Thursday, June 01, 2006

Being Friends with Jim

It was quite an odd pair, me and him (or Jim) I mean. I having been reared, for the most part, in the company of two very strong women; he rarely makes friends with ladies. His taste (or luck) in them is impeccable, though, I must add. So here we had one man not very aware or proud of his sex and the other whose pride in it was practically his only distinguishing feature.

It saddens me when I think our first meeting could have happened long before it actually did. I would begin jogging near around the place he usually stood and finish close to him as well. All the while he would be there, warm and mysterious. It’s so amazing, when you get down to thinking about it, why it took so long. We had several common friends, we needed each other, at least I needed him. I guess back then he just wasn’t my type.

But I love what he’s done to me ever since I started seeing him. He makes me feel like my physical abnormalities (read my thighs) are my biggest strength. He made me feel comfortable about the pimples on my face, the rashes on my hands. Ever since I met him I’ve cared about them lesser and lesser till the fact that I stopped worrying about them at all made me feel they were badges of honor. Yes, so I might have pimples, unkempt hair, stubble, tanning skin but he taught me to pay greater attention to the man inside. It’s a small price to pay for being a guy, the ugliness I mean.

I love Jim’s gang as well. Since the first day, not only did I feel like I belonged but more than that I felt like I was a flag bearer of the club who’d lost his way but was back again.

He has been amazing to my body. I can feel the muscles move, can see the sinews stretch in the mirror, can see the stretch marks on my anatomy. It’s incredible how my chest now heaves with each breath. Though I’d really like those changes to be a bit more apparent outside of the tights as well.

The guy’s, Jim I mean, company comes with an attitude. I no longer move aside when I might be on the same course with another thing (person, animal, cars). My professors scare me less; authority lost all meaning a while back. Jim’s amazing for anger. Work it up all day and the angrier you are the more you’ll like him and the better will he treat you.

Making love to him is sultry. He leaves me breathless, each single time. Sweaty and tired, my mind though never slows down unlike other sessions of lovemaking as I’ve heard. There’s this pain though that shoots through me every time we leave the benches sodden. So I ask the guy who sometimes shares Jim with me and who has known him longer
“Does it still hurt?”
“Yeah, baby! Every time.”

Love you, bitch. Just wish we could spend more time together.
The Birth of Song

In a land not so distant but a time quite so there was a villa on the middle of the flight of a hill. It housed, other than the vassals, a benign knight of a decent reputation and a young maiden of about eighteen who was rumored not to be his daughter. The knight’s fame was earlier born out of his abstinence from the political developments of what had vaguely been his days. In the days that we talk of, though, his name figured only in discussions centered about his daughter. This daughter of his was exceptionally beautiful in a small way because fewer people had seen her than had heard of her.

This account begins with the first of what was going to be a series of sleepless nights for her. The knight was woken earlier than daybreak by loud sobs. Not being one easily excited he walked the distance to see her crying, without shedding a tear, whilst staring out of her room and passageway into a very ethereal darkness. The day passed as usual. She was a tad more fidgety, avoiding whatsoever other eyes. The next night passed the same way for her though there were not to be any of those fits that had woken her father the previous morning. As the days passed her countenance became more and more clam but her red bleary eyes would give away the tribulations of those long bothersome nights.

For in each of these she would rise from bed as the moon fell on her pillow. She would walk in to the passageway and channel her eyes towards the nave of the valley below. Her eyes would briskly move to where each light that went out had been and then rest back on the center. Each night the last light would be the one of the singular cottage set at the very top of the opposing hill.

Many doctors, quacks, priests and magic men visited the villa in those somber days drawn as much by the knight’s wealth as by hearsay of her beauty. They would leave deeply impressed by both but never managing to put the damsel to sleep.

One very dull night saw a friend of the knight’s at the villa’s gates. The knight and he talked of the place they thought the country was headed, of wars won and lost and all the while she stared at the candles on the dinner table. He took surreptitious glances at her but did not manage even for a fleeting moment to draw her gaze.

Thoughtful and ponderous the visitor stepped out of his room around midnight to see the knight’s daughter gazing at the few lights that remained. Soon only the last light, the one of the cottage remained. Walking over he whispered “Staring at the night?”
He went on while she looked at him. His beard and scars seemed to melt away taken in her by her with his words. “About lights that go out they sometimes just let you see the darkness that surrounds us.” He stopped sensing someone behind him.

The daughter lay awake on her bed listening to the footsteps of the traveler on the floor next to hers. First it was anger then a sudden happiness and soon his footsteps hit the floor so rapid and unpunctual that she could no longer place her finger on any one emotion. A mixture of elation, guilt and fright. She wafted to sleep afloat on her love of the music and what was probably the music of love.

About lights that go out, yes they do let one see the darkness around him. But it is traveling the road that leads nowhere that the most satisfying of human endeavors come about. It is in traveling that darkness, that void, devoid of the world’s preconstructed truths, its lights that one is most apt to do the things that mean anything.

Friday, February 10, 2006

Breaking the stereotype and doing a bad job of it
The worst accompaniment to any star-studded interview: gratitude. I think it came over the SFNA team because the session originally scheduled for 4 pm was postponed so many times we were thankful it was happening at all. That feeling was reinforced by noticing the very fidgety GR team members. This atmosphere of sycophancy prevented a lot of the correct questions from getting asked. The members of Euphoria though still managed to give away a lot of themselves. Dr.Palash Sen shattered to pieces the image one has of an artist in general and of a rock star in particular.
The interview was set over dinner and Palash joined us towards the end of it. We asked him as the others questions he had previously been asked and he replied with what were expected answers. It started off well with Palash telling us why he hates being a musician. The aura that one associates with a rock star prevents him from actually getting to know the real person behind the microphone and that according to Palash was something he did not like. Later in the discussion however Palash tells us why singers like Rahul Vaidya and Abhijeet Sawant shall have only fifteen minutes of fame. As their lives are so publicized, with scenes of them cooking along with their moms, they shall never have an element of mystery surrounding them and so very soon they shall just fade away from the public’s memory. Right, Dr. Sen! So you do not like an aura being placed around you but you’d still have it because it helps rake in the moolah?
He tells us he always wanted to be an English rock star so we ask him what triggered his departure from that dream. Who would listen to us then is his very ready reply. Like no one would accept a ‘black’ playing the sitar he says people would never be receptive of an Indian singing in English. Ever heard of the band Parikrama, sir or Orange Street for that matter? As he broaches on the subject himself the question remains unasked. What audience would groups like those ever manage to garner asks he a bunch of guys in Delhi another in Bombay but what about guys like you in Kharagpur? Just because we invite someone twice does not necessarily mean you are all we ever listen to!
From a reliable source who attended Euphoria’s concert at Delhi we came to know the supposedly exclusive song from their new album which they sung here had already been played before there and there as well had been preceded by those very same lines.
Talk about contradicting yourself within the span of one question. On being asked how he feels about coming back to Kharagpur the second time Palash responds with the obvious “great” and then continues about how packed the schedule of the band is and how they accept very few offers to do stage shows. In other words “Kgp should be so thankful I agreed to come back when I am actually so busy.” He goes on about how after Kgp they leave for Bombay then Hyderabad followed by Cochin then Ahmedabad and Chennai and Delhi.
“For video shoots for your new album Sir?”
“Oh no for concerts”!?

Its still tolerable when banshees scream because you expect them to but it demands a rethink of the basic principles of life when innocence turns sour.It demands a rethink when fairies cry,when unicorns bleed.When heroes die.