8 years on, I'm back in Poona. I have mixed reactions to the cityscape as it stands today. So much has changed, so much remains just the same. And then, the people. Malls and flyovers donot change the nature of those that they serve. That is a reassuring feeling.
I'd be waiting for its rains; its sheer beauty in those two or three months.
All those years back, all of this — the househunt, the running around, the money managing, the micro-detailing of stuff to set up a new home — was silently carried out by my mother. Six years since she passed away, I am neck deep in that process again. It feels calmer. There's a certain confidence working somehow, and I cannot seem to fathom it.
I'll probably set up home on top of a hill, rather distant from the bustle of the city. It's a choice I would make because above all things, I want a little peace. Possibly, just to listen to my own self thinking. I almost never had any time for that in the past few years. 
There isn't even any music on me, so to speak: whatever I have on the phone is all. And I have not been inclined to listen to much music since I moved. I am just reading: comfort childhood reads, actually. Corbett, Conan Doyle, a collection of Bangla ghost stories that I bought from the Book Fair this time.
Maybe you don't need those outward expressions to feel the music of your soul. I did my bit, and I will do more. I do know that. And that's a calm that is not easily stirred. I have stuff to do.

On a recent lazy Sunday, I met an old cohort who has refused to go down with the pressures of family life and is still as much the hippie in spirit as 15 years back. Travelling mega-manager that he is, he has set up home in Navi Mumbai and is very happy with his new Godin, a Vox amp and a sizeable record collection. I didn't exactly ask him, but I'm sure B enjoys post-work quiet times with the guitar and the ever-present rolled-up number.    
I missed my first ride aboard the Rajdhani Express because I sort of passed out at his place, back in 1995, while visiting my mum in Delhi. It was a scream because both my father and me got the train timing wrong — you know, the via Gaya, via Patna bit which was usually confusing especially back in the day, especially with that much intoxication in my system — and there was, well, quite a scene. I finally hitched up on the general bogies of the departing Delhi-Kalka mail and managed to reach Delhi just fine; albeit without a single pullover in November. I forgot, what the hell. 
The subsequent 10 days in Delhi are etched in memory as my first adult-life travel to a different city. It was fun; partly because my mother hadn't seen me since I joined college and thus had no clue of what I was doing (you know, playing drums in a band, smoking reefers etc etc). It made for a sociocultural disconnect that I somehow had great fun observing, even while I was a part of it. Then of course, there was the November weather and soaking in the varied bits of Delhi that I came to know: its ancient heritage, the very existence of an education campus like Jawaharlal Nehru University, the large expanse of everything. It was a trip. 

Brilliant work here by Urbanbarbarian:

http://www.comictwart.com/2011/01/alfred-hitchcock-by-urbanbarbarian.html

Sent me right back to my childhood. The Birds was my first Alfred Hitchcock film, and yes, I saw it on video cassette tape, hired out to be played on a tiny VCP by my father. My brother and me were mortified of large crows for a while thereafter.

Waste

Back and forth the same
be careful how you frame
your argument
your argument 

Sometimes it is such a waste

It is not all in black-and-white

Sometimes, grey unfolds in shades  

I am obviously writing inadvertent rhymes. Or the likes of it. Good reflection of my inner state of being with age on one side and a whole life on another.

GANDU

For those of you still not in the loop (and why I haven't had much time to blog):

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=129817037050114

Five Little Indians scored the music for the film (http://nh7.in/indiecision/2010/10/15/five-little-indians-score-film-soundtrack/)
Gandu debuted at the South Asian Film Festival 2010 sometime in October. There are a few reviews on the FB page. A couple of days back, we learned that it's been selected for the Slamdance Festival (http://www.indiewire.com/article/slamdance_unveils_2011_special_screenings_shorts_99_specials/). While the film has only had one special screening so far in town, maybe it will see light of day, being extreme as it is. Maybe not. It is an underground, indie film, after all. But it is getting its bit of mainstream attention as well (http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?268192)
The band has a few plans on the anvil. Shall keep ya'll updated. Watch this space :)

City of Lights

Chandernagore is a small, picturesque town an hour away by train from Calcutta. Known for its French settlement, the quiet suburb on the Hooghly riverside offers rare examples of architecture and has several sites of historical importance. In the context of the Durga Puja, though, the town is known for entirely different reasons: its tribe of light artisans.
As a young boy, this aspect of the Puja didn't really dawn upon me: I was more interested in looking at the pandal or the protima. Tripping out on these lights only started happening in my teen years.
I still remember 4am walks from a popular south Calcutta Puja hangout where I'd go drink stupid with my school friends and return home walking through the shimmy of these lights; their colours and patterns changing from one neighbourhood to
the next, but always keeping me company.
Something about the lights standing guard at lonesome pandals when everyone else has gone to sleep for the night still appeals to me.

Why do I have this day job?

Reading a few stories offhand from a newly-spawned daily run by a business house that deals in everything from real estate to cooking masala, I realised that it's been almost a decade that I have been part of this profession. With some very good writers. With some great reporters, sensitive photographers and brilliant artists. With some excellent critics and editors and outstanding designers. But mostly, with some less-than-mediocre "professionals" who are, again, very good at pandering to egos.
Given that, I am thankful that I do treat this as my day job, with my music being of prime importance — and not the other way around. I consider myself an average writer, less-than-average artist and just a beginner with the lens. I also know for a fact that diplomacy and sucking up to get things done is not part of my character, and they never will be; it's rather late to change that character shortcoming.
Why am I still in this profession, then?
Because I love to write. It really is that simple.

Record record

Gearing up for the debut album. Hectic would be an understatement: office, baby, practice. But it's all good. Makes me feel like a working musician.

Months of not blogging...

....can bring over a sense of ennui that is hard to shake off. Too much happening all around me, in any case, to put it down in an organised set of thoughts and then through a keyboard to a screen.
I will hopefully become a dad this week. Pujo is around the corner. It has been a long time since I felt this much loved. In October, FLI heads to the Eastwind Festival 2009 again, and we just got confirmed for Autumn Festival in Shillong. There's a new house to take care of. Too many good things? You never know. I have never given up the cynicism, not completely.
And as always, I wish Maa was around.

Gigs and then some

FLI plays a gig tomorrow. It's going to be our first two-hour concert.
On Monday, the three of us — Allan, Neel and me — head to Nagaland, the rains and the flu notwithstanding. We will also head towards Shillong and hopefully get to jam a bit. I will also meet up with Simon and Rumki, and little Joshua.
I'm gonna be a dad next month.
It's too much to imagine.
Did I deserve this life? I don't really know.

Recordings and twin lives

Over the past two weeks, FLI has been busy rearranging and recording at home. Wholly lo-fi; with just about two condensers, an SM-58 for the kick and a 57 for the snare. Along with a large diaphragm ambient mic. My whole kit, except the hi-hat stand, invaded Neel's bedroom. Of course, Audrey left to sleep at the other house!
The takes were primarily done all through the night, and considering the songs in question, even playing a full-on kit was surprisingly low on overall volume. But what was even more surprising was how this deal came out; it sounds way much warmer than any studio drums I have laid. Work is still in progress.
Right after EKRR I, or rather at the time of it all, Allan and me were constantly getting back to one question: when do we do this band full-time? In the weeks that passed since, keeping my day job and also playing with Span — and consequently turning up late for Span practice in the evenings — has been a bit of a bother, and on one occasion, quite a piss-off. But it's all good. As long as you play, they say.

"...This could be messy
But you don't seem to mind
Now don't go telling everybody
And overlook this supposed crime

We'll fast forward to a few years later
And no one knows except the both of us
And I have honored your request for silence
And you've washed your hands clean of this..."

do you ever feel this way? well, i can never tell, but sometimes, it gets a little rough. especially when I listen to this tune, or am on my way to work just after arranging a mellowed-down "relationship" song with the band. it doesn't scare me, but it does leave me with a sense of loneliness and despair that's not exactly easy to drive through on a scorching summer day.

The passing of a poet

The passing of an artist is always a sad occasion. I've been disturbed these past two days, learning about the untimely death of LeRoi Moore, one of the founding members of the Dave Matthews Band and a saxophone master of our generation. He was an artist,yes; but in his music, on his instrument, he was a poet writing out immaculate verse. Strange things, as they say, happen to good people. And LeRoi was a good man. It showed in his music.
His lines are embedded in my memory. I have been listening to the band's back catalogue and all the bootleg tapes that I had rabidly collected in my university years. LeRoi, along with drummer Carter Beauford and violinist Boyd Tinsley, firmly held up the jazz end of the jam sensations. It's a little ironic that the song that plays over and over again at this point is a LeRoi showpiece called Lie In Our Graves. He was only 46.

I embrace my desire to
feel the rhythm, to feel connected
enough to step aside and weep like a widow
to feel inspired, to fathom the power,
to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain,
to swing on the spiral
of our divinity and still be a human.

One concert, a hundred people

30.05.08

23.02.08
Eastwind Festival , February '08.

[We played Day 2 and had a blast, going on after Blend from Delhi and being followed by Bangalore metal maniacs Myndsnare. The stay was too short (blame my work) and we couldn't catch Avial. What we did catch was Pentagram and crazy dancing ensued, yet again.]

Well, long weekends are finally over and here I am at work on a tuesday afternoon ; blogging because. Just found a great blog http://stratoblogster.blogspot.com/
I am not a guitar player, but I still love reading up about a bluesman's axe. Probably more so this week as I borrowed a few of Allan's John Mayer DVDs (no reference to the "bluesman" part ; always tread with caution, I have learned) and given that I Can't Stop Myself (From Lovin' You) is in constant rotation on my inward radio station.
If I do have the dough one day, I will spend it on some vintage drums and cymbals. Have a nice palette, so to speak. Warm tones. Not necessarily jazz-tinged, but warm, nonetheless.

Return

Back in school, my best friend and me spent hours listening to music. While he always loved pop and had a great music system, which’d play everything from George Michael to the Pet Shop Boys to A-Ha, I was always interested in music that had 'real' drums — The Police, for one (even at that point of time, I liked a resonant, 'real' drum sound over the flat, reverb-fed 80s glam sound).
It wasn't until a year later that I actually mustered enough courage to tell my father that I was gonna spend Sunday mornings at "drum class", under this guy who was playing with a local rock band called Fahrenheit. They nailed a very cool (or it seemed at least at that point of time) version of Eat The Rich, and I was very impressed.
In any case, after that fateful first sitting, my Sundays weren't ever the same again.
I loved walking to the class, in Mandeville Gardens, from my Dover Lane residence. At 14, I was pretty sure that I'm gonna be playing drums for the rest of my life. There was a curious pity at my mates watching Mahabharata; I liked to imagine, as always, that I was gaining entry into this strange and mysterious world of rhythms, melodies and harmonies which fellow-mortals my age weren't even aware of. At least the non-musical ones at that.
The following year, just passing my Class X boards, I walked into Kochuda's (http://theorientexpress.tripod.com/) class. That was another big event as far as my drumming life goes.

The first-ever kit that I played on with the band was a see-through fiberglass kit, built by Bapi Music Company — otherwise known as 'BCM' — Calcutta.

'Em drummers

I just came across the Kumu Handmade Drums website (http://kumu.fi ). Beautiful drums, aren't they?

In the history section of the site, founder-owner Pekka Helanen talks of his childhood and how he started out playing drums. It gave me enough inspiration to take a peek back into mine and just blog about some serious fun we had, back in the last century.
I started getting interested in the drumset as an instrument at the age of 12 or 13 — relatively old in comparison to prodigies like Eloy Casagrande. Back in school, me and my best friend would spend hours listening to music.

I didn't have my own drumkit till I was about 21 years old. I started playing friom age 16. I have played in two semi-pro bands through college, for all three years, on someone else's drumkits. Yeah, that makes me a strong contender for WFPD ('World's Funkiest Pillow Drummer').
As a kid — why, even when I was about 16, I used to hang bedsheets and towels from the bed posts to act as 'cymbals' and had multiple cushions stacked up to act as 'hi-hats'.