Asif Khan look.hear.capture.
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Occupy a Venue
Guest post originally in Little Black Book Delhi. As had been become customary for this night of the week, the basement was packed to capacity. So much so that there were people sitting on each other’s laps (yeah, the ones who liked sitting at a table and having a ‘quiet’ drink), while those who were [...]
The Death of the Rockstar
Junkyard Groove made a trip to play in Delhi this week. It was kinda special for the band because they were touching down in Delhi as part of a four city tour. They were scheduled to play at the Blue Frog, and I was looking forward to not just watching the band perform, but also [...]
Access All Areas
so shiv got in touch with me, plus some more of us. and we put this together in a week. the living room in hauz khas village was re-opening after a brief stint of renovations, and it was an excellent option to put up this group exhibition on display over there. absolutely in sync with [...]
It was a Dog Day (Too)
Take this from me. If ever there is a day in your life when you might have the slightest possibility of being cast in the conical embrace of a spotlight and sprinkled with stardust, the dazzle of which could just about take over the glare of a mid day sun (it’s alright, that doesn’t really [...]
they won’t leave me alone
the sound of laughter was getting progressively louder. a bit more coherent too. a strange place to be in. a place somewhere in between being stoned with amplified auditory senses while losing out on a sense of the coherence of time, and being absolutely straight in the head when everything makes perfect sense, or [...]
summer, weather reports, and getting lost
summer isn’t really around the corner now. summer is here. anyone who lives in north india would know the imminence of summer the very morning he experiences a power cut even before he heads off to work. which largely transpires into the fact that for a native of delhi, power cuts usually fulfill the need, [...]
(m)obscene
oscar never really fit in well. after all, who would have been keen to see a beefed up brawny rock of a boxing champ turn into a wimp while trying to brush aside the twisted dark humor that life had been dishing out to him in recent times. what we usually tend to forget [...]
visual ‘highs’ – courtesy, raul chandra & nida mahmood
driving when one is ‘high’ is definitely not a good idea. at least in the face of considering collective social safety, if not one’s own. but then driving while the co-occupants of your vehicles are ‘high’ just might be a good idea. at least, it makes the trip slightly more trippy. or so i discovered when on the way to a visual art installation by a designer duo.
apolitical blues(?)
adil and vasundhara have been playing regularly each tuesday at turquoise cottage, so it makes it worth going all the way there – the accomplished players the both are. the added incentive this time around was the fact that one of the youngest sitting member of parliament from the swank south mumbai constituency was also supposed to join them to play some mean blues.
easy (going) men who (don’t) pause
those who don’t pause in their relentless pursuit of these men (and i don’t mean to say groupies alone (which btw, reminds me of something i need to speak with their manager the next time i see him…warier?)), would know that the album which everyone has been waiting for so long is finally out.
travel – jordan – life revisiting history, too much of it
that vast blue. blue. which has been considered to contain within itself that phial from which springs forth the fountain of life. vitality. vast. just spreading endlessly in front of you right up to the horizon which quite aptly defines the boundaries of my imagination at that moment. fatality(?)
2010 – the year of halves
2010. definitely the only year i’ll see in my life where numerically the former half of these four numbers are double the latter half. or the latter is half the former. i prefer to look at 2010 through the lens of the latter. or 2010 decided for itself that i see it this way.
punk bhangra – asian dub foundation in delhi
between all the manners of friendship which i have cultivated with the open road, jittery roadways buses, soaring above the clouds, cruiser bikes, and of course, disappearing into oblivion over the past 2 months or so, i have had some limited time which i have managed to spend in my very own home – delhi.
love, heartbreak and twins with stories
love. heartbreak. those inseparable twins. never alone, always together. congruous and in harmony with some of the most deep seated human emotions. together making up one of the most enduring subject which (almost) always finds a receptive ear of more than a few willing souls to captivate.
bad romance
dolphins. that small percentage of mammals who transcend the boundaries of not being terrestrial but being more closely comfortable – at least as far as their natural habitat goes – to those belonging to the piscine creed. yet reputed to possess a close affinity to those from amongst us, naturally owing to their somewhat evolved state of mental intelligence.
solo
how would you react if i start by saying that i spent the best part of three hours of a day in the bathroom of my hotel room with an 85 year old sitting butt naked on the shitpot? and that day happened to be my birthday. now now, please don’t start getting any ideas.
eid – happiness, love (and the question of similarities & differences)
it is eid today. eid, a festival, whose literal meaning translates itself into happiness. happiness – probably the most supreme of all emotions known to humankind, the pursuit of which defines most actions exhibited by humans. sadly, today is also the anniversary of a day in history, which cast a slur – en masse – on the followers of the faith which celebrates this festival.
independence?
63 years and counting many more. 63 years ago, shackles got thrown away. countless improprieties, innumerable sacrifices, too much bad for too long. all of it just because of the promise life gives each newborn. of being born free. to achieve that newborn status once again.
silence
(today, i was confronted with quite a paradoxical reality in my present state of affairs with life. with all the music life has faced me with over the past few days, i had actually stopped listening to music.) i’ve wanted to write over the past couple of days. but this post was supposed to be different.
stylo
‘when you know your heart is light/electric is the love.’ there was a glow in the bliss of this post coital breathlessness. an aura which hung over the space surrounding their entangled mass. the source of which wasn’t the incandescence of their physical beings, but the temper of their souls. only one of them could see it.
working class hero taking the power back?
from what i remember having read in my history texts when i was in school, there was a period called the middle ages, or what i remember simply as the generic medieval europe. strife ridden, plague stricken, oppressed fricken. then came the industrial revolution. (yes, i do remember there was the renaissance period as well, you arty ones).
hit. bus hit. hit bus.
i’ll quell your thought if you read on, in case this sounds like a bollywood producer’s plea for a mega blockbuster. i’ve always had a liking for the expression – hit by a freight train. that’s how i like my music. and most else in life. freight trains will always be an enduring subject in my memory because of their association with a falsetto which unleashed some of the most raucously debauched moments in rock n’ roll history. yes, i mean the reference to the freight trains of the loaded variety.
of football and music: sridhar-thayil nurse the french spirit
so the french football team may not have given much reason to cheer this year. i’m sure most of us would know a few (unless they are one of those as well) who would be nursing their depression by frantically looking around for another nation to back for the world cup trophy now. at least that is one advantage of not having your home team playing for the cup. switching loyalties becomes so much easier and guilt free. for my part, the sole reason why i’d liked the french football team went away with a headbutt.