OJ (With Pulp)

Celebration on Yonge Street - 28 Feb 2010

2010-03-01T22:15:00.010-05:00

Walking up Yonge Street after Canada won the gold medal game against the U.S., I saw the most amazing street celebration I've ever seen.

Never seen so many smiles. My hand was hurting from high fiving people. One of them was an incredibly cute woman Toronto cop.

I watched a guy scale a lamp post at Yonge-Dundas square. And get arrested the moment he climbed down, despite a huge crowd of people chanting, "Let him go! Let him go!" when four bicycle cops showed up to haul him away.

I saw guys dancing atop bus shelters. Waving huge Canadian flags. Yonge-Dundas sqaure jammed with thousands of people (the traffic had been stopped eight or more blocks up and down). People of all colours, sizes, shapes and makes waving Canadian flags and celebrating a win in the game we love the most. Didn't matter what else went on, we'd won the Olympics! The total medal tally didn't count... only that we'd won hockey gold. On a goal by golden boy Sidney Crosby.

Cars. Honking. People sticking out of moon roofs, chanting and waving flags. Hanging out of windows screaming their heads off. Guys running shirtless in minus zero temperatures, waving flags all the way up from Yonge-Dundas to Yonge-Bloor. In between traffic. Getting hugged and high fived by beautiful girls all the way up.

And finally (before I got tired and decided to hop on the subway for the rest of the way home).... the flash mobs at Yonge-Bloor. With the cops watching, groups of people would charge into the intersection and dance while the lights were all-way walk. And disperse as the lights turned green for the cars. And then back on again when it was all-way walk. Over and over and over again. And it was never the same group of people. It was people walking to intersection to go somewhere, getting caught up in the moment. And participating. And moving on. Incredible. And the cops watched. Did nothing.

Here the only photos I got (sorry they're in reverse order and I don't have the patience to fix that right now!). From my cheap $5 cell phone. I wish I had my camera with me.

Flash Mobs at Yonge-Bloor

Go Canada Go!

Dancing on the Bus Shelter

Euphoria at Yonge-Dundas Square

Take it off! Take it off!

The Poor Bugger Who Got Arrested for Scaling the Lamp Post

(but hey, he made it all the way up!)

Thousands Gather at Yonge-Dundas Square

The RetroGreats - Two and a Half Years Later

2009-12-16T16:03:00.009-05:00

We came together in the summer of 2007 to form a band under the League of Rock. And here we are, at the end of 2009, still jamming every now and then. And not sounding bad at all, considering that most times we don't even get a chance to rehearse together before showing up on stage.

Much has changed in the last two and a half years. But some things stay the same. Because some things are meant to be. Like The RetroGreats.

Standing left to right: Steve, Pauline, Marysia, Larry One. Seated: yours truly. After the LOR holiday jam, Chicken Deli, Toronto, 13 December 2009. © Steve Prentice.

FUCK IT...

2008-11-27T13:48:00.016-05:00

(This post attracted quite a bit of concern from two very close friends... I'm going to take their advice and tone it down. Their concern that this might be construed as "hate speech". tells me that in my haste and anger, I may have gone off the deep end. For, the fact is that I'm not hateful... just very angry.)

As I usually do, I read a news story (on the web) and then I’ll scan through the comments from readers for insights and views. As much as I’m interested in the pure reportage itself, I’m also interested in what people think and have to say about whatever’s going on in the world.

And the biggest news today is the terrorist attack in Bombay.

I flip to the National Post. Skim through the story. Nothing new here. I’ve seen most of it elsewhere already. Scan down for comments. None. Surf over to the Globe and Mail. Same news regurgitated. Scan down to comments. Notice pops up saying “comments are not being accepted”. Over at the Toronto Star, they’re accepting comments, but there are just 14 at the time of this writing. In the Toronto Sun. Nothing either. (Though the photograph below caught my attention.)

A policeman gives water to an injured child at a hospital in Mumbai on Nov. 26, 2008. Dozens were killed in a series of shootings around India’s financial capital, with two five-star hotels among the targets in the terror attacks. (Courtesy: Toronto Sun/REUTERS)

Amazing. Here in Canada, where the online chatter starts up so quickly over dog poop in a park… Nothing. Null. Nada. Zero. Zilch.

No one has a thing to say here about what's happening in Bombay. Absolutely amazing.

Is it possible that no one cares?

Seems hardly likely that we Canadians wouldn't care about something like this that’s causing so much pain and anguish.

Here’s what I suspect… the Post and the Globe would rather not deal with the vitriol that this is likely generating. So they just shut down the comments. The Star is probably putting up only what it considers the most “inoffensive”. And the Sun, to be honest, I don’t know how they do things there. But let’s just leave it at them not having anything up from readers either.

So then, we don’t care?

Surely we do. But, I suspect, not enough to risk our politically correct veneer.

Shame on the lot of us.

I, for one, as an ex-Bombayite, am seething today. I want to see someone pay for what these animals have done to the city. And have done many times in the past. It’s just that there’s more media attention this time around because of the foreign hostages held at the Taj and the Oberoi. One empty head at CNN said this will likely “go down in history as India’s 9/11”. Left me wondering which planet this fucking moron was visiting when 209 Bombayites died in the commuter train bombings in July 11, 2006. But, perhaps in their intense coverage and background research for today’s events, CNN just plain missed 7/11.

(And shut up already about Mumbai. It’s Bombay for me.)

Yeah, I’m angry.

I’m very fucking angry.

I don't care who they are, where they came from. Whatever.

Find them. Kill them. And then wipe out the snake pits they crawled out of.

Fuck it.

See how easy it is? See how easily the carefully cultivated cloak of political correctness slips off my shoulders?

One of the reasons I left Bombay 12 years ago was growing fatigue and frustration with the extreme emotions and political affiliations that had come to constantly bubble under the city's collective consciousness. Bursting out every now and then in riots, death and destruction. On one hand, the Hindus, on the other, Muslims.

Tired of getting caught in between, I bailed.

For the calm and quiet orderliness of Toronto. Twelve years in this city and society slowly eroded the passion that politics and religion could once bring raging up in me. The hot South Asian temper, slowly but surely tempered. I learned to wear the comforting cloak of Canadian equanimity. And wore it well.

But today, it’s slips off. Today, I want to see an eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth.

Fuck it.

I weep for Bombay.

And to the Karkare, Kamte and Salaskar families, and the families of the security personnel killed in Bombay over the last 36 hours. Jai Hind.

Enough said....

2008-10-08T15:17:00.002-04:00

Meanwhile, back at the League...

2008-05-23T23:22:00.004-04:00

... a new band is born.

We're called...CRUSH.

From left to right...

Adrian Berkovits — Guitars, Keys
Peter Abonyi — Guitars
Yours truly — Drums
Marysia Ganzalez — Vocals, Keys
Chris Ford — Bass

Watch this space... for the excitement begins!

Little Bird has flown

2008-04-08T16:32:00.005-04:00

(Click here for LEAGUE OF ROCK entries.)

Dr. Chakravartty tells me that’s what the professors at St. Anthony’s College in Shillong called Tultul bou when she was a student there in the late fifties… “chotto paakhi”. Little Bird. A sharp student and inspiring dancer, this was a fitting name for the young girl who flitted through the social life of the college and her community, bringing joy to all around her.

Perhaps, if she were born First Nations, that would have been her name. So fitting that she made her final home here in Canada.

But, Little Bird has flown now. At age 63. So young, so beautiful, so gracious to the very end.

After an eight-year long battle with cancer, which she faced with amazing strength for a person so small in physical stature, she slipped away on January 13 at her residence in Toronto, Canada.

She left behind Mridul da, Rustom, Momi, son-in-law Siva and grand-daughter Geeta, and an as yet unborn grandchild. And Dilip da in Singapore and sister Nirupoma baidow in Boston. Plus she had friends and family from Denver to Duliajan.

To me, Tultul bou’s early years in Shillong seem almost fairy-tale like. Much like my memories of that town itself. The peace. The quiet. The joy of Bihu and Durga puja. The innocent beauty of Assamese girls in their dazzling mekhela sadors heading to the Deva Kumar Memorial Hall with their families for the evening’s festivities, If I shut my eyes, I can see Tultul bou as one of them. I can imagine her on a Shillong city bus heading to college at Don Bosco Square. Or performing at the Dhankheti Bihu toli.

I met Tultul bou for the first time much later in her life… in 1996. She and Mridul da were pillars of the small Assamese community here. They lived in a tiny house down by Lakeshore Avenue and Birchmount. The two of them were a source of strength for us newly arrived immigrants. It’s not they put you up in their house, or lent you money, or helped you get a job…. no. Instead, they were there for long comforting conversations about things close to our Assamese hearts. They were there to explain stuff that baffled us about life in Canada. Tultul bou opened her home and heart to us, giving generously of her love and concern. She cooked chicken for me when both she and her family, and my own young family are vegetarians. And Mridul da always had a cold beer for me in the fridge.

A few short months ago, I enjoyed the same warmth and hospitality of the new home they bought a few years ago on Don Mills Road, 10 minutes away from where I live. Tutlbul bou was in pain, but mobile. She sat and chatted with me for hours. About my life. My challenges. My successes. Very little about the growing pain she was enduring from day to day. I sat mute and listened in amazement as husband and wife made causal comments about and references to the approaching end.

I wondered how they could be talking about the death of one of them so light heartedly. The answer lies in a great and pure faith in Sai baba. Tultul bou’s faith was total and unquestioning. As is Mridul da’s.

I wish I had faith in something… anything… that came remotely close to it.

There is much about Tultul bou that I’m only now finding out. Dr. C tells me that she was a brilliant student and maintained merit scholarship standing through most of her academic career. That she addressed him as ‘Sir’ till the end.

Other bits of info came from Ruma baidow in Detroit. That Tultul bou received her Master’s degree in mathematics from Delhi University. That she was a lecturer in Shillong’s St. Mary’s College and the Polytechnic. That in 1971 she married Mridul da, moved to Duliajan, and taught at the OIL Higher Secondary School, as well as Kendriya Vidyalaya. In 1981, the family migrated to Lima, Peru. And there she continued to teach in the British and American International Schools.

The recent events, I know more about. That in 1987, the family relocated to Toronto where Tultul bou went back to school to get diplomas in Computer Programming and Computerized Accounting. That in her last position she worked for Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board as a Pension Analyst. And this much is obvious to me now, after meeting her weeping colleagues at the visitation… Chan, as she was known, was much loved at work too.

And how she danced… a young goddess in love, light as a bird on her feet at one moment. Then transformed into a storming harridan, essaying Ma Durga’s terrible anger. The softness of a mother’s love, and then the blazing eyes of the woman scorned. At Bihu and other functions, I watched in amazement at the range of emotions Tultul bou could call up through her dance, as Anima baidow sang.

We lost Anima baidow just over a year ago. Now, Tultul bou. And I have this picture in my head of the two friends putting on a show for the gods somewhere over the rainbow. One singing… the other dancing.

Go in peace, Little Bird. And know that I, for one, feel blessed for having been part of your beautiful life.

A Long Time Coming

2007-11-29T16:51:00.002-05:00

It’s 22 years and a long way from Brabourne Stadium (Aid Bhopal, Bombay 1985) to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (Grey Cup Festival, Toronto 2007). And now I’m the only person in the whole wide world, who can safely say this…

I’ve performed at both!

Practically a lifetime in between. A beginning after an ending. Or perhaps another ending. But it doesn’t matter... all that matters is that I was there!

Ok… I'll stop with the wordy foreplay now.

After weeks of preparation and slightly nervous anticipation, my band, The RetroGreats, and I made our two-song appearance at the Grey Cup Festival last Saturday, 24 November.

It turned out to be everything Terry promised us… some of it more so, some of it less (but not for the lack of his trying). The sheer size of the event was mind boggling. The hall we played in was cavernous… over 200,000 sq feet in size with 35 foot ceilings!

Ok, so Lenny Kravitz played to a bigger crowd on Sunday at half time… a shade under 20,000 in attendance, said the news. So what? He’s Lenny Are-You-Gonna-Go-My-Way Kravitz. And he played three songs. We’re The RetroGreats, for Pete’s sake, and maybe 50 people in that room of a few thousand knew who the hell we were. (We heard they were expecting 5,000 people… they could have had that, but not all of them were in the hall at any one time.)

Gotta put things in perspective here, you know.

So… here’s what’s stuck in my mind from that day, as we started out at 10:00 for a sound check (that never happened because the stage managers ran out of time).

Hanging around backstage...

Long walks up and outside for smokes; getting caught in the middle of a green and blue sea of loud Bombers and Roughriders fans on the escalators going back down; free breakfast and coffee in a well-appointed dining area, with guys in black jackets and bowties behind the counters; very official looking ‘performer’ passes hanging on lanyards around our necks; running into my young friend Brittany.

Going to see the outdoor Canadian Armed Forces exhibit with the lovely Leslie Gibson from Us5; checking out the CF-18 exhibition plane, the Bison armoured personnel carrier, trying on a flak jacket and helmet, freaking things weighed a tonne, chatting with the boys in uniform; listening to the Forces band belt out Mustang Sally; so very Canadian, the whole thing… even in camouflage, these folks manage to look completely homespun and non-threatening.

Standing in a long line to get beer tickets; and then standing in another long line to get the beer.

The cheerleaders… oh my sweet baby Jesus, the cheerleaders… they were everywhere… hundreds of them, in their microscopic skirts and even smaller tops; Marysia telling us to wipe the drool off our collective manly chin; Joe from Attica Rox pacing, psyching himself up, not looking at the girls.

Hanging out in the lounge (leather sofas, no less) earmarked for Great Big Sea, who’re playing later that evening; Terry and Topher herding us together to get the low down from the stage manager; a drum battle as Michelle from the LOR Allstars, Adrian from Dark Angel, and I whack the crap out of the padding of a hapless chair for about five minutes; Larry clowning around, pretending to pull the splintered piece of a broken stick out of his neck.

Marysia changing into a dazzling pink top, making a passing stagehand’s jaws drop… he walks by muttering to himself; Steve and Pauline, as cool and collected as ever.

Waiting nervously sidestage as Dan Clancy introduces LOR and Dark Angel, who take the stage to open our segment of the show. These guys are so cool, I bet people have difficulty believing this is a band that rehearses once a week, if that, and does not perform regularly. Mike’s solo on Rocky Mountain High must have raised blisters on his fret board… let alone his fingers.

We’re announced.

I settle down on the drum throne and Steve counts Refugee in. Panic sets in as I realize that my drummer’s mike is not hot enough and I can barely hear the guitars. Pauline’s bass is nowhere near as loud as I need it to be to drive me. But, it’s too late to fix anything. I’m playing blind.

I lose the beat, but recover as the sound engineers race to balance the on-stage sound… the rest catch up. Even before I know it, the song is over. I remembered all the lyrics… halle-effing-lujah… I’d forgotten them in three consecutive rehearsals leading up to the show and had generally freaked myself out. The others were too polite to say anything. It’s amazing what one can do under pressure.

The sound is better now. Marysia goes up and chats to the crowd, introduces us and the next song… her’s… Crazy on You.

I can feel us speeding up, but… to hell with it. This is live… this is urgent… this is here and now. Who cares if it’s a tad faster than it should be. I see us on monster multiple video screens across at the far, far end of the massive hall.

Even before we know it, it’s over. We grab our gear and get off stage as fast as we can for the turnover. Topher comes over and bear hugs Marysia and me… he says we did ok. Makes me feel better about our performance. The Animators go on... and absolutely nail it.

Us5 is up next, and pull off a wicked rendition of Whole Lotta Love. Leslie throwing her head back and letting loose in the vocal break in that song… that's an image that's going to be stuck in my head forever...

Joe struggling with the sound again as Attica Rox take the stage, but the band recovers and proceeds to put on a stark, in-your-face display of rock ‘n roll swagger. Tony looking and sounding like the business end of some kind of warped industrial rock machine. Gotta love those guys...

An hour zips by. And we’re told we’re out of time. They won’t let the LOR Allstars go on to do their set. WTF? But we clear the stage.

Later, I hang out a bit front stage with friends and other LOR members for a while. Grab another beer with Leslie. Surprised to run into some colleagues. Some of us are in a company band that’s competing at Baystock 2008.

An emptiness settles into me… even surrounded by the thousands still milling around in the hall.

What now… what next?

Photos and video courtesy Terry Moshenberg/League of Rock, Mitch Moshenberg, Topher Stott, Tony Louriero, www.molsoncanadian.ca, and video grabs from Matt.

Rocking… Once Again

2007-10-12T17:50:00.000-04:00

UPDATE (added 29 November): The entire CityTV Breakfast Television segment is now available and can be viewed at the bottom of this page.

________________________________

UPDATE (added 13 November): We 'rocked it out of the park', as Terry put it, on CityTV's Breakfast Television show this morning.

We were at the Q-Music Studios. Jennifer Valentyne was the host. I won't lie... being live TV, it wasn't a walk in the park. I was nervous as hell. But Jennifer is cool and the CityTV cameraman is a seasoned pro who set us at relative ease. (I didn't get his name in all the excitement.) Having Terry, Topher and Robert around was comforting as well.

You can see a bit from towards the end of the show at Jennifer's blog here. Photos are uploaded here.

We had to get there at 5:30 a.m. for a 6:40 kick-off. It's hard to get that revved up that early in the morning! A couple of coffees helped some. We managed to pull it off , I think, though I still haven't seen a video of the entire show as yet.

How Marysia pulled those notes out that early in the morning, I have no idea. Shaky as I was, I still had fun. All in all, an awesome, awesome experience!

If Terry's phone is not ringing off the hook right now, I'll be very surprised.

Next stop... the Grey Cup Festival! Talking of which, entry is free. We're performing at the Double Blue Bash along with five other LOR bands. Front Street is going to be shut down in the vicinity of the Convention Centre that afternoon and it's going to be one massive party. We'll be performing indoors though. I hear they're expecting about 4,000 to 5,000 people. BTW, there's been a change in time, and LOR now takes over the stage at 3:15 (not 1:30 as I said earlier) and goes till 5:00. We, The RetroGreats, are slotted in somewhere in the middle, I believe.

Wow... I thought we'd be done with all this in mid-Spetember. And here are still rocking it in mid-November!

________________________________

UPDATE (added 24 October): The RetroGreats will perform at the Grey Cup Festival in Toronto on 24 November between 1:00 and 3:30 pm at the Metro Convention Centre as part of a League of Rock showcase! Further details on entry, etc., to follow.

________________________________

Ok... and here's the original blog on the subject.

It’s a funny thing… I write about all kinds of stuff. But, about two of the most important things going on in my life, I’ve not written a word. One is better left alone, joyless and homicidal anger-inducing subject that it is.

But the other…

…yeah baby… it’s been rock ‘n’ roll time again!!

It starts at Downtown Jam (DTJ), which I have mentioned earlier. After jamming there about twice a week for over a year and a half with all comers — the phenomenal, the good and a few bad — slowly a ‘band’ coalesced together. Starting about the spring of 2006, I started finding myself in the room with the same four other people every time I went in to play… the divine Marysia Gonzalez on vocals and keyboards, the good vet Gary Arzem on guitars, along with Ray Litvak. And Steve DeNiro, our rock solid bassman and frequent vocalist. Soon, we started venturing outside the DTJ bible and bringing in other songs to try. With Steve’s phenomenal ability to chart songs, it has been, and continues to be, a blast in every which way. We vibe together fantastically and every two-and-a-half hour session is a fun rock ‘n’ roll experience. Fuelled with copious amounts of beer (mostly me), and Ray and Steve’s ceaseless, oftentimes merciless and borderline maniacal ribbing of each other. We are a band, but have stopped short of naming ourselves. Perhaps because we’re not a ‘working’ band, it feels a bit presumptuous to do that!

Nevertheless, we were/are content.

But restless soul that I am, I ventured out once in a while and braved the open jam nights with Michael White and his band (a mixture of members from The White and Honeymoon Suite) at the Hard Rock Café’s Club 279. (And for that, I have to thank T1, for literally shoving me onto the stage.) Back at DTJ, I told Marysia what a rush it was. For months she would say she wants to come out and try it too. Got to tell you, it is very intimidating for a casual jammer to go up on stage there... first, you’re up with Michael and his boys, and second, a good 80 to 90% of the audience is made up of jammers of a very high calibre who’re listening intently to what you’re singing or playing and watching every move you make.

In any case, Marysia finally stepped out of the DTJ comfort zone. I was there the first night she took the stage with Michael’s band at Jeff Healey’s old place down on Queen and Bathurst… She wanted to do Kansas’s Carry on Wayward Son, which the boys were wary about attempting because none of them had played it for years. But Marysia cajoled them into it. And sweet baby Jesus, did she go up there and belt it out…

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where I believe Ms M first smelt rock ‘n’ roll blood. Appetite whetted, she was ready for more…

As for me… I was a lost soul, landing fleetingly to greedily suck sustenance at the bi-weekly jams at DTJ, but otherwise floating adrift in a life bereft of any rock ‘n’ roll purpose.

And then in the spring of this year (2007)… though for the life of me, I can’t remember from whom or how… I heard about Terry Moshenberg’s League of Rock (LOR).

Though, in principal, there are similarities with the DTJ concept of adult non-pro jammers getting together to play, there are big differences too. For one, it’s much more money to join, and second, it’s not an open ended thing where you jam when you feel like it. At LOR, it’s a tight 10-week programme where you rehearse and are coached once a week for the first nine weeks. The coaches include some very heavy duty, long-time Canadian rockers… Alan Frew (Glass Tiger), Mike Tilka (Max Webster), Dan Clancy (Lighthouse) to name only three. Along the way, you get do two live performance showcases, at locations like Healey’s, in its new location on Blue Jays Way, or the Gibson Guitar Centre. (Though the earlier spring session had one showcase at The Phoenix, which I would have loved to play in.) At the end of the 10 weeks, you're thrown into a professional studio with real producers to record and make a CD.

Mike Tilka telling me to stop "growling". Larry agrees.

As it happens, though we had talked about going our separate ways to experience making music with other people, Terry drafted Marysia and I into a band along with bassist Pauline Blackwood. We’d jammed in the past with Pauline a number of times at DTJ, and I’d always thought highly of her as a bassist. Also drafted were guitarists Larry Ross and Steve Prentice, who we met for the first time ever at the draft event. Steve had played in bands earlier, but… and get this… Larry has never played with other people before!! Hooo boy… I thought to myself. This is going be interesting. Was it ever! But, in ways very different from what I thought it might be!

Seven bands were brought together that night.

Anyway… our name: The RetroGreats.

The three songs we picked, with very little discussion and dissent: Crazy on You (Heart), Refugee (Tom Petty), and Shook Me All Night Long (AC/DC)... pretty ambitious song list for a band comprising a stay-at-home mom, a busy TV producer, an investment banker, a show systems provider, and an equity research editor. I think of myself as either a very brave or very foolish person for things I have done in life… but it seems that in this band of people, for a brief while I had four equally crazy fellow travellers on the road to rock ‘n’ roll ignominy or glory.

Larry: concentrating way too hard

For the following eight weeks, we, and the six other bands that were brought together, went each Wednesday night for two-hour sessions, at the Rehearsal Factory. This is a huge rehearsal facility up at Geary Street, just north of Dufferin and Dupont.

The first few rehearsals were challenging, to say the least. Each of us had our noses buried in the song sheets and would whale away at our instruments. It was horrible. But Terry, his co-conspirator in LOR Topher Stott, and the coaches would pop in with words of encouragement and make suggestions. To their credit, they never winced once when they walked into our rehearsal studio. I suspect things weren’t going all that swimmingly in the other six rooms either.

Pauline: getting her groove on

Every rehearsal we went for, Terry and Topher had seven of the best rehearsal rooms picked out for the seven bands. Beer and pizza lined up... along with freaking oodles of energy and enthusiasm.

And we fed off it all… beer, pizza, the energy, enthusiasm, the psychedelic art on the walls, the mindbendingly loud and cacophonic ambience of the Rehearsal Factory…

Steve and psychedelia: feeding off the energy

As the days progressed, we started looking up from the charts and just playing along. And not as effing loud as when we first started, drowning each other out. Things started falling into place. But I was still having difficulty with the pitch of Refugee, which I insisted on singing. Damned if it didn’t hurt hitting those notes that Tom Petty somehow pulls out of his gonads. And then Mike Tilka ambles in and says to me after the Healey’s showcase, “Stop growling and you’ll hit the notes!” And damn, again, if he wasn’t right. The high notes still strained, but at least they didn’t shred my vocal chords to bits at every rehearsal.

I'd be lying though if I said if it all happened at the rehearsals. I had a week off during the summer (part way through this) all to myself up at my good friend John H's gorgeous chalet in Collingwood. I took backing tracks along with me, and sang my head off... till I hit those goddammed notes without collapsing on the floor in a coughing fit. The neighbours' dogs were in a bit of a state though, by the time I left the place at the end of the week.

And while on the subject of singing, one other thing... they say that if you hit a note clearly, you’ll feel the buzz down in your nuts. Trust me… it’s true.

Marysia: startling the neighbours

Marysia was transforming into a rock goddess… stalking around the room with her handheld microphone. (Which, we were later told, was feeding into the amps in the neighbouring rooms!) Pauline got off her butt, and started pounded out her bass notes with increasing doggedness. Larry, what to say of Larry? The man who’d spent all his years noodling on his guitar in the basement, was suddenly letting loose those demented lead licks from Crazy on You. And Steve, always finding that quiet counterpoint when the rest of us were going hell for leather, coming back each time with greater and greater clarity and polish on his rhythm. And me? I was just having a time of my life…

Refugee: getting it right

The night it all came together… I saw it. I heard it. I felt it. It was week six. As the rehearsal progressed, the band started gravitating toward the centre of the room till the four of them – Marysia, Steve, Larry and Pauline – were standing around in a shamanic circle as they played. Even back behind the drums, where I almost felt left out, I could hear everyone clearly. It was a moment of beautiful, tangible energy.

The Gibson Guitar Centre: waiting for the doors to open before a showcase...

...taking the stage, giving it all we got.

The music wasn’t anywhere near perfect. But that didn’t matter. We’d already told ourselves we weren’t going to be a note-for-note tribute band. We couldn’t be, even if we tried. We were re-interpreting the songs as best we could, within our abilities. The coaches seemed to like our ideas too and were helping us find ways to build on them.

Steve and Larry: finally loosening up and just 'playing'

That night, I came away feeling, for the very first time, that The RetroGreats were going to do just fine after all.

Too soon, our rehearsal weeks were done and we were facing studio time square in the face. It was quite a nerve-wracking week-long wait for me personally. I was itching to go. Terry had allocated two late night shifts to us, back to back, on a weekend. At Q Music, we ran into co-producer Robert Sibony. (Sentence deleted here at Robert's request.) He kept calling me Jizz (to the great amusement of the rest of the band, Terry and Topher) and got mightily upset when I drank his booze. But, what can one say… the man made magic with the imperfect raw material we gave him to work with.

At Q Music, top left to right: Topher, yours truly, Larry and Steve.

Bottom left to right: Robert, Marysia and Pauline.

Friday night, we had practically one take each on the three songs. Live. Straight off the floor. Some guitar parts were overlaid. And Marysia got a couple of cracks at her vocals. And that was it for session one. The next night, Saturday, I overlaid Marysia’s ghost vocals on Refugee. We did the backing vocal parts, and overdubbed a couple of guitar solos on all three songs. And then settled down for about three hours to watch Robert work his mixdown magic on Pro Tools. It was an awesome treat to see how the songs came together. At the end of the night, our three songs were ready. Mixed down, ready to be burned onto CD.

Simple and painless. A bit of tension. But, no breakdowns. No rock ‘n’ roll tantrums.

It was a beautiful thing... warts and all.

And two weeks later, graduation day (as Steve called it) at the Gibson Guitar Centre. What a night of celebration that was. Seven bands on stage one after the other. Each band was given the choice of doing one song live and having another played off the CD. We were slotted fourth in the line-up. We had decided on Crazy on You live, and Refugee off the CD. The room was packed with friends and family… come to see what we’d been up to one night a week all summer long.

On Graduation Day: Marysia, Larry and Steve

Marysia was a demon on stage. Arms lifted high in the air, unleashing those impossibly high notes of Crazy on You on a visibly awestruck audience. Larry and Steve nailed their guitar parts with precision – Steve cool and collected as ever, and Larry with his face scrunched up… Joe Walsh style. And Pauline, standing by me. Laying down a gut shaking groove… like our groove briefly held up the universe for those three and a half minutes.

And after we came off stage, the press wanted to talk to us.

Terry promises the complete rock ‘n’ roll experience… from forming a band, choosing songs, rehearsing, performing live, recording, producing… we got it all. And media exposure to boot.

Eyes shut wide: feeling the groove

Effing hell… I could get used to this rock ‘n’ roll business…

…all over again.

Note: All photos on this page are courtesy Terry Moshenberg/League of Rock. Video courtesy CityTV.

The Girl and the Biker

2007-06-11T14:20:00.000-04:00

Last Sunday evening, S and I were trying to get away for a quick beer at the local around the corner from where he lives (in Oakville, Ontario). His wife T said we could go, but we had to take their daughter, four-year-old L, with us! She probably thought that might dissuade us from leaving. But S and I looked at each other, shrugged, got the child to put on her shoes and the three of us took off. (Aside: it is a family restaurant really, but with a nice bar.) Parked ourselves at a booth at the bar and ordered beer, wings, fries and a juice for L.

Next to us… a big, surly biker. Stolidly eating a huge salad (ok, I know there’s something very wrong with that picture), washing it down with an absolutely humongous glass of beer. And not making eye contact with anyone. Not that we could tell, because he hadn't taken his dark glasses off even inside the bar.

I notice little L looking over at the biker out of the corners of her eyes once in a while. I could almost hear her thinking, "Why is this man not saying hello to me?" She is a little garden sprite of a thing and most people (strangers and all... at the mall, on the street, in the park, wherever) are usually cooing over her in a few seconds. So I suppose she was baffled by the fact that this man was completely ignoring her. Finally, not being able to stand it any more, L scoots over on the bench toward him, and goes in a loud voice, "Hello!" And you should have seen the smile break out on the biker's face, like the sun suddenly shone through clouds. In no time, the two of them were exchanging pleasantries, while S and I finished up our beers.

On the way back home, I tried to explain to L that she should be careful about talking to strange men at the bar. But I don't think she got it.

I'll try again in about 15 years.

Death Came Calling

2007-01-16T13:40:00.000-05:00

We knew the end was near. The doctors told Dr. C so almost two months ago. And he told me over the phone. It would be almost 10 days before I could make the trip out to Peterborough to go see Anima baidow (elder sister, in Assamese). By then, she had already been moved to a palliative care unit. They had stopped the treatment for the cancer raging through her already battered body and were now making her last days as comfortable as possible.

I am shocked by what I see when I walk into the room. This is not the Anima baidow I know... this is a tiny, shrivelled, hairless person. But she looks me directly in the eye and demands to know why I’ve not been by to visit her earlier. Something in me says, oh, she’s not doing as badly as people had been saying.

But a little sob escapes T, who has come along with me to see her. She rushes out into the corridor. M, Anima baidow’s yoga teacher, follows T out and whispers encouragement to her. S and I put on brave faces and speak to Anima baidow quietly. Dr. C. is standing by the bed looking helpless. Resigned. A great sadness weighing his shoulders down. People are whispering to each other in the room. And out in the corridor. Both the family/visitors rooms on the floor are also taken over by Anima baidow’s visitors.

What do you say to someone who’s dying? What do you say to Dr. C?

He has been at the hospital every day for almost two months. From 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. For months before that, he had been cooking and cleaning and caring for his ailing wife. He looks tired and much shrunken as well from his usual self. His reserves of inner strength depleted by the sadness and a dull acceptance of what was surely now just weeks, perhaps even days, away.

Those of us who knew the couple, who considered them surrogate elders in the absence of our own, now grieved for both. For the one who was leaving, but more for the one who was to be left behind.

I sit by Anima baidow's side and reach for her hand, which lies limply across her chest. She squeezes my hand back, ever so slightly. Dr. C gets her lunch from the pantry. Home cooked food that someone has brought for her. We elevate the bed and help her up into a sitting position. She can barely hold the spoon but attempts to eat a bit. It’s painful to watch. She gives up after a few birdlike bites. I help her rinse her mouth out. It’s like helping a child.

A steady stream of visitors drops in every day, Dr. C says. During the time I was there that first Sunday... maybe two hours… I counted at least five families. Peterborough’s Indian community has rallied behind Dr. C in an unprecedented show of support. Everyone who visits, brings some home cooked food. He says his refrigerators at home are overflowing. And he’s taken over half the refrigerator in the hospital pantry. Anima baidow doesn’t like the hospital food. The doctors have said she can eat whatever she wants or is able to. They don’t see the need to put any restrictions on her in the short while she has left to live.

What I didn’t know at the time was that, behind the scenes, some of the leaders of the Peterborough Indian community, like BM and RK, had already begun preparing for the funeral, starting the day the doctor said the end was near. Dr. C had signed the necessary papers and everything was more or less in readiness for when the time came, so that there was no last minute panic. A sequence of events had been mocked up, the funeral home and chapel alerted, tasks assigned, lists of guests made, food and drink planned out, etc., etc. It was an awe inspiring display of calm and logistical planning, all done with great compassion and caring for Dr. C.

The hospital staff is amazed at the steady stream of visitors. I worry that the friends and family of other patients in the facility may be getting upset at the hordes of people visiting Anima baidow. Other hospitals do not allow more than three people in a patient’s room and then only during strict visiting hours. But this one being what it is, they have no such restrictions. And the staff, despite knowing that a patient rarely ever left the floor alive, is cheerful and compassionate. One of them hugs Dr. C when he gets emotional as we look over some old photographs. She tells him that she loves Anima baidow for her quiet dignity in the face of death. I choke up hearing that come from a complete stranger.

I go back and sit by Anima baidow as the others chat quietly in the corridor. She says something. At first I don’t understand her, but guess she wants water and pour her half a cup. The bed has to be adjusted so she can sit up to drink. I hold the cup to her lips and she takes a few weak sips. Even that little effort exhausts her… she sinks back onto the pillow. But she reaches out and caresses my wrist in thanks.

I don’t want to leave… the 135-km drive back into town is one of the longest ever for me. I've driven that highway probably a 100 times in the last 10 years, in all kinds of conditions. But on that windy and rainy evening, with the sadness and greyness merging into a tight little knot that sat deep in my chest and threatened to cut off my air, it felt like it took forever to get to Toronto. Even T’s three-year-old daughter is quiet in her baby seat all the way. She can feel it as well.

I drive to the hospital a couple of more times over the two weekends. P flies in all the way from Calgary to spend a couple of hours with Anima baidow. And takes the next flight back home. The people keep coming, and coming, and coming. There are tears, hugs, quiet words, and silence. Silence in the room. Anima baidow is sinking rapidly. She no longer speaks. Can barely open her eyes. When she does, there is no sign that she recognizes any of us. She hallucinates. She sees giant caterpillars on the wall. All her life she was terrified of the critters. Now that she is so close to death, the doctors say the hallucinations are a result of the slow ebbing of life. Her neurological systems are beginning to misfire.

I get calls from people. I call people. We reach out to each other in despair. The loss of Anima baidow was going to be a huge blow to our small Assamese community here in Canada.

Saturday, 25 November. J's been watching over Anima baidow all through the night. The doctors had said the previous evening, "One more day." Twice during the night, he was on the verge of calling Dr. C back to the hospital when he felt the end had arrived. But he held off and finally called only at about 6:30 a.m.

8:30 a.m. I wake up late. With every intention of jumping right into the shower and heading straight out to Peterborough, I get caught up in responding to emails and puttering around the house, trying to neaten up after four weekends of missed chores. The phone rings at 12:10 p.m. It’s S...

Anima baidow had passed away about 30 minutes ago.

I hang up and sit frozen for about five minutes, unable to move. Instead of being sad, I feel guilty for not having done as I had planned… I could have been there. I should have been there.

But now there’s no point in rushing, while they move the body to the funeral home. I find a picture of Anima baidow, set it up on a window sill and lit a tea light. I leave after about two hours and get to Dr. C’s place just before 5:00 p.m. He’s at the funeral home with BM and RK to finalise arrangements. I wait, along with J and U. I get the door when Dr. C comes back. He looks calm. But he shivers and holds on to me when I hug him. He makes a funny little sound deep in his throat… like he’s agreeing with something someone is telling him.

First thing he does after taking his shoes off is call a meeting in the living room. BM and RK chalk out the plan of action for us… visitation on Monday, funeral on Wednesday, and a multi-faith prayer meeting on Saturday. And the Saturday following, an Assamese Hindu prayer meeting at Dr. C’s residence. Everything is already planned out. I am impressed. Right down to who’s driving whom, from where to where, and at what time. Left to our own devices, we—J, R, B da, B, S and the rest of us Assamese—would never have been able to pull this off in such a smooth manner. Atleast not on our own.

I’m asked to re-engineer an existing piece written on Anima baidow into an obituary for newspapers in Assam and Peterborough. I end up writing almost an entirely new piece in about an hour. Dr. C is satisfied. So are others who have gathered at his home that evening. I am to email it to the newspapers overnight.

It's cathartic to be caught up in the logistics of preparing for the funeral. For all of us. It takes the edge off the moment. J and U will stay and watch over Dr. C that night. J asks if I will stay Wednesday night following the funeral. I say yes. He rounds up four others from among our friends to take turns staying over a night each to keep an eye on Dr. C.

We worry about Dr. C. He seems calm and collected enough, but we watch nevertheless.

Monday. Anima baidow is laid out
in a simple casket at one end of the hall at the funeral home. Visitation hours are from 2 to 4 p.m. and then
again from 7 to 9 p.m. I walk over directly to Dr. C, afraid to see Anima baidow in death. He takes me by the hand, leads me to the casket. “See how beautiful she looks,” he says, his voice cracking. I see the body for the first time. Her friends have dressed her up in a sari with a red floral pattern. Red, the colour of matrimony. Someone’s laid a gamusa, a thin hand-woven towel unique to Assam, and a symbol of Assamese nationalism, across her chest. But I don’t see a resemblance between the person in the casket and the picture of the radiant, smiling woman in the photograph on an easel on a table nearby.

I reach out and feel her cold hand, and yet it’s all very unreal.

The aroma of incense fills the room. Showing an understanding of Hindu customs, the funeral home directors have laid out sheets on the carpeting so people can sit cross-legged on the floor, as we prefer. It is a bit incongruous as all of us are in dark suits. Someone starts singing a bhajan softly. I notice R; she’s dry-eyed, but looks shocked. I can’t bear to be in the visitation room anymore.

I put my shoes back on outside, and stand by the door. K, Dr. C’s old student, and his wife M hesitate as they come in, not sure of what Hindu customs dictate in such circumstances. I told them what to do and they seemed relieved. I had found myself something to do to escape the raw emotions filling the room behind the open door.

Through that door I can see Dr. C and his son B, side by side on the sofa. Dignified. B, come to stand by his father in his hour of grief. I am struck by how much he resembles his father. And, he a professor too, just like his father.

Soon the room is almost full. The bhajans continue. J sings an Assamese naam. Which cuts deep again. M and Anima baidow’s fellow students from the yoga classes are there. A good part of Peterborough’s sizeable Guajarati community is in attendance. Her friends from the chanting group she loved so well. Almost all of us Assamese who could be there. Some have driven in from Ottawa. As have others from Montreal. Folks from Trent University, where Dr. C once taught math. All gathered to pay homage to this diminutive and popular woman from Assam. I saw people I hadn’t seen or spoken with in years. With some, there had been unpleasantness in the past. But now we greeted each other quietly…

… death… the great equaliser.

Wednesday. I’m up early, dressed and ready to go, but the phone won’t stop ringing from the office. The emails keep pouring in. I’m supposed to be at the funeral home at 10:00, and it’s 9:10 by the time I manage to get out of the house. 135 km... 50 minutes. I pray fervently for the police to be looking elsewhere as I hit 150 km/hour in a 90-km zone on the 115 North. The Gods listen and I make it to the funeral home… 10 minutes late, nerves a bit frazzled, but I was there. The hall in the funeral home is filling up slowly. People file past the casket. Some weep. Some pray. People of all faiths and persuasions. J and B, Anima baidow’s close Parsi friends, hold up proceedings for a few minutes as they say farewell in their own way. We wait for them to finish.

At 12 noon we carry the heartbreakingly light casket out to the waiting hearse. B and I are the lead pallbearers. For me, a huge but sad honour. BM, RK and two others bring up the rear.

The crematorium is in a chapel at a different location about 15 kms away. The motorcade holds up traffic for almost two blocks. (I later counted 40 cars parked outside the chapel.) In the confusion as the casket is being taken off the hearse to be carried into the chapel, I’m bumped off my spot and someone else grabs the handle. BM tries to get me back in position, but I let it go and follow the casket in.

The chapel is small, but intimate and beautiful in its simplicity. A plain, but enormous metal cross hangs on the wall behind the pulpit. Anima baidow’s casket is rolled in directly underneath it. It is fitting. God, by any name, is watching over her in her final physical moments on earth.

The casket is opened again as a Hindu priest sings and translates a few couplets from the Vedas. Short and sweet, but touchingly delivered. J sings verses from the Assamese kirtan book. I have heard him sing these on dozens of occasions over the years. Today, despite his sorrow, he sings with a deep conviction. His voice rises clear and strong up to rafters, and the tears flow again in the congregation.

There are about 100 people in the chapel. We line up for a final farewell. I’m second last in the line, behind R. I don’t pray. I can’t pray. I look down at Anima baidow and touch her cold hand one last time, and walk back to my seat. My mind is blank. J goes last. He breaks down quietly by the casket and doesn't seem to want to walk away.

Someone directs Dr. C and B in the final ceremony of walking around the body three times, stopping each time at the foot to pray. The funeral directors close the casket. They slowly wheel the casket out into the crematorium chamber, followed by Dr. C and B, who was to throw the switch, and three designated witnesses.

It’s all over in about 10 minutes. When Dr. C is helped back into the chapel by B and the others, I see him truly shaken up for the first time since Saturday evening.

As we file out of the chapel, the sun peeks out briefly in what had till then been a dull and cloudy day.

We head back to Dr. C’s for a quick lunch (again a part of BM, RK, J and B, and their friends’ huge organizational effort). Everyone leaves by about 4:00, and soon it’s just Dr. C and I alone in the house. K and M and their kids drop in for a while to see how he’s doing.

I sat up late with Dr. C that evening, talking about life, love and death…

… and Anima baidow. How she never complained once through close to three months of suffering.

How she opened her eyes briefly at the end and looked directly into the eyes of her husband and companion, knowing that the end was at hand.

Photo courtesy J. Bhubhariwala. And that's my photo art.

Drummers in the Clouds!

2006-11-16T14:38:00.000-05:00

Well goddamn, they went and did it... them crazy people in Shillong. Drummed their goddamned way into the Guinness Book of World Records!! Seven thousand nine hundred and fifty one (that's 7,951) Shillongites played Rudy Wallang's composition Positive Vibration in sync for about 10 minutes and drummed their way to glory and fame, cheered on by local rocker/tourism minister Bobby Lyngdoh. See news and photos here and here, and a short video here.

Nomad

2006-11-15T15:31:00.000-05:00

Last week, during an email conversation, S said I live like a nomad. A vagabond. She has other reasons for saying so, but even in the physical sense, she’s absolutely right.

For here I am, and I’ve moved… again. For the sixth time in my 10 years in this city. From the rentals first at Graydon Hall (two years) and then at Godstone Road (one year), to the condo at Parkway Forest (four years), sold that, went back into a rental literally across the road at Parkway Forest (six months), returned to another rental at Graydon Hall (two and a half years), and now the tiny condo townhouse up at Leslie and Finch, which I rented at the beginning of this month.

Seems like that’s all I’ve done all my life… moving. From one city or town to another. Or one accommodation to another.

Born in Shillong, taken to Hyderabad and Mysore as a child for a couple of years. Brought back to Shillong. Stayed for six years. Moved to Calcutta. Lived there for a couple of years. Back to Shillong. Stayed three years. Moved down to Guawhati for a year and a half. Lived in a student hostel to start with. Then the Assam student agitation of 1978-79 brought classes to a grinding halt. The student hostel shut down, so I went to live with my Grandmom.

In 1979, moved to Bombay. Lived in two different student hostels over the five years of schooling there.

And then just as I was finishing school in 1984, I started a ridiculous four-year downspiral of moving. From student hostel, to shared paying guest, to single paying guest, to a room in my cousin’s condo, back to a shared student rooming house, an illegal paying guest at Navy Nagar (which smelt funny, but the landlady gave me a cup of tea and a banana each morning, even though it was not part of the deal), another illegal paying guest up north in Ville Parle (which got broken into, and my guitar and coffee machine were stolen, among other things), to a condo in south Bombay that I house-sat for a year, shared a room with a colleague at the company guest house, and so on and so forth… I moved 11 times in four years!

At the end of it, all I had fit into one yellow duffel bag. My only other possession in the whole wide world was my little red motorcycle. That was it.

There were a couple of nights when I couldn’t coordinate move in and move out dates. And, as a result, had no place to sleep. One of those nights were spent on the local train. Around midnight I bought a ticket at Churchgate for Borivili. Got on and fell asleep holding on to my duffel bag. There were other people, but not many. When the train reached Borivili, a cop came around and woke up those of us who had fallen asleep by running his nightstick up and down the metal guard rails on the windows. So I got off and as soon as he had moved on, got into the next bogey and promptly went back to sleep as the train sped back to Churchgate, a run of about 45-50 minutes. At Churchgate, same cop-nightstick-change bogey routine. And back and forth all night between the two stations. In the morning, the security guy at the student hostel where I lived earlier near Churchgate station was nice enough to let me in so I could have a shower and change into fresh(er) clothes and go to work.

And then there was the night, again with no place to sleep, I fell asleep on a bench on Marine Drive while trying to keep a wary eye on a monstrous balding bandicoot that was beginning to show unhealthy interest in my lower extremities. The cops came by at about two in the morning to shoo me off. I stumbled off and waited for them to drive away in their Jeep, went to another bench and went back to sleep. They didn’t come back to bother me. Neither did the bandicoot. At sunrise, I watched the joggers and then went and rousted up my security guy pal at the student hostel, who let me in again for a bath and breakfast.

(And yes, I was working all the time. I made decent money as a copy editor with Business India magazine. But without a passport or some sort of travel document, no hotel in south Bombay would give you a room in the middle of the night. Atleast not in those days. And in any case, they were too expensive.)

And yeah, there were also nights spent in the office... on two desks pulled together, with a bunch of old issues of the magazine substituting for a pillow. Or, if I was lucky, on the couch in the editor's office.

By the end of 1987, things were a little steadier. I was sharing a room with my close pal C at Kemp’s Corner. Around that time, my family put up the dough and I bought a tiny 450 sq ft condo in Lokhandwala complex in the northern end of the city. Moved in there in March 1988 just before I got married. For the first time ever, I set up house. It felt great. But by 1990, for reasons I can't even remember now, we decided to sell and move to Four Bungalows, about 4 or 5 km away.

In 1992, just after our first son was born, I switched jobs. The new company tacked a generous house rent allowance on to my salary that allowed us to rent a beautiful sprawling old apartment at Juhu. A huge lifestyle change.

It felt like we had arrived. Suddenly, we were part of the Juhu set.

But two years later, bringing to an end my longest stint ever in one city—17 years—we threw it all away and moved from Bombay to Toronto.

Much has happened since, not counting the six moves. But the cycle goes on. Moving. Moving on. Gathering no moss.

Miracles

2006-09-10T12:47:00.000-04:00

Glowing Jesus and fainting school kids in the east.
Idols drinking milk in the west.
Believers who call themselves Christians,
believers who call themselves Hindus.
All of the same blood, of the same land,
in the mountains, and by the sea.
All of the same innocence.
Of the same desperate need to believe.
Of the same gullibility.

Grant them these moments of madness.
Of fulfilment.
In their belief in a power beyond
the warmth of the ancient fire in the cave,
that holds the secret
to something better than their diverse todays.

God (if there is one)...
knows they need it.

The Quest For Real Indian Food (or... It's the Onions' Fault)

2006-07-15T10:11:00.000-04:00

Vasu the Terrible triggered this one off with his comment in my last blog.

The quest for ‘good’ Indian food has been a serious one for me in this wonderful city of Toronto. But, truth be told, when I had my first so-called ‘Indian’ meal at Gerard Street 10 years ago, I was horrified. I vowed never to set foot in an Indian restaurant in that street again. I was fresh of the boat, and completely spoilt by Bombay's amazing restaurant food. My expectations were too high.

But now, one of two things has happened. Either I’ve been away too long, don’t know better any more, and have become like the white folk who sit there salivating at that pathetic concoction posing as ‘butter chicken’, but is really cubes of boiled chicken tossed into a wimpy tomato sauce whipped up with a bit of sour cream. But we shall not introduce them to the real thing, shall we? Or they’ll become like me... forever suffering the deprivation, and forever yearning for those strips of range (not grain fattened) chicken meat, grilled to perfection in a in a tandoor, before being tossed sizzling hot into a tomato and butter based gravy rich in onions... and ginger... and garlic... and secret, subtle spices. And then being allowed to simmer for an hour or two on a low fire. The flavours slowly blending in. Served piping hot in an earthen bowl, with a swirl of sour cream (not power-blended in, for crying out loud) and fresh coriander garnishing on top. Oh, they have no idea how they're being short-changed here... the poor, misguided souls.

Or, in 10 years the quality really has improved here in Toronto, as foodies become more discerning, and will no longer put up with the bastardized crap that was being passed off as 'Indian' food on Gerard. In fact, I’ve found some pretty good places in other parts of the city. Siddharth on Yonge-Eglinton being one. And, also Indian Garden. Talking of that intersection, there is also a Bombay Palace in the vicinity. And perhaps even a Host (but that I'm not sure of.)

But I do have a view on why Indian food tastes so different here. It's the onions' fault. They're big. White. Plump. Hefty. Perfect to look at. Symmetrical. And, unfortunately... completely bland. They have no bite. Even your eyes don't water when you chop these onions. How can you make a self-respecting Indian gravy with these sad excuses for onions? And from there the downslide starts till you end up with a sad brown mess with the overpowering smell of jeera powder... a smell that clings to your clothes and hair and leaves your poor white neighbours holding their breath when you meet them in the elevator.

And another thing... universally, all Indian restaurants I’ve been to in Toronto have pathetic décor. (Now that I think of it even in Ottawa and Buffalo. Wow, is that the case throughout North America? Ouch.) No idea why it has be this way. Every time I ask, I'm told they don't make enough money to take care of these niceties. The only place that’s halfway decently done up is the Jaipur Grille, also on Yonge-Eglinton, but a little further south. But it’s expensive and the food not so nice.

Oh well... you can’t have everything, can you?

BTW, a friend (T1 in A Tale of Two Ts), FOB just a about a year now, says she's found a Chettinaad style restaurant out by Guildwood Village in Scarborough... she says it's pretty authentic. Now this I have to see!!

And here's a link to quite an extensive article on the subject of Indian food in America.

Looking back... again (but a little closer now)

2006-06-26T15:49:00.000-04:00

On 15 June 2006, I completed 10 years in this country. Since I seem to spend so much time in this blog looking back, I thought this might a good one to add here. In the fall of 1997, a friend who was an editor at Bombay's Mid-Day newspaper asked me to write a short piece, looking back over the previous year since our arrival in Toronto. This, except for some minor edits, is what I wrote.

A giant Edward Scissorhands set. Tidy little streets lined with half-grown trees; neat little houses with neatly trimmed hedges. Each with two little cars in the driveway. Not a soul in sight throughout the day. There we were, wide-eyed new immigrants. Expecting paradise. Feeling trapped and helpless.

That was 13 months ago. My wife's relative had picked us up from Toronto's Pearson International Airport and driven us back to his house in Mississauga. We—my wife, son and I—left Mumbai on June 15 last year to come here to Canada, to start a new life.

Starting over at age 35 is never easy. But I'm proud to say we have. Came to this place where I knew next to no one, with very little money, got myself a job by answering an advert in a local newspaper, rented an apartment, bought everything that is required for the apartment, moved in, and got started.

The first six weeks were nerve wracking. On top of the agenda was finding a JOB. Responding to 10 or 12 ads a day... not getting a single acknowledgement in return. Let alone an interview call. I had run up against the great "Canadian experience" barrier. Took me six weeks to get past it, but I finally had an interview—on a bench in a glitzy shopping mall.

The guy who interviewed me was Indian and called me back after a few days to say that I had a job as a graphic designer in his print shop. Hallelujah! I had broken into the Canadian job market. Now I don't live in the Edward Scissorhands set any more. Our apartment is in North York, in a building full of noisy immigrants from all over the world, surrounded by four other equally noisy skyscrapers. So we feel quite at home.

Most of Toronto is not like that. Most people live in single family dwellings in quiet little streets. You can rent easily here, as long as you can prove that you have a good "credit history". Now here's a paradox. If you're new, like us, you don't have a credit history because you've never had a credit card here, or taken a loan to buy a house or car or TV. So you get someone who has been living here for a while to co-sign your lease agreement.

My friend N co-signed for me. And I had met him barely 10 days before he co-signed this document which says that if I fail to pay my not insignificant rent, he's liable. I've never asked N how he trusted me not to get him into trouble. But I suppose the all-important reason is the “community”. In Bombay, I never hung out with the Assamese crowd. But here, without the Assamese community, small that it is, getting settled would have been doubly hard. If not impossible.

And that's one of the great things about Toronto. You may miss the hustle and bustle of an Indian city, but you won't miss things Indian. Name any Indian spice or vegetable, and I'll bet there's a store within a two-km radius where you can buy it. There are movie halls playing Hindi movies, there's an entire street in downtown Toronto lined on both sides with Indian stores.

A walk through Gerrard Street is like walking through Kalbadevi during an uncrowded afternoon (if that is imaginable at all!). You can buy everything from Churidar kameezes, to Sumeet mixers, gulab jamuns and pirated Suchitra CDs. In the heat of summer—when it climbs upto 31 degrees—one feels right at home, surrounded by the sights, sounds and smells more suited to a busy street in a small Indian town.

But the illusion is a little skewed, for the cows, the dogs and beggars are missing.

Having said all this, life here is not easy. No bais. No dhobis. No maalis. Or coolies. Your job is never secure. Taxes are murderous. The political ethos is democratic, but indecipherable to a newcomer. There is a wonderful thing called welfare, but it won't mean a damn if you're out of a job and you don’t want the shame of taking a ‘handout’ from the government.

And yet, at the same time, if you're sick, it won't cost you a penny to get to a doctor and get treatment. N almost died on a highway two years ago after a spare tire came loose off a truck barrelling along at 110 km per hour, took the top off his Honda and half his head along with it. But the helicopters and paramedics were there within seconds. He was flown to the hospital and saved. Didn't cost him a penny and he's good as gold now.

Am I happy here? Is my family happy? Yes and no. We miss our friends and the buzz of Mumbai. I miss hanging out at the Razzberry Rhinoceros. But I'd never have seen Jean-Luc Ponty live there. Which I did just weeks ago. I miss the walk up to Fountain from Marine Drive. But Queen Street here is awesome too. I don't miss the heat and mugginess of Mumbai. But winter here is scary. That is, if you can imagine waiting for a bus for 20 minutes in -27 degrees with driving snow.

I don't know. Maybe it's too early… for now, I'm enjoying Toronto.

Someone Played the Music in My Head

2006-05-23T14:11:00.000-04:00

Of all the music that I listen to and love, fusion has intrigued me the most. Specifically between Indian and Western. I've heard all kinds of it, ranging from the classical (Ravi Shankar and Phillip Glass) to jazz (Shakti), from folk (Tri Atma) to rock (Indus Creed, Indian Ocean, Thermal And A Quarter) and pop (Bally Sagoo, Euphoria, Orange Street, et al). Some film music is also great – A.R. Rahman and Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy spring to mind. I scour the Internet for Indian influences in music from around the world.

Being a musician myself, I've experimented endlessly with ideas. My hard drive is littered with dozens of incomplete pieces of music that draw from Indian classical and folk on the one hand and rock on the other. In my head, I could hear the possibilities. But I've neither heard that perfect piece of hindutsani/rock fusion, nor been able to create it myself.

That was until I heard the Mekaal Hasan Band (MHB), from Pakistan.

Their last album, Sampooran, was released two years ago, if I have it correct. To my mind, this is it. This is the music I've been hearing in my head for years. I have not heard the CD itself, only what is available on their website at http://www.mekaalhasanband.com/ and at http://www.muziq.net/songs/Mekaal_Hasan/Sampooran/. The sound is not great as the tracks have been downsampled significantly. But do go and check it out. There are some great videos too.

Comparisons with Indian bands are silly to my mind, but perhaps inevitable. I love what Indian Ocean and TAAQ are doing. Some Euphoria too. But I think the direction is different. Whereas Indian bands tend to have a lighter, "poppier" sound, MHB is more rock to my mind. The fusion by Indian bands is much more adventurous and tends to embrace many more influences. As I read somewhere, the reason for this is the wide-range of music that India has - from north to south, from east to west. In comparison, Pakistan has less to draw on. As a result, bands like MHB tend to be more focused on a particular style. And perhaps because of this, they hone their art to a greater degree, whereas Indian bands produce more disparate music.

Whatever may be the case, MHB, to my mind, has produced the most seamless Hindustani classical-Sufi-jazz-rock fusion I've heard to date. It's hard to tell where one leaves off and the other picks up. Or is it merely sitting on top of each other all along? In fact, I would venture to say that 'fusion' is a wholly inappropriate term here, because inherent in that term is some element of influences being 'forced together'. No such forcing is evident here. This music has a very organic feel to it... like it is as it was meant to be.

I could go on. But I'm a musician. Not a music critic. So I'll urge you to hear the music and judge for yourself.

We're Jammin'

2006-05-10T18:09:00.000-04:00

Picture this.

Downtown Toronto. It’s just after 6 p.m. A steady stream of professional types are letting themselves into a nondescript low-rise building sitting at the corner of Richmond and Church. A good number of them are dressed in business suits. Men and women. Most of them would appear to be in their thirties and forties. Some older.

If you were standing across the street and watching these people, you'd surely be confused about one thing… apart from their briefcases and laptop bags, many are also carrying guitar cases. Or the odd violin case. Or some sort of a wind instrument.

What’s this all about, you wonder.

*****

Well… all of us are members of a club called Downtown Jam.

What it is, is it’s a club for amateur musicians. We members share one thing in common… we’re all musicians who can’t follow music as a career. But we’re all reasonably able musicians, and we still like to rock when we can. Life’s meanderings have left us without the option of being musicians, but Downtown Jam gives us the opportunity to play as often as we like (or can, given busy lives... work, home, kids, school, dogs, etc., etc.).

Started by Andrew Hall—himself an outstanding piano player, drummer and singer—almost 10 years ago, Downtown Jam has about 300 members. Among us we count lawyers, cops, CEOs, drywallers, investment bankers, dentists, interior decorators, professors… you name it. Even an ex-premier of Ontario, who I’m told is a mean piano player.

The club has three fully equipped studios. If you chose not to, you don’t have to bring your own instrument (except drummers, for obvious reasons). It’s all there. Guitars, basses, drums, keyboards, amp, mixers, speakers… everything you need. And pretty good gear in top notch condition. You break a string… there are spares.

Andrew sends out an email each week to all the members stating the session timings, normally two a day at 6:30 and 9:00 p.m. He asks when you’d like to play. After the members pick their times, Andrew matches up people for each session—a singer, guitarist, bassist, keyboard player and drummer. Sometimes, there may be more. I’ve been in a session with nine people… it was a blast!

So you show up for the session you picked, and find out which of the three studios you’ve been assigned to. You’ll see the names of your session mates posted by the door. You may have played with them before or not. It doesn’t matter. You can state your preference for particular musicians, and Andrew’ll try to match you up. But it doesn’t always work out.

It doesn’t matter who you land up with though. I can tell you from going to the club for almost a year now at least two or three times a month, it doesn’t matter. I’ve had huge amounts of fun every time. Sure, sometimes you’ll get a rank amateur who has difficulty keeping up with the rest of the group, but more often than not enthusiasm makes up for such shortcomings.

So, how does it work during the session? We have The Book. Lyrics and chords for 600 songs by everyone from The Everly Brothers to The Rolling Stones, Martha and the Muffins to Pink Floyd, The Beach Boys to U2 and Dire Straits. We take turns calling out songs, and the rest of us flip to that page and play along.

As simple as that.

And how good are these sessions… pretty damned tight, I’d say. Most of the time. Sure, sometimes we have train wrecks. But it doesn’t stop us from picking the next song and rolling right on.

I’ve been at some pretty awesome sessions. Like the one time, the guitar player was late. Which is not cool because people pay to be there and if one is late then time’s a-wasting for everyone. But anyway, this guy walks in about 30 minutes late. Probably about 55. Around these downtown streets, you probably wouldn’t spare him a thought. Dark power suit. Bit of a belly. Greying hair. Brief case. (Though the guitar case strapped to his back on his way in must have given people pause.) Apologises. Takes off his jacket. Loosens his tie. Plugs in his guitar… and fucking lets loose like you would not believe it. Man oh man, could this guy play! He alone pushed the level of the session up to a whole different plane.

And he's not the only one like that in there. Some of the singers who come in are amazing. Like the woman who is raising four young children, and yet makes the time to get away to come and sing.

I don’t know 95% of the songs in the book, but as a drummer (and occasional singer), I have it a little easier than others. I’ve heard a vast majority of the songs people pick, so I have a fair idea of what to play. So as long as I keep up, it’s fine, even if I don’t know the exact breaks and fills.

Why do we do it? For the love of the music. We have no audience except ourselves (though I did take my sons in once). We don't get paid. Instead, we pay to play. Some of us drive pretty long distances to be there. Some of us take time away from our families. For me, it’s therapy. Pure and simple. This is an escape like no other at the end of a hard day at work. Indeed, escape from all the other crap in life. For two-and-a-half hours, all I have to do is play and have as much fun as I can. I must be doing a pretty damned good job of it, because now Andrew has started calling me in for sessions that I didn’t ask for. If I’m free, I go and play and sing my ass off.

No one judges you. No one directs you. You play to the best of your ability. Participate as much as you can. At the end of the session, you shake hands and leave. Till you come back the next time.

And then it’s a whole new rock and roll experience all over again.

A Tale of Two Ts

2006-01-17T11:42:00.000-05:00

S, who I went to school with, and his wife, T1, decided to call it a day in Bombay and move here to Toronto. Unlike most families that move, S stays behind to wind up and sends wifey dear ahead alone, with instructions for me to do whatever I have to help her settle in. You know… park her in my apartment till we find her one, then go out and buy everything she needs to get it ready before the family arrives, health card, driver’s license, etc., etc., etc. All the good stuff that new immigrants have to do. So, T1 flew in. I picked her up at the airport, brought her home, and from the next day on, we started on the great immigrant settlement process.

One of the first things we did was to go get her a bank account. Bank manager asks T1 her name, punches it into the computer, and a puzzled look crosses her face. She says, “Oh, I see you already have accounts with us.” T1 says, no way. I only got into the country yesterday. “Well, well,” says the bank manager, “what a coincidence. You have someone with the exact same name in the city.”

Now, T1 has an uncommon name. That there are two with the same name in the city is intriguing.

Anyway, we forgot about that after a few days of hectic apartment hunting and other such strenuous activities. Perhaps about a week or 10 days later, my Hotmail account blew up for some reason and I lost my address book. Now, I don’t communicate with that many people via Hotmail. I pretty much remember all five or six in my contact list. So I added everyone back manually and let MSN Messenger send out the standard email, saying OJ has added you to his contact list.

And I get an email from ‘T1’ saying, who the hell are you? What do you mean, who the hell am I, I fire back, it’s me… OJ. She writes saying, I still don’t know who you are. Ah, I say to myself, she wants to play email games. So back and forth we went. More than half a dozen times, I’d say. Each time, she’d reply swearing she doesn’t know who I am. But always polite.

So one evening, when T1 and I were driving somewhere, I said to her, “Okay, have you had enough fun with the emails?”

“What emails?” she asks.

“You know, the ones where you’re refusing to recognize me.”

“I have no idea," says T1, "what you’re talking about.”

“Are you serious?” I ask. Absolutely, she replies. And she is.

And then it dawns on me… oh crap, it must be the other woman with the same name in the city!

So I go home and write an apologetic email to her, who we shall refer to as T2, saying sorry, this was a case of mistaken identity. And she replies saying, hey, no problem. Wow! So I wrote saying since she’s being so nice about this, the full story may give her a bit of a kick. And I explained what had happened. T2 is amazed that there’s another woman in the city with her name. I wrote, wouldn’t it be a blast if the two of you met? And so and so forth, we traded emails. And then one evening, I get a long email from her, with a bunch of questions about me.

At which point I said, this is too much for me to type. Here’s my phone number, call me, and I’ll answer all the questions. And she did. We had a long chat.

A couple of days later, I was in the neighbourhood where she works, and she took a break to come say hello. An attractive young woman. Very friendly. Very Bengali (which she is), but being born and raised here, also very Torontonian. And, a bit disturbing to me, trusting enough to come out and meet a stranger she ran into on the Net. But, I felt completely at ease with her right from the get go. We chatted briefly standing there on the sidewalk and agreed to meet some evening after work.

T1, meanwhile, is in tizzy that I actually made contact with her namesake. The story of how I met T2 was making the rounds at Joe’s, our local watering hole. Our common friend SR would tell anyone who'd stop to listen the story of how OJ met the two Ts. Soon, people were beginning to ask me, so, when do we get to meet this T2?

Finally, I did get them together. We went out one night to a rock club downtown and drank and partied till late into the night… the two Ts and I. T2 also came over to Joe’s for dinner another evening and met some of my friends there. Just before Christmas, the manager, who I'm friendly with, and who was quite taken up with her, asked me to bring her along to the restaurant's customer appreciation holiday lunch. Which she came for and we had a great time… not the least because of all the free food and booze.

So… T2 and I are now good friends. And T1 takes credit for bringing us together. Which, of course, is true.

And for me… one T was great. Two Ts? Even better.

The Bug

2006-01-05T16:42:00.001-05:00

I have no idea when it bit me.

Perhaps it was the very first time I heard Led Zeppelin IV. A lifetime ago in Shillong, as a wide-eyed 14-year-old, I sat in my classmate Imran Haque’s living room one afternoon after school as he blasted Rock & Roll on his father's expensive stereo, shaking the very foundations of his wood-framed home. Or listening to Bob Marley’s Kaya for the first time at Bobby Marbaniang’s place. (Bobby went on to play blues harp in Mojo, a legendary band from that town and later in life, strangely enough, a ministership in the state government!)

Or maybe it was a dozen years later in Bombay, singing the last song with my band, The Crosswinds, at the St. Xavier’s College quadrangle just after we announced our parting of ways.

Or even later still, in a dingy little studio somewhere in Colaba, in south Bombay, as I incredulously watched a little Apple Macintosh computer faithfully play back note for note what my friend and teacher Ramu Narayan had just played on his Casio CZ5000 keyboard… mistakes and all.

Somewhere between the rock and the technology, I was bitten. Hard.

I was going to be a musician... a published musician. I was going to write and produce my own songs.

I could sing. I could write. I could drum and play a bit of guitar. Had no idea about keyboards. Oh… and I had no money to buy equipment. But those were piddling details that weren’t going to stop me.

I had watched Ramu long enough to know that if you held three notes down together on a keyboard, it made a chord. Throw a string of those combinations together, and you have a song structure. Write lyrics. Mix well with drums, bass and other assorted sounds and viola… you have song, no?

Well… not really.

******

In 1990, I got myself a 286 IBM clone cobbled together in a dingy little first-floor store on Lamington Road for the princely sum of Rs.27,000. Borrowed. Meanwhile, Ramu bought a Yamaha FB-01 synthesizer module (promptly renamed Frodo Baggins) and Cakewalk sequencing software (version 1!) for me in the U.S. With duties, another Rs.15,000 or so. Also borrowed. For inputting, Ramu lent me his trusty old CZ, since he had gone out and got himself a whiz bang VZ1. He was making gobs of money doing ad jingles. Once in a while, he’d throw a vocal gig for a jingle my way.

We lived down the street from each other at Lokhandwala Complex in Bombay. So every few days, invited or not, I landed up at his place and watched him put music together. Looking back, I must have been a royal pain in the butt. Blind to his possible discomfort, I kept knocking on his door. And he kept letting me in. I learnt a shitload. About melodies and layering and fillers and breaks. And the technical side of sequencing. About MIDI hookups. Got to the point where I could set up Ramu’s rig - comprising his Apple SE 30, his VZ1 keyboard and three synth units, including an amazing state-of-the-art Proteus - in about six minutes flat. Blindfolded.

But I still couldn’t play the keyboard.

*****

Back in my own apartment, I slowly put to use whatever I learnt from Ramu. I started writing and sequencing. Already the seeds for a song had been planted in my mind by the story of a friend’s sister-in-law, a deaf and mute lady who had been burnt to death for inadequate dowry. The lyrics for that one poured out in one angry rush.

And yet the song itself took me about six months to get to the point where I felt it was complete. I knew what it should sound like. But not having the knowledge base, I was having a hard time achieving that sound. I was learning through trial and error. On a good day, I got a whole section done. On others, I spent the entire night tweaking two notes. Only to erase in the morning what I had done the night before. It was frustrating as hell. The same notes… over and over and over again. The same verse, looped, playing relentlessly as we ate dinner, Chandana my wife (at the time) and I. Me listening intently for that one note I was missing… that one elusive note that would complete the sound. Chandana, getting increasingly glassy-eyed, trying desperately to tune the song out. In the end, I had the song called Brides, which became the title track on my album called Brides and Bandits, released by HMV in 1994.

A lot more happened to Brides along the way. I played the demo to bass guru Storms. Right off the bat he said he would play on it. So did guitar god Derek Julien. And then there was Chandana’s Hindustani classical vocal bit at the beginning and end of the song.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

*****

After I got Brides up to a demo’able state, it got a little easier. Braced by the knowledge that I could do it, I started writing more and more. Some nights I’d start after dinner and go straight through till six or seven in the morning, even though I had to get to my day job as copy editor in Business India magazine. I finished at least one song on the album, Light and Shade, in a single sitting like that. From raw idea to finished song, complete with lyrics and backing track. And there were others, like Bandits, which took longer. I had the lyrics, but was struggling with the backing track. Finally, in frustration, I played the unfinished track to Derek in the studio one evening. The following Sunday, he came over in the afternoon with his sequencing gear – he uses a guitar for inputting, which I found intriguing – and we finished the song before we went to sleep that night. It was late and, yes, we were drunk by then. But the song was complete. Derek’s input in that song is still one of my favourite parts of the album.

*****

In the meanwhile, I was knocking on doors to get the album released. There were only three choices – HMV, BMG and the upstart Crescendo (yes, the latter two companies were separate in those days). The working stiff at BMG called me in for a “meeting”. Stuck my demo into a dinky little Philips tape machine on his desk and then kept taking phone calls. And then said, thanks for coming in… we’ll be in touch... and, yeah, take the tape with you. Seems a pity to waste a perfectly good tape, he added.

Nice.

Crescendo’s Suresh Thomas was more sincere. But he couldn’t find a marketing handle on socially conscious rock. Finally I met V.T. Ravi at HMV. He said it was going to be a tough sell, but if I could get the moolah together, he’d release the album. HMV would chip in some, but nowhere near the Rs. 220,000 I could see the whole thing costing, with at least one video. But, it was a start.

MTV Asia was warming up nicely to non-Western videos. There was completely fascinating stuff emerging from around Asia and elsewhere. I distinctly remember Artistes RAP from Malaysia. Beautiful video, fantastic music. And Ofra Haza from Israel, singing in Hebrew. Hard rockers Tang Dynasty, from China. And our dear buddies Rock Machine already had Rock And Roll Renegade on air by then. It was a heady time. A time full of promise.

Slowly the quest solidified in two directions; one, find money, and two, find someone to make the video. My phone book quickly filled up with some pretty big names. Leads I got from my colleagues at Business India. Names including Prahlad Kakkar and Alyque Padamsee. Ratan Tata and Amitabh Bachchan. With both of whom, I spoke on the phone a number of times. Tata, especially, was always gracious… even replying to a letter I dared sneak in to him while he was at a meeting at the Oberoi. He took my calls when I dared to call him at home! The beautiful Tanya Godrej… always gracious too. My break came when adman Ajit Balakrishnan said he would put up Rs.50,000 if I could get two other sponsors for similar amounts. That promise was good enough for my boss Ashok Advani, publisher of Business India, who came on board with two free advertising pages in Business India publications that I could “sell”. Tata and Godrej immeidately aggred to take a page each and signed on with sponsorships totalling Rs.100,000. Balakrishnan, true his word, then signed on the dotted line for his Rs.50,000.

Still short, but good enough to start.

*****

Meanwhile, I was talking to Prahlad Kakkar and another filmmaker from New Delhi for the video of Brides. Prahlad was too busy. He worked out of a busy and cramped little office in Mahalaxmi. I spent hours sitting on the steps outside his office, waiting to have a word with him. The filmmaker from New Delhi was throwing one ultra artsy idea after another at me. I was getting nowhere in terms of the video.

That’s when I ran into Ray C, a director and anchor of The India Show produced by TV18 (now better known for its NBC tie-up). At the time, TV18 was working in partnership with Business India TV. Ray C threw heart and soul into Brides, ever since I played the song to him on someone’s car stereo one night during a chance meeting in Bangalore late in 1992. If there was a third person besides Chandana and I who truly felt what we were trying to achieve with that song, it was Ray C. He quickly roped TV18 management into the project. The storyboard he drew up knocked me off my feet. Eerily close to what I was seeing in my mind but had been unable to express, it was damned near perfect. I don’t think I had one change to suggest.

*****

Still short on cash, we toiled away in the studio through the rest of the songs. Days of amazing grace, intense pressures and stress beyond belief. Grace from the music… of seeing it come alive…watching Derek, Storms, Carl Clements, Dwight and Chandana bring my ideas to life in the studio. Listening intently to the sequenced parts I played to them, and then going in and interpreting their parts in their own styles. Each bringing in a flavour I never imagined. Sometimes it all threatened to unravel and fly away into the disparate parts… but we always managed to pull it back together.

Another bit of magic happened when Derek got his new Kramer guitar from Canada (with money he had earned so far from the album’s recordings as sessions guitarist and recording engineer). The morning after he picked it up from customs, we went in to record the guitar parts for Light and Shade. Strings up and plugs in his new baby, and plays through the solo in almost a single take. I seem to remember he was unhappy with the ending and had a few stabs at it, but most of the solo that appears on the song is that first, brilliant burst off his brand spanking new, deep blue Kramer.

And then there was the late night On the Sidewalk/Shanta Kaaram session. Chandana was seven months pregnant, tired and having difficulty with the breath control demanded by classical singing. Derek was the recording engineer on the session. Chandana went into the booth and improvised the part. After her take, silence in the studio… everyone sat back stunned by what she had just sung. Pure magic. One take. I said something about trying another one. Derek says, no way. And there it is, as it was on the first take. And, some months later, one night in my living room, that part brought a certain heavy metal rocker to tears after he heard the song for the first time.

*****

The stress was all money-related. Money was not coming in as fast as it was going out. Everybody had to be paid and not all the sponsors paid up together. So it was a struggle. It got so bad once that the studio owner called my office and threatened to speak to Ashok Advani. Despite my efforts to keep things quiet, he heard about it and called me into his office late in the evening to find out what was going on. After I explained, he called his brother Kumar at home and asked him to send Rs.18,000 over to the office. Then he had someone drive me over to the studio owner’s home (it was past 10 p.m.) to hand over the cash so she would stop harassing me.

Today, when I read all the bad press about Ashok Advani, it saddens me. I, for one, see him a very different light.

And then there was the mysterious Navneet Kathuria, a 30-something-year-old New Yorker who was visiting India for the first time after his parents took him to the U.S. at age seven or so. He started talking to me on a local train one afternoon. A few days later, he came by to see me at Business India because he wanted to see an Indian magazine office. A few days later still, we met for drinks during a break in recording and one thing leads to another, and he landed up in the studio. We played him some of the music that was getting close to final mixdowns. And then the phone rings and I spend the next 20 minutes fending off the irate studio owner for late payments. So Navneet asks me about how we were financing the album. Though sponsorships, I say. "Could individuals be sponsors?" he asks. Normally, it would be companies, I say. "There is no law against it, is there?" Navneet asks. "Can I put up some money?" Chandana and I think about it for about 2 seconds and say, yes! Navneet pledged the equivalent of Rs.50,000 right there on the spot!

What did he want out of it? Nothing, apparently. Not till date, and it’s been about 10 years now.

Like they say, good things do happen.

That took my total sponsorships to Rs.200,000. HMV came in with the rest to meet my original budget of Rs.220,000. (But like all things, by the time it was all over, we were over budget by almost Rs.50,000. But that’s another story.)

*****

Somewhere in this heady mix were the Bombay riots.

Driving through streets with burnt and gutted taxicabs sitting on the sides. Smashed shop windows. Debris from rioting mobs… rocks, metal pipes, torn clothing and rubber bathroom slippers. Blood smears on foot paths and walls.

Not having a car of our own, and with all the gear we had to transport back and forth between Seven Bungalows (where we lived) and Fort (where the studio was located), we used cabs. The cab drivers were all Muslim, and we’re Hindus, but they drove us there and back without any questions or hesitation if we insisted on risking life and limb… AND the expensive equipment. Sometimes, if they picked up any buzz on the streets about something brewing, they’d come by our apartment to tell us about it. If it sounded bad enough, we took their advice to stay indoors. It was better to pay the studio a penalty for missing the booking.

*****

The day came when the last track was mixed down. The video shoot for Brides was done. The video tape was in Hong Kong with Channel V and MTV. The DAT tape was with HMV in Calcutta. Life moved into a whirlwind of photoshoots, interviews, seeing my mug in the press every few days. Getting ready for the big launch. Very exciting stuff, but trying to keep cool through it all.

HMV threw a lavish launch party at a cool suburban club. Unbelievably, just when we thought interest would now subside, the media noise ratchetted up a few notches.

And then the waiting started… for the video to finally go on air.

Nervous to the point of feeling physically ill as I wait for Danny McGill to introduce Brides on the evening it gets aired for the first time. I’ve seen that video a hundred times during editing and yet, when it played on air that first time, I couldn’t hear the song. All I heard was a roaring in my ear. And I couldn’t really see the video, for my vision was obscured by an intense pressure in my head that was distorting everything around me. Like a high from some insane, unheard of drug. A cocktail of intense pride and limb-jellying relief. Of the joy of accomplishment and the sadness of the end.

And the end, it truly was. Except I didn’t know it at the time.

Frogs in the kitchen

2005-12-08T20:07:00.000-05:00

When I was in grade six or seven, I finally got tired of my mom opening my lunch box every day right after I got back from school and giving me grief for any remaining food. She'd pull the box out of my school bag and hold it by her ear and give it a shake. If it sounded like there was anything in the box, God help me.

So one afternoon, I went to the small stream that ran along the back wall of my school's farthest playing field. In that stream lived these little green and yellow frogs... tiny little buggers that were fully grown at about an inch from nose to bum. I caught about a dozen of them and put them in my lunch box (after dumping my lunch). All through the afternoon, I had to firstly keep them alive by keeping the lid of my lunch box open slightly, and secondly keep the class teacher from getting too curious about the little noises in my desk. My classmates were about dying from stopping themselves from bursting out laughing. But no one wanted to get caned on account of my frogs. Anyway, long story short... uneventful afternoon session in school, uneventful bus ride home (except for a very upset woman who sat by me and had to put up with the dreadful froggy smell emanating from the slightly open lunch box on my lap).

Just before I walk into the apartment, I closed and put the lunchbox in my bag. Mom opens door. Grabs school bag. Takes out lunch box, gives it a shake... eyebrows race up forehead to meet hairline. She launches into a tirade about how little value I give to the food she slaves to make for us from groceries bought with dad's hard earned money. Grumbling to herself she takes the lunch box to kitchen sink and...

...we never found all the frogs.

Rocking in Pune

2005-11-23T11:55:00.000-05:00

As a rock musician in the early 1980s, I travelled a bit from Bombay (still can’t get used to Mumbai) to different cities in India to perform with my band, The Crosswinds. We were successful by Indian rock standards of the day. Which was maybe a concert every other month. Money was always tight. But it didn’t matter. And out of town gigs were a major treat. The members of the band were Sanjay Divecha (guitar, vocals), Ehsaan Noorani (guitar), Jayu Menon (bass), Mark Menezes (drums), Nakul Kamte (blues harp) and Mujeeb Dadarkar (keyboards). I sang.

We made a few concert trips to Pune (pronounced poo-nhay). But one trip in the summer of 1983 in particular has stayed fresh in my mind. Almost frame by frame...

Catching the Deccan Queen early in the morning at VT. Sneaking our guitar cases into the coach so as not to have to book them as luggage and risk damage. Our fellow travellers are curious about us. Middle-aged gentleman learns for the first time that someone who plays guitars is a “guitarist”. Which prompts him to ask Mark if he is the “drummist”. And does Jayu have a “piana” in his bass guitar case?

Getting to Pune in the glaring mid-day heat. Piling into someone’s old Fiat. We don’t care. We’re grateful someone has bothered to come receive us at the station.

Driving to the venue. A smallish hall that has a stage at one end but with floor markings for badminton or some such indoor game. Rigging up. Checking sound. A girl who has had a little too much to drink (even that early in the day) fiddling with the mixing console every time the sound engineer looks the other way. Can’t kick her out. She is the girlfriend of someone important. Beautiful, as I remember her, but way out of control.

Before the show, going to change in the house where we were staying that night. Greeted at the door by the same someone important (who had left ahead of us). But now he has a gash on his forehead. Blood streaming down one side of his face. The beautiful, out-of-control girlfriend had thrown a heavy crystal ashtray at him. Face bloodied. Pricey ashtray shattered. Host annoyed. (By way of who’s who, suffice it to say that Bloody Face is the actor son of a famous actress of yore.)

And then going upstairs to find a burning mattress in one of the bedrooms. Someone (probably Bloody Face’s girlfriend, walking disaster zone that she is) had left a lit cigarette on an ashtray on the bed. Narrowly avert fire. Someone is humming the opening riff of Smoke on the Water…

Later... a great concert. For the audience. For us. The sound is exceptional. Better than we have to deal with most times. We’re rocking cool and confident. We’re tearing through our list of covers... Clapton, Skynnard, Point 38 Special, Charlie Daniels, even Men at Work.

Throwing in the odd original. One, called Synapse, goes down big. Like it always does. The choppy, syncopated intro brings on a roar of approval from the audience. Sanjay and Ehsaan’s twin-guitar harmonic riff snarls and writhes through Jayu and Mark’s chugging rhythm section. This song normally strains my vocals. But tonight... tonight the mojo is on me. I’m hitting the range clear and strong. Through the smoke and coloured strobes, I see some maroon-clad, bead-laden Rajneeshites doing their “joyous dance” thing off to one side in front of the stage.

At the intermission, someone lugs a case of port wine onstage. He owns a daru ka dookan.

Lay Down Sally... we open the second set. Sanjay’s singing lead. I’m backing. Someone passes a bottle of the port to me. I take a swig. Sweet, heavy Goan stuff. Pass it to Nakul. He takes a swig. Walks to the edge of the stage and hands the bottle to someone in the crowd. Next bottle... swig... swig... pass into crowd. Third bottle... again. Cops are getting edgy. The case is almost gone. (Try that today?!)

We finish the regular set. The 300-400 strong standing room only crowd won’t leave. For an encore, we rip into a hard rocking version of Cliff Richard’s Devil Woman. Don’t remember whose idea it was to even rehearse a song that had been a hit many, many moons before any one of us ever touched a guitar. But it rocks the house. The front of the stage looks like a mosh pit. Shirtless thrashers have replaced the joyous dancers.

Cops quite nasty by now. They’re pushing people around. It’s 11.30 P.M. Senior cop strides on stage and pulls the plug.

Later... sitting on the edge of the stage. Knocking back a cold beer someone handed me. A misty-eyed, forty-something Irani guy comes over and grabs me by the hand and says, “Aaj aap logon ney hummey bahut khush kar diya (you guys made us very happy today). Didn’t think I’d hear Devil Woman ever played live again.” Makes my day. We’d sure made his.

Wearily pack gear. Get driven back to our host’s house. It’s late, but the McDowells whiskey is flowing. The air is heavy with aromatic smoke. An impromptu jam starts. The weariness disappears. Someone breaks out a bag of ’shrooms. People drift in and out. Some Pune musicians come by and join in. Surprised the cops haven’t been by to tell us to pack it in.

4 A.M. Sitting outside on the lawn. Very peaceful. Senses heightened to where dust motes shimmer like stars under the hazy streetlights.

Find my way back to my room. Someone has turned the sheets back on the bed for me. Drift into sleep... feel like a rock star.

(Note: the photos in this Blog are from an earlier concert in Bandra, Bombay. These are the only photos I have of the band. Courtesy Ehsaan. In the top picture, Jayu's on my left and Ehsaan's on the right (partly obscured). In the bottom picture, Jayu, Ehsaan and Mark, left to right.)

Shillong - as I knew it

2005-11-23T11:24:00.005-05:00

My memories of Shillong are so strong that sometimes I can recall the scent of pine in the autumn air. I can remember slip sliding uncontrollably down beds of dry pine needles covering sun-drenched hillsides in the pre-winter afternoon chill. I can remember the distinct taste of Chinese noodles, Shillong-style. Sitting on the grassy hillock at Ward’s Lake and reading Maxim Gorky’s Mother or even some JT Edson or Zane Gray western novel. Dr. Bezbaruah’s clinic at Don Bosco Square. His dhoti-clad ‘compounder’.

Photo: Tridwip Das

Ever so often, getting the snot kicked out of me by kids from Don Bosco, for no reason other than the fact that I was an Edmundian. (And exacting sweet, slightly bloody revenge later!)

When older, hanging out with my buddies, all from Edmunds, around the water tank at Lachaumiere, shooting the breeze, playing the guitar, and hatching plans for snagging this girl or the other. Plans, I might add, that came to naught more often than not. But the dreams were nice while they lasted. Which was till about the point when one withering look from the Loreto girl in question dried up all the saliva that was supposed to lubricate a silken but manly, commanding yet engaging greeting. What came out instead was a dry, unintelligible croak that elicited derisive laughter from the maiden and her friends, rather than making her swoon into my arms. Slinking back to the water tank for more planning, but not before some barefaced lying so as not to lose face in the gang.

I remember being woken up late one foggy winter night by the sound of someone singing Leo Sayer’s I Am Sailing outside my window; I peeped through the curtains to see a ghostly figure leaning against the street lamp across the road from our front gate, guitar slung around him, singing mournfully into the night. Or was that a dream?

Kissing a girl for the first time by a darkened gateway in Nongrim Hills. She was only 12, and I, 14. Taking her to see the rabbits at Lady Hydri Park and catching hell from her mother later.

And memories from even further back. My family was well established in the Assamese crowd in Bishnupur. My grandfather was instrumental in establishing the Shankar Dev College. He also built the Deva Kumar Memorial Hall within the complex (named after my uncle, who died young). Besides the college and hall, the complex included a naam ghor that stood on the top of the hillock. Some of my earliest memories are of Assamese women, including my mother, grandmother and assorted aunts, in crisp white mekhela sadors, walking across in fluttering groups to the naam ghor on Sunday mornings, as the kongs and mamas drove to church in their souped up jeeps, all in their Sunday best; Khasi and Nepalese kids with perpetually runny noses and cheeks reddened by the wind and their strenuous games; us, a tiny bit wary of their boisterous ways; fog clearing the tops of the pines in the weak sunlight breaking through the branches; the priests in the temple; the smell of dhoop and fresh cut fruit mingling with the smoke from the oil lamps; the kongs selling sharp, tangy little berries from their woven bamboo baskets; the comforting smell of kwai and wood smoke baked into the warm tartan shawls the kongs used to strap me onto their backs when I was much younger…

I bring all this up because of a photo of me taken in 1966 that my younger son cajoled my parents into giving him during a recent trip he made to Assam (a trip I couldn't make with him). In the picture, I am four years old. I am in my Loreto uniform (yes, in those days, the nuns took in boys till Class 2), sitting on a little chair set on the front lawn of Sumeru, our family home in Kench’s Trace, holding my baby sister on my lap. That photo too, now slightly yellowed with age, triggered many memories.

My last visit to Shillong was in 1988 (I’m from the 1977 ICSE batch). I was newly married. Sad to say, I was very taken aback at the manner in which the town was developing. Worse, Sumeru had burnt down to the ground a few years earlier in an electrical accident. I guess a part of my deep connection with Shillong died in that fire. The family decided to let go of the land and was in the process of selling it. The fruit trees grandfather had planted and lovingly raised in his hillside orchard were dying. All around, the pine trees were gone; cheap houses were sprouting on the hillsides like flimsy matchboxes on stilts. Barren earth showed everywhere, crisscrossed with open sewers. Deva Kumar Hall was in disrepair. My uncle’s life-size portrait hung askew on the wall by the stage, moth-eaten, discoloured and dusty. Saddest of all to see was the state of the piano, which stood forlorn in the green room, tilted over to one side on a broken leg, keys fallen out like so many teeth from an old kwai-chewing crone’s mouth. Traffic jams; chaotic, uncontrolled growth showcased by tasteless architecture and garishly decaled cars; people obsessed with money; corruption; and a simmering, barely disguised disdain for dkhars (outsiders).

All my friends had moved away. Just like me.

And the school itself had changed. Already there were the overbearing concrete structures surrounding the stately old Tudor building. I met Brother Dineen during that trip. He showed me very proudly around the campus. He was so old and enthusiastic – still a great bear of a man, bent over slightly and shuffling around with the aid of a walking stick – that I didn’t have the heart to tell him what I really felt about all the concrete. Amazingly, he remembered my name. He passed away the following year, I believe it was, and another link between Shillong and me was broken.

I never went back, preferring to preserve my memories of Shillong the way they were.

But I will not deny it… I am again curious to know how Shillong is today. The old school. The old neighbourhoods. I yearn to be left free to roam the town and school grounds again, if only for a few hours.