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 need to be the exact case, as long as you are delusional enough like me to believe that whatever is happening around you does actually amount to something similar to what I just described), do not, I repeat, do not have your close friends around you. Yes, friends have been known to have the easiest access to cause embarrassing moments in public spaces for friends, but trust me, this could be a smaller concern compared to what I realized.

***

“Yeah, where are you now?”

“Er, where are YOU now?”

“I’m on the metro…”

“Oh, what the fuck!…”

“…and I’ll be at your stop in…wait, you’re STILL home?”

“…weren’t you supposed to tell me when you got free before getting on the metro?”

“Anyway, it’s already past 2pm. Folks have started calling me up for directions to the place and I’m still on the way there.”

“Heading out, see you at the station in a bit.”

So yes, in a way it is my day today. (No, I’m not getting married, in case someone’s imagination thought the trite obvious. But then you wouldn’t have thought that way. You wouldn’t be the sort to be reading this then. And a groom in which world reaches the venue on a metro anyway.). And I was still not at the place I was supposed to be at least three hours ago. Nothing to really worry about, I’ve handled worse and come out of it better off. Some twenty minutes later, the carrier of a grin wide enough to betray the fact that substances affording mind alteration – suitably worn off though they maybe after a good twelve hours of having last encountered them – were possibly still at work in his mind, made his appearance.

Mind alteration substances have a way of perverting reality. Which is what any form of human creativity aspires to do anyway. From the aesthetic finesse ascribed to Music, Art, Literature to the crass debasement that we so easily load up on Mass Media, Dictators, Corporations – they are all figments and results of human – individual or collective – creativity, and each tries to dispel the notion of reality within the world they cohabit with the world they aspire to create. Reality stays the same regardless. Even after taking on a form different from the way you may know it better as. And it continues to stare you in the face.

“Don’t worry, we’ll make it in time for everything and everybody.”

“People have already started reaching there, I told you already”.

“We are rockstars. See, the universe is conspiring to make us reach there late despite our best efforts since last night.”

“(I feel like killing Paolo Coelho for having written that or something similar. And WHY did I read that book? I don’t even remember ever having suffered peer pressure as a teenager either.)”

“Just think of it as Karma.”

“(Karma Police. I could hear Thom Yorke and see that car chasing that guy in the video running in a loop in my head.)”

Half an hour later, and around four hours after our expected time of arrival we reach the venue. Boom, everyone had already put up their stuff on display. The first band was gearing up on the stage.

I was putting up some photographic prints on display today. Big day yeah.

In fact, a series of photographs. A few prints from a larger set. I like to think of them as one of the few pieces of good work I’ve done in the last few months. At least they got me more than a few new followers and retweets on Twitter, and more likes on Facebook than I got on most of the random BS I keep posting. That’s how one starts measuring personal success in the age of Social Media – Followers, Subscribers, Retweets, Shares, Likes. And with rapidly decreasing attention spans, your work stays only as relevant as the last Like or Retweet. After which it gets lost in that cesspool of the Newsfeed or Timeline.

The personal scale of applying critical thought to oneself be damned.

***

“Hey, that’s really awesome work.”

Pretty face. And again, nothing could’ve clung as flatteringly on her as the black she was wearing.

“Oh, thank you. Er, I’m so sorry, but gimme just about ten minutes. Let me just sort this stuff out.”

In retrospect, I have realized that I have a way of acting the asshole for myself as far as my personal interests go when I am faced with that dominating mistress better known as Work. And no, she doesn’t need to seduce me. She’ll tie me up, whip me, flagellate me, gag me, drop a barrel of molten wax on me, and I’ll still just try more to, well, work on her better. Maybe I should rid myself of her kinks once in a while. Vanilla is good too.

“Fuck man, you look fuckin’ dapper. White shirt. Jacket. Super.”

(Not that I didn’t expect such reactions, considering I have cultivated a calculated aversion to formal button down shirts and jackets after leaving the cubicle life, going so far as to flirt with the possibility of arriving for boardroom meetings in slippers, denims and plain old tee, and being successful at it. I did thank myself for not actually have given in to last night’s now-seeming-somewhat-outlandish-idea of putting on a Sherwani.)

“(Oops, there’s another one spending more than half a minute at each photograph. I should reach out to her and be the nice guy and introduce myself.)”

“HEY, so happy for you. Your work really speaks for itself.”

“Thanks man, so happy that you made it. (Er, if you’d excuse me, I think I would want to attend to, oh, she too has disappeared already). Yeah, so how have you been…I’m seeing you after fuckin’ ages, man! Where’s your…oh, you broke up…well, anyway, it’s really nice and sunny today. And the people all around are having so much fun. Glad you are enjoying it too!”

Being a thirty something single guy with premature gray hair is a strange experience. The twenty something girls just glance in your direction, giggle and look away. The forty something women eye you, smack their lips while looking away with the escape of the hint of a smirk. Both end up making you feel either somewhat dirty or guilty or both. Whatever happened to the thirty somethings? Oh well, their babies are keeping them too busy to care.

“(Fuck, I should really stop introspecting so much when in a public space. Now where did that one who found that Old Delhi image rather spectacular in her words, disappear to?)

“Kickass work, dude.” “Bro, you’ve nailed it. So proud of you.”

“(Huh! Nailed it? Who? Oh! I really need some fresh green air.)”

***

(By now I guess you might have figured what I meant by not keeping friends around in a supposed moment of glory.)

***

The music kept getting louder. The bands kept changing. The music was nice. Experimental in some parts, confusing in others. Both ways it brought back my mind to a more familiar space. Familiarity is comfort. But we realize it only after we push ourselves out into the unfamiliar and make the journey back. Maybe we need to push a bit more to make the unfamiliar to be what defines the familiar for us. That just might be a comfortable place to be in. Just might.

***

Somewhere a familiar voice said, “I’m not responsible for anything I do now.”

I stopped taking that responsibility on myself some time back. At least for things that I let others do to me. More than what I do to others. The latter is quite enough.

***

Later that night, I reach home. Not mine.

A little later, I get into bed. Not mine again.

But I went off to sleep in the familiar solitude of my own skin against my mind. I don’t remember any spotlights or stardust when the lights went out before I slept.

Rockstar?! Hah, I should’ve probably picked up the guitar much before I picked up the camera.

***

Most of the stuff you read above is not true. Well some of it is true, and most of it isn’t. Or most of it is true, and some of it isn’t. I just hope you had a good time reading it. Just have a good laugh and forget it. Just like I try to do with most things in life. Don’t forget to tweet or share this post…the image gallery too. You’ll find the pictures if you click right here.

For all those who made it for Dog Day Afternoons on 28th January, and specially all who made it for me and were happy for me, thanks folks. And no, in case what you just read makes you feel otherwise, I do mean it right now. I meant it if I said something similar when I met you there too. 

A limited number of prints would be available for sale.

Drop by. It would be nice to have y’all there!

And just in case you can’t make it, gimme a shout out if you like any of these and would like to have a print for yourself. I’ll be nice and keep some aside for you.

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 at least seems to.

life as we see it around ourselves, like the giant wheel rigged right bang in the middle of a carnival. you may confuse the carnival – with its never ending sounds which keep on clamoring for your attention, the masquerades who keep popping up in your face as fish eye lens vignettes, the garish pouts of the burlesque which attempt to seduce you, the imps with that sly glint behind those masks of rheum filled innocence, the elvish banter playing in the dust around – to be life itself. life has an inherent quality of, as they say it, coming full circle. life takes you to highs you wouldn’t have known to have ever existed, views which you could never have realized while in the throes of passion. and then it throws you down too, such that you could feel your guts making their way out of your esophagus, the scarlet of the blood in your face turning to a pale lifeless non-color, but it never drops you down. always leaves you in a limbo inches above where you could smell the muck, falling into which seems so much the easier choice at that time. except that you just need to turn around, look for the lever, and twist it with all your strength to take you up again. it’s a different story that life never tells you to look around for the lever, or where to find it for that matter. the giant wheel it is then which is life, in case you didn’t figure that out by now.

the laughs don’t stop, alongside their interspersion with idle chat, with an idler unspoken conversation deciding upon who goes home with whom. the realization of being non-existent dawns, as is a common place occurrence right on the cusp of the darkest part of night and twilight. some continue to believe it is the feeling of coming alive at this hour which supersedes everything else. the feeling of life. try negating existence at that time. liberation would acquire a meaning in that moment. even as one lies half burnt and stubbed by the sidewalk. of course, we are the ones who light up ourselves at one end and get kicks from the nicotine of emotions and feelings. pleasurable. addictive. cancerous.

the sound of the laughs keep getting feebler as they move away into the distance. the sun is trying to make its way.

the shadows just make themselves longer now.

scott kinsey (tribal tech) may not be that well known a name (i dare say) in this part of the world, barring folks in the music fraternity, or serious aficionados of jazz. those who know him would at least give a nod of approval, (c’mon guys, you should be jumping up and down in approval), if not more, when i say that he is a good ol’ babaji when it comes to the keys. some part of this may have come through in the form of his pedigree, having enjoyed an extremely close and successful working relationship with joe zawinul (weather report? now, ok?), a monk when it came to his work on the keyboards (i say a monk because of the way i’ve seen him in performances and images, scott told me i was wrong in my perception, not on his erudition of course, but his countenance), and who scott had not only as a mentor, but also as a fellow collaborator in music. touring india along with, unarguably, one of the finest jazz percussionists we have around ourselves today, ranjit barot, scott completed the trio along with dominique dipiazza, to deliver a performance which left the audience under a force of magnetism which only allowed limbs to resonate in harmonic motion with the music. while ranjit and scott – being the masters they are – used to lose themselves in another dimension altogether while they played, it was the watchful gaze of dipiazza on the bass guitar which wove both of them together, and ensured they didn’t go too far away making it a point to get them back. and then start all over again. the audience just kept getting lost themselves. i’m still wondering whose watchful gaze bought them back. maybe just the sheer pleasure of a perfect evening set in summer.

incidentally, scott kinsey has toured india in the past – 2007, when he played in calcutta and aizawl.

ranjit barot is slated to perform soon at the escape festival being held in naukuchiatal between 20-22 may (www.escapefestival.in)

some images from that night, more of which maybe viewed here.

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 at a time like this is the fact that it is the screenwriter who is to blame for all the shit that we’ve been slipping over while trying to keep a steady pace on the sidewalk, and maybe help some one cross the street once in a while. but yes, you will get run over if you try it now. you most certainly will.

then there are times when he finds himself walking bang in the middle of the road. right in the face of an approaching roadroller moving at the speed of an interstate bus. only he sees it (or thinks he saw it), once it has run him over. there he lay, plastered to the black tarmac with eyes looking up at the sky. no, there is no background soundtrack of chirping birds, nor does he inflate himself free from the road. he just lies there as an ugly sticker getting uglier with each passing tyre mark. some who spot him from a distance make sure they skid their tyres on him – ever tried rubbing anyone the wrong way in an oblique direction? – acts out worse! the sun just kept itself at its blistering shiny noon hour, even though it was way past the time for the moon to have come up to cool the heat off a bit. the sun and moon are one of the best conspirators when the time to set comes. the blisters, in the meantime, just kept bursting themselves raw under the tyres. for the world to see.

oscar’s family was in the mob business. a big family it was. with dirty bigger secrets. but like every good family, the cat was never let out of the bag in the open. it was the dogs in their case here.

oscar was a boxer in his life at some time. a boxer who never lived up to being as wild’e’ as his family name expected out of him. such were the expectations from him when he started entering the ring regularly, that his cousins made him drop the ‘e’ at the end of the family name to give the name a more menacing ring to it. not that he cared much – each time he was thrown against the ropes of the boxing ring, he always got a sharp reminder about the missing e. more like e#, with which he always struggled getting the note right. somehow, he could always get the note right inside his head when he was asleep. drifting in a dream state, he would play continually with utmost abandon in a tone of lament which upon waking up just left him with a dry rasp in the throat and a quizzical headiness about what he was longing for in his dreams. not that he remembered any of his dreams either, being the sort who would just crash out on the bed whenever his body demanded sleep, and sleep he would. deep, undisturbed, maybe not as peaceful, but sleep he would, waking up each morning with a start whenever his body’s alarm went off. each morning bringing with it that same lilting downer sans a cause, which no amount of the opaquest black coffee could get him out of. the black coffee probably also didn’t work because of a lurking fear within of all things black, but out of fear of being what is widely known as ‘politically incorrect‘, he never really expressed his views in public, except that they did become quite evident in his actions, and went to obscene extents at times. the black coffee just made him worse than any of those he thought niggas who may as well have been homies. that was was how the black of the coffee got back at him. maybe obscenity came naturally with his name, which may have been possibly averted had the mother (who had been named dorian, after an unsuccessful attempt by her mother at getting a picture of herself painted when she was carrying her around. the painter said he didn’t have a canvas as big) not been intent on watching the handing over of golden statuettes in recognition of histrionic excesses committed while the father was trying to indulge himself in the act of siring. he didn’t let go of his habit of smoking cigars even then, even when they went damp with human sweat and else. the father felt that cigars imbued him with a feeling a power, ever since he realized that they were what kings and presidents preferred once they were done with their petite share of dinner from a spread which could easily have fed his family of five twice in the same day. not that the father cared about the hungry, but it was something about the phallic cigar which got him hard, not just in his nether regions. emperors had their regal staffs, and the father had the symbolic cigar in his hands – the perfect jerk holding the phallus. jerk?

of course, there have been presidents who have displayed a marked affinity for the cigar, in flavors other than plain vanilla ones. some displayed a penchant for birthday cakes which may have been vanilla, but whose frosting was made heavenly by a husky rendition of the birthday song. the president’s knees surely would’ve been wobbly as jelly then. marilyn’s knees were all there was to the picture, till the time it leaked out of the classified secret service files that the president had all along been under the steel grate while it bellowed air out of the duct, filming from another angle. the leaked documents also mentioned that there was good reason for the president to have been under the grate and for marilyn to have held her dress down against the blast of air – this just aided in making the suction effect of the duct underground give the president the biggest orgasm of his life. (it is mentioned in passing in the document that if the walls of the duct would have had cunts instead of ears, the president would have been run down by a mob of his own progeny. but then presidents have a way of facing their progeny, or rather it is nations which come to terms with the bastards their presidents leave in the gutters below us, sans mothers). the private who leaked the documents is still said to be in an chamber beneath the oval office.

oscar, in the meantime, was getting overly obsessed with the cause for the lament in his dreams. so much so that he started spending more and more time flitting between dreams and reality. what slashed at him was that the pain of a reality where he didn’t know nothing cut deeper than the joy of a dream where he didn’t know if he knew anything. he reached a stage where the only way he could distinguish whether he was dreaming or awake was when his fingers would bleed while playing the guitar. that was when he knew for sure that he was dreaming. in real life, he was too much of a sissy to see blood. even if he had a mob pedigree to boast of. in one of his dreams, he saw a bespectacled old man with a scraggly beard walk up to him and start playing the guitar alongside. oscar definitely thought that the old man was slow with his hands, but then he thought that his perpetual stonerheadedness outside dreams had entered dream state too. the old man started playing a tune which sported a lament which ran much deeper than anything oscar had experienced in any of his dreams. not really surprising, but the old man wrote this tune for a spurned love. a love that both he and his closest friend used to have at one time in their lives, but which never really stayed with either of them. it was widely believed she went and joined manson for a while, but she didn’t find it as much fun to be part of the plan to slash an impregnated sharon tate. she wanted more, which is why she probably got married to the yakuza mob is what they used to say now. everybody knows the yakuza have definitely eccentric tastes when it comes to meting out a (mis)fortune. the mob had decreed that this tune never be played ever by that scraggly old man. but the old man was in the comfort of dreams, where he thought no one could do him any harm. suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a piercing shrill sound, and a stone shattered the glasses of the old man’s specs. oscar felt like screaming but he realized that he had never uttered a word ever in his dreams. he just didn’t have the capacity to speak in dreams. and thus the mob came down as stones raining from the skies. they gave a run for what is said to have happened in sodom. when it was all over, oscar tried to look up and see if he could recognize any faces from the mob. he could after all use his family connections to find out what happened and why. all he could see in the distance was a blurry vision of a smiling face, more beautifully angelic than any he had seen, and with each step he took towards it, the face just kept fading. as the face disappeared, those lips just whispered two syllables before vanishing into oblivion – layla.

oscar didn’t scream when he awoke. he was covered in cold sweat. he woke with a start. but his mind was clear now. he knew what was the cause of the lament in his dream now.

the old man got lynched. by the mob.
what made the scene worse was that the mob consisted of a singular pretty face.
obscene, more like it.
mobscene.

oscar would probably never fall in love. again.

(in the spirit of oscar wilde)
be obscene
be be obscene

*title and some bits inspired by ‘mobscene’, marilyn manson, and other bits of popular unpopular culture. the rest, well is just a figment of a fucked up fertile imagination, intent on getting, well, more fucked up*

after all, when did anyone think that the traffic converging into every empty nook before a traffic red light is something of a replica of tetrise! yes, that something was what my friend uttered, while seated on his ‘high’ hot seat.

so with images of that 8 bit precursor of whatever we see in the form of mmorpg’s and else, we entered the venue – the swank pool side of aqua at the park hotel. the imagery just got us hooked, as my friend started approaching greater altitudes with others joining in a collective ‘hiking’ endeavor. nice tripped out visual projections (with some unfortunate technical snags disrupting certain sections), and some excellent music by chintan kalra which added to the ecstatic mood. (no, nobody around me was on e, just in case anybody thought so).

as for me, i was quite contently happy with the cocktail of music and art. my physical movements, edging somewhat on hysteria, were just a manifestation of the calm inside.

after all, contentedness doesn’t always mean quietude. or does it?

***

for images from that night, click right here.

politics and music – not necessarily the best mix.

not always though. as milind showed that night. mighty impressive the manner in which he played effortlessly that night. the fact that you were witnessing a member of parliament playing in a pub with an upturned jacket collar, denims and slippers just brought home the fact better.

adil & vasundhara – said earlier, say again – always a pleasure watching you guys.

see images from the night here.

the pre-release mayhem of ‘easy’ ensued at hard rock cafe (venue to note: not only does the sound do injustice to any band, the onstage light is rarely anything close to being decent for good images. guys, you know who to blame if anything is amiss – i have sufficient confidence in my photographing abilities). good fun as always, more fun in off stage, some more on stage, and then a lot lot more offstage by a man gentle enough to be offended, quite obviously by, our very own qaatil sardar.

(some of you might wonder on a decidedly hazy apparition stalking the stage who seems to be leaping in wild abandon. the first correct guess gets a meal at gunpowder!)

see the images here. go easy. and don’t pause.

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(?)

but the waters didn’t part. i couldn’t reach the other side.

paradoxically, i only found life receding from my form as i sat atop the bow of the ‘yasmina’ as everything around me contracted itself into a tiny speck in space, time and person. a white hole. veritably.

***

i had never snorkeled in my life, ever. of course, i graced my university swimming pool during the summers (no, we didn’t have a heated pool, or did we?) and those juvenile ones at five star resorts with my (ex) corporate buddies during our annual work sponsored jaunts (yes, the ones where everyone prayed to witness an episode of baywatch being shot around the pool, and all everyone got was – well, pot bellied uncles with their cans of beer and cranky kids who probably couldn’t stop peeing in their pants – let’s just not talk about the women, ok?).

and now i find myself onboard a yacht (yes yes, you read it right!) right in the middle of the red sea. a body of water which is known the world over not only for its pristine waters as a haven for underwater activities (read – diving, scuba, snorkeling – what did you think?), but also for the diversity of the forms of life which populate its waters. including, sharks. now i didn’t want to be bait for the storyline of (yet another!) jaws. plus spielberg wouldn’t have been too interested anyway, what with getting old and a shifting of focus to more ‘serious’ subjects. i look hopefully at the ship’s mate if he could help me navigate the waters, the novice that i was. but he’s busy readying the barbecue with the day’s fresh catch. i knew that sharks don’t give a rat’s ass for barbecues. thankfully a belgian lady onboard takes pity on me, and agrees to accompany me into the waters. what a sight it was! a sixty year old woman taking to the waters like a fish as a guy half her age was grappling around holding tight to the lifebuoy gagging himself on gulps of salt water.

so i did snorkel. saw the corals. the sea bed. didn’t go deep. just skimmed the surface. going deep has its adverse effects as i’ve learnt. as for sharks – they didn’t give a rat’s ass for my (now) skinny ass.

***

the old shepherd parted the sea, reached the other side, went up the mountain, came down, and wasn’t happy with what he saw when he came down.

somewhere around there, the young shepherd bathed in the waters of the river which cut through the land.

the old shepherd led his people again. this time around, he made his final ascent on a mountain. never to come down. and saw what he saw.

people never understood them then. which makes it unlikelier that people would understand them today. there is sound logic in the fact that it was always shepherds who were chosen to lead people.

in the meantime, a khaki clad fedora donning guy with a whip hanging by his waist was running about the city of stones looking for something to do with the young shepherd’s last meal. he had probably not heard of dan brown till then. while he rummaged through the caves, another man gave up his khakis for the local flowing white garb to become one with the people and lead them on. no, this one wasn’t a shepherd definitely.

the last one was seen about a millennium and a half back. no more shepherds now. at least in our time.

nobody heard when fire dropped from the sky on one city. not a soul whispered when another city turned turtle.

***

confused? very?

this was the land, the name of which shares a commonality between one of the most revered prophets, a legendary basketball player and the keyboardist of a phenomenal progressive metal band.

jordan.

the holy land where prophets walked. a land which has history pre-dating a few millennium before a most revered prophet set foot there. a nation which in recent history has been caught in the crossfire of a crisis which has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons for more than six decades now. but they have learnt how to deal with it. which is what makes jordan such a pleasure to visit. specially if you are the type who has some bit of an interest in history and if at some point of time in your life, you have had the opportunity to delve into some aspects of the narratives within the quran or the biblical old testament. steeped in so much history, yet so progressive in its outlook relative to its neighbors. hospitable locals and excellent food which lies at a unique inflection point between the mediterranean and arab cuisine. did i forget mentioning that the girls were stunning to the point that i began having doubts about the anti-glare properties of my specs? reminds me that i need to go visit that guy again. (talk to amma too…shhh)

you’ll find it all here. jesus. moses. mt nebo. bethany. the red sea. the twin cities of sodom and gommorah. lying somewhere under the dead sea. the greeks, romans, seljuks, ottomans.  even indy jones (ok, we meet spielberg again) scurrying through the crumbling city of petra. or lawrence of arabia in his tent under the desert skies of wadi rum. the rim of the palestine conflict.

***

the old shepherd and the young shepherd probably do talk about what they see now. the people haven’t changed, maybe gone worse.

the white hole? critical mass is still a distant reality.

***

for images, click here.

*warning* – there are 100+ images. anything less may not have done justice to the places visited during the trip. take your time, skim through them, go back again to look at them while at leisure. most importantly, let me know what you think.