for the costs of the case, who have dealt with their fears of exposure to give testimonies that can be quoted in court – and who came out to march last year. And this year it is these people who want to march again, not to shock and titillate the public, though they know that’s how most of the media will treat it. It is these ordinary people who want to march to prove to themselves that they can – and to prove to this city that their stories are this city’s stories too. 

 

As it happens, I think the last time I met Ms.De was a couple of years back at an event that was almost literally a dress rehearsal for these marches. This was a fashion show organised by the queer community at Damodar Hall in the Marathi millworker’s heartland of Parel East. Whatever attitudes Ms.De might take in her writing she is always gracious and a good sport in person and she readily agreed to be the judge. With not a single elite gay designer or director in sight, but a crowd comprising of half queer people and their families, and half Damodar Hall’s regular (slightly surprised but appreciative) audience, the show presented glamorously bedecked drag queens and stylish lesbian drag kings, tight T-shirted muscular gay men and one bi woman friend of mine who had gone for a high heels, corset and whip look. 

 

Ms.De sat appreciately through it all, and even gave a speech in Marathi at the end. She didn’t tell the participants to hold their enthusiasm then, so I hope she’ll understand when those same people come out to march. Not in any expectation of immediate or easy change, but with the knowledge that our first steps must be taken, with sequins and style, in the streets of Mumbai.

(Courtesy: QAM, Time-Out Mumbai)

Jai Arjun Singh on today's Business Standard - Shor Bazaar & Savita Bhabhi

My blog-dost jabberwock was gracious enough to refer to me, Shor Bazaar and our new single "Savita Bhabhi" on his article on Business Standard. Read the article here.

Thank you Jai!

:)

Shor Bazaar - Savita Bhabi on CNN IBN