Who is Miss Adela Quested? The investigatory report

[Why are we talking about Miss Adela Quested? Because he/she/it started commenting on my blog a couple of days back and has indicated his/her/it's desire for me, Kris Bass, in multifarious, nefarious ways. Here goes.]

Let's start from the name. Vinokur gave me the first hint that he remembered it as a character from the book 'A Passage to India'. Miss Adele Quested is the British Woman in the book who guided on a visit to the Marabar caves by the bearded Dr. Aziz, an idealistic, youngish Indian man who has befriended some English people. In there, gets confused and disoriented and apparently runs out accusing Dr. Aziz of assaulting her in the cave. Here's a still from the movie of the same title.

 

I don't know if this is a metaphor or analogy. I can see the smimilarities between me and Dr. Aziz. I'm bearded and I too am a Doctor. I'm youngish (28) and idealistic (maybe) and I have befriend English folk (not exactly, Vinokur is a darned American. But still he speaks English.) Since no one is sure about the sex of the character here, I'm going to refer to it as 'it'. Does 'it' adopt the aforementioned nick to drive in the point about lusting towards a bearded doctor? Perhaps. Let's carry on.

The first intended metaphor is drawn between Kris Bass and Jason Patric in 1987 horror/comedy The Lost Boys (IMDB). Jason acts the role of Michael, the elder of the two brothers who becomes a vampire after drinking blood mistaking it for wine. I'm not sure if I actually look as cute as him or that I am a vampire.

 

Then comes 'I haven't seen this much cuteness and naivete as the War of 1912.' This is by far the toughest of all the references. Here is the link to the Time magazine article. I guess we will need it itself to explain this analogy.

Throwing out Pet Shop Boys CDs comes up next. Well, I can sort of relate to that as I am so cute and sexy that Pet Shop boys are of no match to me. That's a wonderful compliment as even I love Pet Shop Boys.

It goes on to claim that it's the Darkman (Wiki) (from the 1990 film titled 'Darkman' - IMDB). The character is a scientist who after being attacked, turns into half-crazed, masked vigilante, known as Darkman who decides to get revenge on the criminals. This is interesting as I'm sure he is talking about taking on FlyGye as is evident from the interaction between the two.

 

Then it goes on to compare ourselves to the characters from the movie 'Weekend at the Barnies' (IMDB). It is compared to Andrew McCarthy who plays the character of a young employee in an insurance company whose Boss Bernie Lomax (to which I'm compared to - Shocking!) is involved in fraud of stealing money. In the final parts of the movie Andrew McCarthy uses the dead Bernie Lomax's body so as thugs can't kill him. Now, this is scary. I feel that the Darkman is after me!

 

Immediately though, it corrects itself by saying that it is more comparable to Ducky, an exchange student, with Chinky looks, in the movie 'Sixteen Candles' (IMDB) who in a alternate ends, wins the cute girl protagonist Molly Ringwald in the movie. Here I'm confused whether it is referring to its looks or the characters. Does it mean that it will win me over from Vinokur at the end of it all, perhaps in an alternate world? The plot thickens. Here is a clip from the movie where you can see how dorky Ducky, acted by Geddie Watanabe is.

 

Just to give the bait, it addst the twist of Malluhood, Kerala, incest in the reference of Arundhati Roy's 'The God of Small Things'. Although this led to me admitting the fact that I haven't read the book, I was able to get a review of the book which will give you an idea as to what it means. And it did hit me at one of my weakest points: incest!

To add the bollywood twist to the story, it compares me to the apparently blind Rakhee in this video. A point to note here is that it has taken care to confuse us with immediately giving us the alter-idea of it being tall, dark and handsome like Amitabh Bacchan after the dorky impression of Ducky. It has also acknowledged that I can sing and the fact that it likes my singing.

Then comes this analogy where it compares itself to Rachel Ward in the movie 'Thorn Birds' (IMDB). In this movie, Rachel Ward's character lusts for the priest in the family. After early setbacks, they reunite with tragic consequence for both. Scary as well.

 

Shift to even gorier analogies - to Linda Blair in the movie 'Exorcist' (IMDB). It claims that it feels like the character Regan MacNeil who has unnatural powers. The famous lines 'It burns. It burns.' are quoted and it compares burning to the feeling that my beard does to it. This really sounded interesting. Well, until I saw a picture of the Linda from the movie. Here it is. :O

 

Time for another Bollywood twist. Here, it compares itself to Rekha in the movie 'Silsila' (IMDB) who has to separate from Amitabh Bacchan who has to marry another woman because of commitments. But finally, Rekha unites with Amitabh. It got really confusing here. First of all, I was Amitabh here. Elsewhere, it was Amitabh. Secondly, it compared Vinokur to Jaya Bhaduri (then, now Jaya Bacchan). Now Vinokur is bald, has a beard and has balls and stuff. How could this analogy work?

Then we get to see the inner-happening of it's mind when he confronts Fly by comparing alleging that Fly likes movies like 'Birdcage' (1996, gay comedy, 6.5/10 at IMDB) and 'Juno' (2007, comedy, 8/10 at IMDB). A scathing attack, one would presume. The reader is led to believe that this person could very well be a self-possessed witch or something like that.

This is when I intervened. I was overawed by all these references, almost all of which I had no clue about. I requested it to give me some time to understand all the analogies.

It responded by analogies ranging from apartheid politics (Winnie Mandela using a machete to cut a message in the dirt about it's infatuation) to pop culture (Lil Wayne's song 'Lollipop' (video) with direct usage of it's lyrics). We understand its frustration in its apparent resignation at wooing me by comparing its efforts to the likes of Cyndi Lauper and her works (Girls Just Want to Have Fun - video).

We also were able to see the glimpse of it's mind where it longed for love and care. It can't stand unrequited love. When I asked for permission for a detailed post about it, it's used metaphors and allegory, it responded rather despondently that it's efforts were not a publicity stunt but true love. Still, it gave its evil intent out by comparing myself to Rosemary Woodhouse from the horror novel 'Rosemary's Baby' (1967) by Ira Levin. We are led to believe that it curses my fate to be similar to Rosemary's whose husband signed a contract with the Devil to be able to impregnate her with Devil sperm in exchange of a successful career. But it urged me to go on and do what I wanted.

Despite all these analogies, we are confused. What does it look like? Is it a he or a she? Confusing. I put my data through the supercomputers at the 'Indian Society of Character Identification'. The results that came were astounding. It could be either this, this, or one of these.

But it's still cloudy, isn't it? It called for more detailed analysis of the clues that it left. And yes, I did find incriminating evidence of at least its sex. It is actually a male as evidenced by this line 'Listen you may have to move that score to the male side ;)'. To confirm it I searched methodically for all my frequented blogs for further evidence.

And finally, I found this comment on Pepe's blog. 'As you requested - blog address - from Quested as requested.' This was the blog that I was linked to from Vikster's blog yesterday. It was hilarious. And I had left a comment on it. I smelt victory. I went to the blog to check out the blogger's profile. But there wasn't one. The name was 'Joy Division'.

I went and checked for replies to my comments. Yes, there was one. From someone called 'ben' who sounded so much like Miss Quested - 'anything for you kris bass, I'm a sucker for laughs. Consider it an early Christmas -- check back tomorrow and there will be more funny.' It's a shame that Ben's profile is not public.

The closest that we can come to identifying this person is this. He's a male. He's called Ben. And maybe, just maybe, he looks like this. Even this is fine. I hope not this.

What do I feel about this 'dude' after all this research? I feel curious. I feel like knowing him more.

Things that make made me happy

After the traumatic day yesterday night, when my self-loathing hit its peak, I really didn't hope to feel any better today. I wasn't sure of what the band thought of my 'storming out' drama and hence, I was very skeptical about my future with the band. Halfway throught the afternoon I got a phone call from a band mate. We talked as if nothing had ever happened. That was surprising and nice. Suddenly, I felt that I was accepted for being childish, stubborn, selfish and weird.

Later on in the day, a lot of very nice things happened which satisfied my attention-seeking, egotistic self.

• Somebody called Miss Adela Quested, without I being knowing of the fact, was in love (1, 2, 3) with me. That is certainly a nice shot to my ego.
  
• Our band manager e-mailed me regarding my posts on the band blog - "Hey, you actually did a great job! I think you should keep it the way it is, it will bring your audience closer if it’s written like that. No worry, I got a memory of long time ago! Keep cool!" - Although I did not understand the second last line there, it did help me out a lot. This was the blog in which my writings were ruthlessly deleted and edited citing reasons such as 'childishness' and 'lack of professionalism'. Things are really turning around.
  
• A comment on my Peter Parker Facebook page "Good news on Noise Market and the Umang performance. BTW, you are terrific at the bass!" Considering I didn't even remember this person before I saw her photograph, it was incredibly soothing.

To top things off, I got my original bass guitar back from the service person. This same guitar had unceremoniously given up on me on the first day of the recording sessions. If this plays consistently, I might not have to invest in the other guitar. And it's so much easier to play! That fact was evident in our jam session where I was as comfortable as I have ever been despite my non-resolved tendinitis.

Oh and by the way, the jam session transpired as if nothing had happened yesterday. It's funny to think that I was so scared in the morning thinking of what to expect when the band meets.

(PS: Noise Market is performing on the 16th of August at NM College's annual extravaganza Umang 2008. You can catch us live at 8.30 pm onwards. I'll expect at least 2 of you there!)

"Don't repeal section 377: Homosexuals"

I was startled to find this headline to an e-mail to the GB mailing list and was even more startled to find out that even the Times of India article that the e-mail was referring to also had the same title. Guts, courage, balls... are the adjectives that came up in my mind for the gay community. Why? Because I thought they were mocking the responses to the earlier story.

But, that's not the case as I found out when I read this.

While the homosexuals in India have welcomed Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss' statement seeking the removal of provisions in Section 377of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that classifies sex between two men as a criminal offence, they do not want the repeal of the section to protect the boy child from abuse.

I must say that I don't really see the point of the headline. Of course, I know that those who commented on the topic like Nitin didn't have a choice with the headline at least. But, isn't it weird? I mean, we sound like we are actually fighting against what we are fighting for?

On second thoughts, I felt that most people who are interested in this topic would be reading it because of the headline. And those who condemn homosexuality might even realize that we have hearts and souls and we care for others, something which they obviously overlook when they say nasty things about us. What do you think?

(PS: This story doesn't have a single comment until now. On the TOI page that is.)

Me, an asshole

Thanks for all of you who tried to help me out! I'm afraid, that is not working out. I'm going through all kinds of feelings right now. I feel insulted, hurt, aimless, indecisive, egotistic and selfish. I acted like an asshole and I left the mixing session in rage after finding out again that there was no point in me trying to tell my band mates what I felt like. All it leads to is more conflicts and less productivity.

I am sure I must have acted like an ass to get the response that I got from my band. I can understand that. But the thing that I fail to understand is why the fuck was I spending my time there in the first place? I could have easily been at home doing something. Maybe even studying. The rest of the band could have easily sat together and done the mixing that had to be done. I act like a depressing thought-block to my band. We don't get anywhere. We just simply waste time and money. The end result is something that the band cannot totally agree with, a lot of built-up frustrations for the members and a lot of mental agony for me. The fact is that I'm weak, but not meek. Despite being the eldest member of the band, I act like a child. I'm hard to convince and I'm very hard to agree with.

Even today, Vinokur gave me his advice. 'Don't try to change things that can't be change. Choose your battles. Just play along if it's not going to help anything.' Everything is so true. Just that I was stupid enough to not see the light. Just the same way that I fail to see the light when my band members suggest anything.
What it resulted in is that I am totally lacking in confidence, self-belief and self-esteem. I think I should turn back to good old 'antidepressants'.

(PS: I'm sure that I'm going to get shouted at for posting this. I think I should start another blog, where I could bare my heart fearlessly.)

Size matters!

Recently, I have come across many Indian blogs which were so good that I felt like reading their archives as well. One of the more famous blogs is 'A Twist of The Word and Mind' by rambodoc. He is a doctor by profession and is known for writing detailed medical research-studded posts. But even I didn't expect this post from his archives to be so interesting and so truthful.

Indian or, at least, Keralite men now seem to be in the same league of nations, and this should be some comfort to the citizens of this beleaguered nation.

I bow to the world - Thank you, thank you!

The changes in point of view

Have you ever felt that your point of view was not being understood? Have you ever felt that you are bad at convincing people about something technically right but it just escapes your skill level? Have you ever felt like you way of thinking is so unique that nobody else will relate to it? Welcome to the club. In my alter-career of music, this happens daily.

I'll give you some examples. During the initial phases of our recording, there were many times when I was possessed by my wanting to edit some very obvious errors as soon as we recorded the cut. I felt very strongly that we shouldn't sit back and wait until the last phases ie. during mixing and editing to correct this. But every time, I was snubbed and almost insulted by my band members on this point. The reason - we can do it later and our engineer is tired. He needs to take a break after a recording session.

Initially I felt that they were not getting my point. Then I understood that they thought that I was, as usual, in their view, being just insistent on a point in a unshakeable manner to be ridiculous. Obviously, I felt bad. Today, as I'm getting ready to go to the studio, it feels 'nice' in a dirty way to know that the band's point of view has changed as now 'we' feel that we should insist on getting these changes done despite the tiredness levels etc.

Then it came to some of the suggestions done by the engineer about our arrangements. We didn't have a producer for our album and we ourselsves were to be deciding at crucial junctures. Most of our 10 songs in the album had been written and arranged long before and we were very happy with what we had. Believe it or not, just a frown from the engineer was enough for inciting a wave of guilt within the band about that part/arrangement. There wouldn't be a the slightest bit of hesitation before conceding to the suggestion made by the engineer.

Most of the times, I was stubborn and confident of the parts being good in the way they were. All of the times, I was the criminal. I still feel bad about this and in the course of the recording, decided to curtail my opposition just because I thought it was getting conflictive. Of course, Vinokur has had a lot of part to play as a mentor. But now, the band feels that what we feel is right should be pushed. We wrote our music and we should demand what we feel for.

Finally, there is a lot of differences within the band about what to play for our gigs. Here the problem is two-pronged 1) About playing our softer, mellower songs to a college crowd 2) About selecting some popular Bollywood/IndiPop/IndiRock songs as cover songs.

I am very bull-headed about the first point. The softer songs are in my opinion, a part of our music which needs the as much promotion as the others. I believe that being a professional band, it's important to play the music that we believed in while writing the songs. The argument against this is that the tone-deaf college crowd (I don't understand this term though) will only root to those faster, peppier tunes and will boo a band which plays some toned-down, soulful songs. They seem to believe that once this happens, our professional career as a band will also go down.

My point of view is that we should play what we want. This I say on the belief of knowing that our song-writing is strong. There are people who are bound to like a certain type of songs. Why wouldn't you want to play such songs to these people, even if they were the minority? The collective point of view is that such songs still are not good for college crowds but only for private audiences.

On the point of selecting songs to cover, I firmly believe songs shouldn't be banal. They should be good enough for us to be respectful of the music. The song-writing and lyrics should fit in some criteria. Come whatever may, we change the song and play it a different style as would all artists who cover other people's songs; to provid their interpretation of the song. But again, I wouldn't want to play popular Bollywood tracks like 'Pappu Can't Dance' etc. The band believes that this is the only way that we can get the crowd excited enough to sing along.

With almost all such songs I feel disappointed that we are doing such songs. The only way that such songs will make sense is if we make a satire out of playing them by changing lyrics and showing that we think lowly of such mediocre bull-shit of such stuff coming out from Bollywood. Most of the times, because of the music and because I feel that I'm being a road-block in the band's quest to move forward, I agree and slowly get used to the traumatic process.

After elaborating all this, I feel that I'm still 'wrong' in most practical senses. That's not because of something that I feel deep inside but because of what people have made me feel. Don't you think that we should me more confident of ourselves and play good music?

The importance of being tidy

I have had a rough time in the last month or so. My life is in disarray. I have had an erratic 'working' schedule with the recording at the studio and rehearsals. My studies have taken a backseat and I have not been going to the library. I have been chatting with Vinokur late into the night and despite trying to sleep early, it hasn't worked so far. I have done a lot of blogging around in the free time that I have had. And on top of that, my social life was also kinda hitting a high.

I am not hitting the gym and I am worried about gaining back a flab that I had lost in the first few months in there. Wondering why I am not gymming? 1) Because I have tendinitis of my left hand. I don't want to injure it in anyway as we have gigs lined up. What I'm hoping is that I can consult with my doctor at the hospital, a reputed orthopaedician, if it is safe to hit the gym again. And I need to do that soon. Probably this Tuesday as I have a day of mixing at the studio. 2) I can't really follow the high protein with fruits and fancy things because I'm running low on finances.

All this meant that my usually organized self got disheveled. I don't have a regular schedule of getting up, going to the gym, going to the library, studying and then having the whole evening to myself. Well, not just myself; the band, Vinokur, friends, Internet friends etc. Someone might point out that I have too much going on in my life and I should cut down on something to get back into the groove. Tell me, what can I sacrifice? Band? Vinokur? Internet? Myself? Sleep?

Nothing really. Well, it's not that I have not had enough to organize myself. But I haven't been able to. I have tried probably a little lazily. But with nobody to really push me around even I did a lot of 'slouching'. And every now and then, I felt bad about it myself and I had decided to do something about it. Alas, something or the other comes up.

Yesterday, I was feeling the worst about this and I decide that I had enough. In homage to that decision I turned down 1 each of movie, hang-out and dinner invites from my friends yesterday night. I also turned down an offer to meet up with an old college friend of mine who happens to live just a couple of blocks from my apartment. Yeah, on Saturday night, just like a loser, I spent my time alone. Well not really. But with Vinokur and with my Internet friends. This gave me the wonderful opportunity to sleep early and I did sleep by around 1 am in the night. The result was fantastic.

Sunday morning, I did start brightly. I got up nice and early and after the formality of the Sunday Times with coffee and toast, I decided to finish up a truck-load of chores. At the end of the afternoon, I feel nice and fresh with my shampooed hair smelling good and I'm surrounded by a nice and tidy apartment. And I did do this while watching Seinfeld and Friends (after I got bored of watching the test match that is).

After my practice session which got postpone from the morning to evening, I can probably re-start my studies. I will turn it around this time. Yes, I will!

Why India wouldn't legalize homosexuality

Thanks to our dear friend Fly, I managed to get a juicy topic to post on. This time, I didn’t need to do a lot of thinking. I just needed to copy excerpts from a few of comments which the TOI had got on its website for it’s frontpage story about Dr. Ramadoss’s statement for legalizing homosexuality.

(Statutory warning: The following is dangerously, insanely comical. Please hold on to your seats!

B. N. Singh, Dalmianagar (Bihar): ‘It is an absurd & slap on the face of our Indian old heritage and culture.’ ’

salmantaj (Mumbai): ‘It is very disappointing that TOI is supporting homosexuals. TOI is a respectable newspaper and should maintain its standards. ’

zeena (Kuwait): ‘HOMOSEXUALITY is a sickness of mind can be cured by proper guidance and support.’

Sami Uddin (Kuwait): ‘You are moving back!! ’

Johan (Canada): ‘Why not, with the Indian desire of wanting sons and aborting daughters, make it legal? ’

Irfan (India): ‘Anyone who goes against this natural law will have to face its consequences (AIDS). ’

TSR (Kumbakonam): ‘LET US INDIANS AT LEAST CONTINUE TO BE CIVILIZED HUMAN BEINGS. ’

Rao (Canada): ‘Do not entertain such homosexuality in India. Teach good habits and good civic sense to the upcoming children so that they can become good and productive Indian Citizens. ’

Very Angry Indians (US): ‘HE IS CERTAINLY BRIBED AND BOUGHT OUT BY U.S. THAT HE IS DOING EVERYTHING AMERICAN WAY AGAINST THE NATIONAL INTEREST OF INDIA. HOMOSEXUALITY AND IN INDIA..........? ’

DR. SIDDIQUI (JEDDAH): ‘NEXT THE HOME MINISTRY MAY COME WITH LEGALISING NAXALS AND POLITICAL PARTIES MAY MAKE IT LEGAL TO ACCEPT BRIBES FOR PUBLIC BENEFIT! ’

Chandrasekar Ganesan: ‘So now that HIV epidemic containment is showing improvement he want HIV to spread faster. ’

A very concerned Indian (Hyderabad): ‘Homosexuality is one of the prime reasons for the spread of HIV, and how on earth does Ramdoss think that legalizing this unnatural trait can control the epidemic. I request all the readers to protest against this and save our country from this self-destroying folly.’

Mind you, there were very vocal supporters for the right cause in this hilarious debate. Very commendable, vehement replies! Amongst them, one stood out for sheer logic.

Srinivas (Madra): ‘Friends, please understand that if homosexuality for homosexual people is illegal/unnatural then, heterosexuality for heterosexual people is also illegal/unnatural. Please think scientifically. Homosexuality is not a choice of perversion.’

Make homosexuality legal!

Yesterday evening, I was checking out my e-mail on my phone whilst my band was taking a break from our meeting. I was surprised to see the e-mail from a senior member of GB claiming the above title. I was startled to understand that it was from our Minister of Health Ambani Ramadoss at the International AIDS Conference in Mexico. I was not sure about his stature as a minister and about the impact that it would have.

Today's Times of India has a frontpage story about this. It even has a Times View where the paper confirms ts stand to be supportive of legalization of something which is a basic right for over 10% of population. Indian express has this story and have a poll on their website which is slightly in favor of who say no. Maybe some of you can change that by voting here. DNA has this article and Mumbai mirrors article is not accesible via the web.

Suddenly it seems that another of our dreams is going to come true; something which shouldn't have been a dream, something which is our right, something which has been denied to us for a insanely long time. I feel confident and buoyant. But this isn't all that we require. What about some social empathy? Are these promising signs on the legal side indicators a massive change in the social horizon as well?

Noise Market video

This is just and experiment. We recorded (with my camera) some home videos of our songs in January. This I thought was the funniest of them all. Do you like the song? Do you like the video? Please bother to comment!

On a tiring day's night

Today is the first day in many days that I feel tired. Tired enough to not write on the blog. But as I'm waiting for another band meeting (at this insane hour of half an hour before midnight), I feel that I have time to rant on something. Something that might be a misconception.

Most people presume that those who involve them in cool careers like journalism, photography, radio-jockeying etc have an easy time going about their lives. Glam lives, parties and other niceties are tagged on to them so easily. I myself am in the vicinity of two such ventures; of a surgeon and another as a professional musician.

The surgeon's life is glorified by because of being morally binding social service. Saving lives whilst doing super-human like feats in the operating room all the melodrama of explaining relatives the success of the surgery or lack of it; we get to see that a lot in the media (remember Reader's Digest?). Some of the actual happenings in a surgeon's life, especially during residency have been captured, somewhat realistically, in TV series like ER, Scrubs and Gray's anatomy.

But it's not the truth. Nobody cares about the years and years of slogging before medical school. Or about the time in medical school where the lives are simply severed from social structure. Or about the inhumanly hours of continuous work during internship and residency which actually lead to decreased quality of care to patients. Or about the struggle once you become a 'doctor' to establish ourselves as a renowned physician. All such things are not well known and at times seem to be pushed under the rug so as to avoid the glare of the reality.

Similarly, the life of a professional guitarist is also not all that cool. It takes a lot of effort in the first place to be good enough to play at the highest level. It might be fun learning the instrument, I agree. But after that, it's a real struggle to find like-minded individuals, to form a band, to write together and to play together. A lot of ego clashes and conflicts happen regularly. It's hard to find a place to rehearse and once we seem to have prepared ourselves for the live concert scene, there aren't any takers for us.

If you enter the next stage ie. the stage of recording and releasing your work and it's impossibly difficult. Everyone loves to give you the boot. 'No, your music isn't our style' 'Your music can't sell' and other comments are spewed relentlessly. And besides, you don't have the kind of money required to go to a studio and pull it off yourself. Not to forget the kind of poverty that you have to deal with at the start of career.

Somehow or the other, let's say, everything has worked for you. You are recording an album. It's still tough work at the studio. Hours and hours of sessions lead to injuries to your hand (as in my case tendinitis of my left hand). The stage of mixing and mastering are even worse. It takes a lot of mental energy. You simply get tired of listening to all the stuff again and again and thinking about how it could sound better with a tweak here and there.

Such has been my day. I didn't do anything laborious in the physical sense. But I'm tired like a dog! I even said no to a dinner party for the gay boys, by the gay boys. And my work day ain't over! Another couple of hours of brain-storming to make sure that everything in the album sounds just right!

Whew, good night!