Scars on the Fingers

When I was in class 12, music made a place of its own in my mind space. Sashi had again given me the audio cassette Savage Garden and funnily enough the same thing which I had disdainfully discarded in class 11, left an indelible mark on me. It was the beginning of my obsession with music. 

As with everyone else, after a few years the next thing I wanted to do was to play a guitar. But the good old unsure me, saw no chance of that happening. To begin with, I hadn't known one person in Calcutta (or anywhere for that matter) who used to play a guitar or even knew how to play it. And oh yes, I was too much of a good boy in my adolescent years to even think of asking my parents for money for anything other than buying Raj comics initially and those terrifying M.L.Khanna type of books later. I gave up my strumming pursuits in the consoling knowledge that it is something which an average boy just didn't do and that there was no expiry date to it like completing my engineering degree. Besides, I didn't actually believe that I can come even close to doing something as cool as playing a guitar. A few years later, we went to Munnar one weekend. It was the first trip we had taken after coming to Kochi and we played Rang De Basanti all throughout. Moving at 70 kmph, in the serene Idukki valley at the crack of dawn is a heavenly experience in itself and if there is a just released Rang De Basanti sound track to go with it, it can take your mind to a different world. It was in one such moment of madness, realisation, whatever that one particular note of the Paathshala (Be a rebel) made me decide that I should learn how to play guitar.

I came back to Kochi and enrolled in the weekend guitar classes at Kala Bhavan which was a charitable organisation that taught music for peanuts. For four consecutive Saturdays, I braved kilometres of intense sun to go there and gave up. I didn't learn anything there, found guitaringquite difficult and mysterious and didn't quite like the teacher. I gave up in disappointment. I was wrong, in hindsight I should have given at least some blame to the teacher. His speech was unclear, his body-language was indifferent as he seemed to have no interest in teaching (now that is where the entire problem begins) and he had scolded me for a stupid thing! I forgot about guitaring but the hope never quite left my mind and I was aware of it. I just knew that someday somewhere I will again get a chance. 

As fate would have it, I did manage to find a guitar teacher in Montevideo an year and a half-later (how I found him is another story, just know that it wasn't quite easy). His name was Miguel, he was said to be a guitar-prodigy. The day I met him for the first time, I was shocked. He was younger to me and had a wide-grin on his face! He took me and Maneesh to his room upstairs and asked us which song we would like him to play. Now, this was impressive : ) and yes, in stark contrast to my previous experience. I told him to play quite a few tracks, he played them all and played them damn well. What satisfied me the most was that he was happy to teach and happier to play! I decided that I am learning from him, come what may. Well, Maneesh backed-off when he realised that we"ll be on our own and there will be no Latin girls learning along with us, but I started. The very next day I went and bought a Stagg guitar (and a Proell gig-bag) from a shop near the Intendencia  and started going to Miguel at his grand house in Beyeruth every few days. All I wanted to do at the end of it all was to play at least something of One Last Breath or Here Comes The Sun. I had two or three months in my hands. 

I learnt the basic chord positions and tried practising them at home everyday. It wasn't easy. When I pressed the strings strongly with my fingers, they would hurt. It would pain a lot to hold it for even a minute at stretch. Now before this, I hadn't imagined that something as trivial as pressing some strings can inflict pain. Anyway, it was physical pain, I took it and kept practising. The next class, Miguel showed me how to change chords and make a melody. When I came back and tried practising it, I was defeated. I would try endlessly, but I would just not be able to change chords seamlessly, not even supposedly the easiest of chord transitions. I tried for a many days, but made no perceptible progress and just didn't understand how will I ever play anything at all. But I kept practising and one fine day, all of a sudden, it happened. I was able to change the chords  and go from A to G to E to D. Next hiccup was playing my chords when a person sitting next to me was singing the song or playing a different arrangement. It just wouldn't happen, as my mind would repeatedly lose track of my chords. But in time, that too happened. Every new lesson repeated this cycle till I was left with no more time in Uruguay and by the end of it, I had learnt a fair portion of a lot many songs along with some basics of guitaring.

I returned with scars on my left fingers, they had stopped hurting anymore and I just didn't mind my calloused skin. I had been able to start with what I had wanted for a very very long time. I still can't play a F chord properly, cannot tune a guitar without a tuner and know almost nothing about the theory. The maximum I would rate myself as an amateur guitarist is 1.5/10. But I am living this dream of mine and the scars make me happy : )

It's the Nation, stupid

Well, the news is that (in case you didn't know), Maharashtra is burning with rage. I have never stayed in Maharashtra, have barely had a countable Marathi acquaintances(or friends rather) and can lay no claim to have an intimate understanding of the psyche of a typical Marathi man in the way I understand my dear Bengali folks. But it is clear that there are enough educated Maharashtrians around who are appreciating what MNS is doing. They have no qualms about people from Hindi belt (an euphemism for Bihar) getting assaulted in their state and have no regrets in saying that the police did the right thing by killing a young man who had a pistol in hand and was threatening to pull the trigger. They are shocked that the national media (or non-Marathi media) has been unanimous in its criticism of MNS.

Mumbai today is said to have up to 40% of its population as the bhaiyas and it is only increasing. Most of them do blue collar work. Now they don't go and get themselves jobs by holding the employers at gunpoint. They get it because they probably work harder and are willing to work for lesser pay. And this hurts the local people who just can't digest the fact they are not getting jobs on a platter in their homeland. And this has led to gradual hatred which has now reached boiling point. It cannot however be denied that there are several migrants who go on to become Mafias and do nothing to improve the city they chose to live in. But none of this can justify the hundreds of innocent young students being assaulted (yes literally assaulted with stones, sticks, kicks and punches) for daring to come and work in Maharashtra. I can understand hooligans and politicians indulging into all this, but I just cannot understand educated people like me (and in all probability, you as well) voicing their support for this. What is their grievance, what possibly can it be?

1. The migrants are snatching their jobs - Well if they are working hard for it, they deserve it. Anyone who is an Indian is a son of the soil and is free to seek his livelihood anywhere he chooses to.

2. The migrants refuse to speak their language - I don't think there is any migrant who will refuse to speak Marathi even if knows it. And if he doesn't know it, then he is probably speaking with the local people in Hindi. This is not because he considers Marathi to be lesser language, it is just because you both seem to be on more even terms on another language which is not Marathi. It may still happen that he doesn't want to learn Marathi, OK so leave him to his fate. He will suffer, not you. You cannot mandate a person to learn your language, just because he is staying in your place. 

3. The migrants litter their place - Yes, I am afraid they do. But have a better municipality to deal with this, don't go around beating them with sticks just because of it.

4. Population proliferation - Well, again you didn't earn a right to live in a place just because you grew up there and others didn't lack a right to live in a place just because they did not grow up there.

I don't understand what is happening, but I just know that it is all too sick. There is a serious rabble-rouser there who has perpetrated the most sinister of crimes and has people who have made a champion out of him. Beating 19-20 year olds who have studied and seeked to get a job fair and square is just not on. It is not their fault that they were born in a state that doesn't offer opportunities. They are seeking to sweat and earn (not claim) a livelihood elsewhere in their country. 

(Nothing new about all this. If 75 years from now, Patna becomes what Mumbai is today and Marathis come seeking a job there, the Biharis would do the same thing, even if there is no MNS and the deeds it did in the old journals)

Viva La Vida

I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sweep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own

I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemy's eyes
Listen as the crowd would sing:
"Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!"

One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand.

Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner
But he knew it wouldn't last
Jojo left his home in Tucson, Arizona
For some California grass

Get back, get back
Get back to where you once belonged.

Why is that every time a club signs a player and the manager and player pose together for a snap, it seems that the player has actually condescended by joining the concerned team, as if he was not half as interested as the club and as if he is doing them a favour. Well, it is not the case always but all photographs look like that. Below it seems as if Rafael Benitez believes he has pulled off the deal of the season by signing Albert Reira.

Turbulent Recess

The last few months have rushed past me. It seems as if it was only yesterday that I returned, moved about in Bombay, boarded the Rajdhani express to Nizamudeen, bought a Mac, came back to home, met Baba (that is how we call our Grandfather in Bihar) in Barkakana and finally returned to work. Work life has not been great to be honest. I have not done much, yet it appears as if the months have passed in a jiffy. Yes, there has been a lot of filthy politicking at work, but you learn to accept and live with it with time. There is another week knocking for the footsteps and it reminds me of many more things which need to be completed. They have lied there, waiting to be done since days. Snap, I will try.

Baba passed away in May. He was not keeping well and his urinal infection had sucked out almost every ounce of energy left in him. Dadi had passed away in August last year. Ever since then Baba's heath had started deteriorating. His last few days were too painful. He used to refuse to take food, fully aware that he needs to eat, yet he could barely make himself eat anything. He lived a good life, fulfilled all his responsibilities, took care of all of us untill his last few years. I just wish that his last few days were more peaceful for him, but they were not. There are so many stories we had of him. He had fled away from our zamindari system in the village and gone to Calcutta for studying/working. He subsequently joined CCL and stayed at Barkakana. Who knows, if not for that audacious trip down to Calcutta, today I would have been a peasant taking care of our land in Tariyani Chhapra. He used to recount to us how they had fought against the British rule before independence and how they had not cared a fig for themselves, but just dreamt of an independent nation. Or how devastating was the earthquake which struck Bihar back then and he had experienced first-hand. His last days were not good, he deserved a better time.Baba was perhaps the perfect match for Dadi. Dadi was a kid at heart and had an infectious enthusiasm for life. She had survived numerous serious ailments all throughout her life and every time had been back to her energetic self in no time. She was too good at those supposedly feminine things like knitting and cooking. Her last days were also intensly painful, but they were swift and lasted for a lesser duration. May they live in peace now up there in heaven.

The last few months also saw a long awaited reprisal of my four favourite South Asian singers/writers. As if they had formed some secret coalition among themselves, Jal, Chetan Bhagat, Jhumpa Lahiri and Rabbi Shergill decided to come out with their next work within months of each other after years of lull. How have they been? Well, Jal's new album is crap. I don't know if anyone else has ever come up with a worse second album after a debut album so fine and promising. The rest have been good. To be specific, here is the order - Unaccustomed Earth, Avengi Ja Nahin, The Three Mistakes Of My Life and then much below the rest, Boondh - A Drop Of Jal. If you can, listen to this song in Rabbi's new album - Maen Bolia. Vintage Rabbi : ). Rabbi in my opinion, is the best song writer in India currently and his songs are nearly as good as anyone else. I was tempted to call him the best composer as well, but that's a dicier verdict since there is an Indian Ocean to contend with. The only trouble with Rabbi is that you can never truly appreciate his songs unless you are having his translated lyrics in your hands. And yes, I have been listening to a lot of Coldplay of late.

If everything goes fine, some of my friends should be visiting in a few weeks from now and that is what keeps me going currently.

Shit Happens

"Anderson and Doig informed me that NZC was into 'Best Practice', one of those nifty corporate terms that on close examination was little more than a statement of the bleeding obvious. It was comforting to know that they weren't into Mediocre Practice or Completely Shithouse Practice."

"Doig's reply referred to what was deemed to be a poor showing on my part in the teleconference interview and stated that NZC's area of great concern was over my ability to apply my cricketing and people skills 'in the team environment over a period of time in order to enhance performance'. I was advised to 'work on strategies' to overcome the impression I gave of being 'indecisive and unspecific'. They would be 'reassured' to hear that I was attending courses to address this 'perceived weakness' and urged me to attend sports and science conferences to develop a 'philosophical approach to practice methods' and 'full familiarity with technology and its ability to support performance enhancement.' I was asked to consider getting involved with the national under-19 and A teams."

 - An excerpt from John Wright's book 'Indian Summers'

John Wright has said this more eloquently than I could ever have.The extent of jargon used in corporate world still continues to surprise and frustrate me. All this talk of quality, etc. is bloated. We all know what is said is implied and never needs to be said so feverishly, perhaps the more you say the more it harms the cause. But still it goes on and on. Most of the energy is expended on something which will bear no fruit. It is utterly sick. Because we know it will never end. Every two weeks or so, I get to hear about a new initiative which has been launched and which again turns out to be repetition of what has already been said or done before. Just that it has a new name this time.

Similarly, sycophancy knows no limits. People begin mails saying "I thank so and so for his/her guidance...." when it is crystal clear that there was no guidance involved and the thing went through only because there was no guidance (read interference).

Darn, hail Dilbert!

I was bereft of Internet for two weeks as the adapter was out for repair and what should have taken a mere three to six days somehow took fourteen days. I think I would have gone insane had I not got it back by now.