However, if you are still with me so far, good for you.

My ipod seems to be clarivoyant, so far as being able to play stuff relative to my moods is concerned. Just the other day, for some reasons that I don’t wish to elaborate on, I was a little down in the dumps, and was feeling a tad low.

The Bangalore weather, which was pleasantly cold and beautiful somehow had taken a sudden turn for the worse, and it was raining in an unpleasant fashion – one isn’t really coditioned to get wet during December, and warm woolen clothes worn to beat the heat just seemed to add to my misery by getting soaked and literally being burdensome.

As I was trudging wearily towards the parking lot after work, being pelted by the lousy rain, I just decided to put my ipod on shuffle mode to see what it would throw up.

Imagine to my pleasant surprise when the familiar strains of “I am a Rock” by S&G began playing through my ear plugs right away. I love that song, and in moments when it seems like I am in the fell clutch of circumstance, it acts as a potent remedy which tells me how its alright to be in my shoes, without having to really give a shit about things that inspire negativity within.

“A winter’s day in a deep and dark December” is how the song begins, and I couldn’t help but think that it was as apt as it could get.

Building walls, fortresses deep and mighty, being sheilded in my armour where I am safely ensconed in a cocoon, at that precise few moments, I truly felt like a rock, an island.

Now being the Bangalore Correspondent for one of the country’s most famous music magazines does have its plus points, the main one being the fact that flashing a press card can do wonders in situations where the Common Man has to pay cash to gain access into. Dorky has heard that it can even work with traffic cops and the like, but he hasn’t yet ventured out to make use of that opportunity and prays that he never will have to be in a sticky situation which will warrant that.

One such situation where Dorky used the power of the fourth estate to the max was when he had to go for the Scorpions concert that was held on Sunday 16th December 2007 at the Palace Grounds in Bangalore.

At the outset, print / television media is allowed two representatives into a concert of this type unless they are exclusive media partners, in which case they can even walk on stage when the artists are performing, lift up drum kit equipment to look for missing plectrums and nobody would have the authority to question them.

Dorky’s magazine wasn’t a media partner for this event, and as a consequence, he had to endure janta journalist treatment, which translated into a free entry into the expensive section with no access backstage or no opportunity to meet the Scorpions. Nevertheless, he was glad for the opportunity to write about the gig, while also exhibiting some class A level Kiasu, something he has been an expert at practising for quite some time now.

That trait incidentally is something that exists in the memetic make up of his entire country and as a consequence, he was an adept practitioner of the same.

He was accompanied by a friend who also wanted to put Kiasu level entry into the concert, and as a result had even brought a 7 MP digicam to masquerade as the photographer. However, Dorky had decided in a fit of selfishness that it would be he who would go into the Press Pit (which is the space between the crowd and the playing area), while his friend had to make himself happy with a bitti (free) entry.

Entering the concert venue with his friend (who had been nice enough to bring a car), Dorky proceeded to flash the press card around gleefully, almost as if he were a proud member of the FBI who had come to a crime scene investigation and was required to be given all access. His friend was amazed at the power of the press as Dorky managed to get his friend a parking place in the backstage space, reserved for VIPs and for the guests who had paid 7.5K to sit in the lounge.

Striding purposefully towards the media desk, much to the envy of the huge line of people standing both in line to get tickets as well as in line to get entry into the venue, Dorky managed to get two tags which said “MEDIA”, though he’d have preferred something that said “AAA” (Access All Areas).

After bumping into an entire motley crew of people that formed present and former friends and acquaintances, some of them rabid Nazi-loving ganja-smoking acid-popping fans, some rabid Nazi-loving ganja smoking acid popping non-fans, some non-rabid Nazi-loving ganja-smoking acid-popping fans and some others that subscribed subsets of the above traits and exchanging notes on life, the universe and everything within as much time as it took to shake hands and mumble perfunctory greetings, he then proceeded to cut the queue as the plebians watched with envy. Dorky and his friend even escaped the frisking that one is subject to while entering a concert venue!

Dorky was on the lookout for some people he wanted to avoid, and he was thankful that he managed to do so without much effort on his part. It seems as though the other concerned party shared his sentiments and probably did as much if not more to avoid bumping into him, and this non-meeting was, presumably for the greater good of mankind in general and for Dorky in particular.

Once the concert began with the usual irritating ads, Dorky went into the press pit, armed with his friend’s friend’s 7 MP digicam which was tiny in comparison to the hugeass SLRs that the other professional photographers were carrying. However the thrill of being in the pit for the first ever time in his life mitigated the other feelings he felt, of being out of place among all stud photographers with a 7 MP digicam.

The previous concerts he had attended, he had come real close to the press pit, but never enough to actually be there. In 2001, the Bryan Adams concert saw Dorky splattered against the railing, with the surging crowds crushing his guts against the metal barricade. However, he was one of the sixty-odd people at the concert who had the distinction of having Bryan Adams spit on them as he sang ‘Back thooo You’. That date was more memorable for other reasons, which would be a worthy digression, but would merit being in its own post altogether, should the author feel the need to, in the distant future.

Continuing our efforts to charter Dorky’s concert experiences, he then saw Shankar Dayal Sharma give a speech in some medical college inaugural function, saw Roger Waters in the flesh, saw Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, Aerosmith and enough Indian bands in miscellaneous shows to ensure monthly visits to the ENT specialist. The fact that he loves his ipod didn’t make life easier for him either.

The Scorpions came the first time around to Bangalore during the Accoustica 2001 tour of theirs, as Dorky was pretending to study for his engineering exams while actually trying out all the clothes he had amassed in his wardrobe in sequence, and being the pedantic parsimonious person that he was back then, the exam overruled attending the concert. Dorky was thinking of how he had been given an opportunity to redeem himself as he stepped into the press pit, after being ushered in by the cop who gazed respectfully at his ‘MEDIA’ badge.

The press pit was cooler than he thought, and as he walked all across from one end of the pit to the other and back, the crowd was gazing at him in different shades of green. He managed to see the various setup sections for each of the band members, and saw how the tech guys for each member were laying their guitars in sequence.

For a substantial time, Dorky engaged in the fine art of schadenfreude, as he went about stretching his arms and yawning in the press pit while the poor sods were cramped around the front side, gasping for breath while being in a catch 22 situation. Set yourself free for arm space and lose the coveted position or stay there and be cramped like brown people attending a rock concert in Bangalore. Quite dicey if you ask me, and as someone mentioned to him later, Dorky was being an über “schadist”.

As Nietzsche once said, “humour is just schadenfreude with a clear conscience”, and Dorky went about doing with gay abandon what he had seen others do unto him and other multitudes of people that had attended concerts for times immemorial, knowing fully well that this was not part of a vicious Karmic circle, but was more like ragging in college where the baton was passed on to the next set of unfortunates, instead of being thrown back to the persons who committed the peccadilo(s) in the first place.

The opening act finished, two arbit VJs from some arbit channel walked and said something that reeked of ersatz, practised wit and then finally, with a resounding noise, the Scorpions descended on the spartan stage and began their performance for the evening.

Dorky thought to himself that there are pros and cons of being in every location, and in the press pit, even though he could see the Scorpions perform much closer-up than anyone else could afford to, the compromise was made on the sound quality which mattered more to him.

Members of the press were summarily ejected by the same PRs who were nice to them just a couple of hours ago, and Dorky left, with tears of joy streaming down his eyes (exaggeration included only for effect) at his accomplishments of having been in the pit. He rejoined the crowd and had a gala time, saying “Courteney Cox” when the crowd was screaming “We want more” as part of the encore act.

For the full fledged review on the show from a strictly musical perspective, please pick up a copy of the magazine that Dorky writes for. I guarantee you that you will not be disappointed. ]]> http://harishenoy.com/blog/2007/12/dorky-guffaw-in-the-press-pit/feed/ 1 http://harishenoy.com/blog/2007/12/ive-had-enough/ http://harishenoy.com/blog/2007/12/ive-had-enough/#comments Wed, 05 Dec 2007 20:16:00 +0000 Hari http://harishenoy.com/blog/?p=378 It is seldom that this LJ or the blog that I maintain suffers from a want of words, that would prompt me to quote from other sources and use the content to fill up a post or two and the only other instance during which I have done that was when I put up a post titled An Insomniac’s Lament.

The time to do so, seems to have dawned yet again, this time to quote a band that I keep liking more and more with each awesome song of theirs that I inadvertently manage to discover because my lovely ipod does such a wonderful job of shuffling songs.

This song is from their album Quadrophenia, and is titled “I’ve Had Enough”, some of whose pertinent lyrics are as follows:

Or so he thought.

Standing there within the compartment of a slow local train bound from Thane towards CST, he was supposed to get off the train at Dadar. The train had just slowed down to a halt at the station, and the people within the crowded train were pushing and shoving each other in order to get out while they still could, to make way for those that wanted to board the train.

“God help that poor bastard who will be the last to get off”, read the thought bubble hovering over Dorky’s head as he joined the mass of people pushing those in front for dear life, trying to disembark when it suddenly struck him that he was the last one to get out of his compartment!!!

There was nobody behind him that was pushing him and it is common knowledge that the last person to try climbing out is usually the recipient of violent blows from an agitated crowd trying to board the train, or is swept up by the crowd and not allowed to get off until the terminus station arrives.

Bracing himself for any possible eventuality, Dorky’s entire life flashed in front of his eyes in those few milliseconds as he said a little prayer, hoping to get out of this mess he was caught in, in one piece while clearly acknowledging the fact that his clothing might not be as lucky. But one hardly bothers about clothes and other such minutiae when one faces the prospect of hanging out with the Grim Reaper in the bat of a few eyelids.

It all began twenty four and a half years ago for Dorky, when he was born in Ghatkopar, a sub-urb of Mumbai and thus began his long-standing association with the city which for some people is the city of dreams, while some others choose to call it the ‘armpit of India’. To each their own.

Dorky spent his life in Mysore, but a significant presence of relatives there translated into periodic visits on multiple occasions, some joyful and celebratory while some weren’t so. Life is a series of such events, as all of you would be obviously privy to.

Dorky’s travels on local trains commenced from a young age, but living in Mysore where the population density was less than that of Mumbai by a factor of thousands meant that he wasn’t exposed to the crazy kind of crowds that a regular Mumbaikar has grown adjusted to.

At age 13, he lost a piece of footwear while boarding a fast local from CST towards Thane along with his family. This was because the local was late by about twenty minutes and it was during the rush hour. Faced with no choice and the prospect of staying back in CST (then VT), group consensus was reached by the family to get back home no matter what. His sandals, new ones at that, were separated from him in the frenzy that ensued due to crowds wanting to get onto the train.

Lamenting the loss of his footwear (for its not like a 13 year old, slightly retarded at that, would bother too much about things beyond his immediate material realm), Dorky’s apprehension at traveling on a local grew after that and though his chappals were replaced by some immediate alternative that he wasn’t too happy about, he nevertheless wasn’t able to completely erase this incident from his mind.

On another occasion, this time at age 15, when he was entrusted enough to not get lost despite progressively diminished mental faculties seeming to strongly indicate otherwise, Dorky was allowed to travel alone. In a fit of extreme stupidity that we shall assume to be naïveté, Dorky climbed into a ladies compartment that was filled with a few college going women.

Clad in a brightly coloured Tom N Jerry t-shirt (don’t even ask!!) that would’ve spelt death for Dorky had a sniper wanted to use him for target practise in a crowd of about a hundred thousand, he was subject to significant ‘Adam-teasing’ by those women travelling on the train from one stop to another, as he sheepishly attempted to explain to them how he was new here and didn’t realize his mistake until the train started moving.

With chants of ‘Tom and Jerry kids, come on down to where all the action is‘ ringing in his ears, Dorky managed to get off at the very next station and clambered into the regular second class section, but not before he was traumatized for life based on the experience he had to undergo. Well, actually it wasn’t like Dorky people ever engaged in eve-teasing, but this experience doubly reinforced his disinclination to even let that thought cross his mind.

These two incidents were what Dorky associated with local trains, and had even had the Chutzpah to brag about being ‘Adam-teased’ to the two or three people willing to put up with his drivel.

It was these precise two incidents that came to his mind as we left him standing in the local at the beginning of this narrative. Having paid a surprise visit to his relatives family at Thane on sunday morning, as part of a weekend trip to Mumbai, his uncle wanted to drop him off to the railway station.

As someone who had seen Dorky ever since he was a klutzy infant that had a perpetually big forehead due to ‘cute’ mishaps happening to him, such as tripping over flat surfaces and with hair forever standing on end due to his propensity to insert his fingers within electric sockets and throw on the switch, it was but obvious that his Uncle’s protective radar went into high alert mode and he dropped Dorky off into the compartment of the aforesaid station, after giving anyone within the train who had bothered to observe the pair of them enough indication that Dorky was not from town and hence would be easy prey to pickpockets and muggers, by repeating his instructions to retarded Dorky in triplicate.

Without any untoward incidents that happened during the course of the journey (unless you call two people being thrown out of the compartment during transit because they were talking too much as something worth mentioning), Dorky’s train came to a slow halt at Dadar, which is where he thought he’d die a horrible death.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, as the crowds started rushing out of the compartment violently, in a manner similar to how food would be thrown out of one’s stomach in case of a bad case of food poisoning – high speed high intensity puke.

When Dorky finally made his way near the door, the sight that awaited him made him almost faint, and if not for the adrenaline that kept his newly mended heart thumping within his chest, he’d have died twice over. On the platform stood a huge crowd and the number of people to enter the compartment seemed to be more than the combined attendance for the Iron Maiden concert he had been to in March this year!!!

With a wholesome touch of Quixotic foolish bravado, Dorky launched himself full force into the crowd just as he heard loud whooshes made by about 300 people clambering into the compartment per second on either side of him, and just about managed to escape with his feet on solid ground on the Dadar central platform (too many people, he wouldn’t have fallen down anyway) and brushed himself off.

He stood a little away from the train, and with a very inconspicuous gesture of gratitude towards the almighty, Dorky then plugged in his faithful companion (the ipod) into his ears and proceeded on towards another journey, thinking all along of how this fraud near-death experience would make for a reasonably entertaining blog post.

So much for his delusional assumptions. ]]> http://harishenoy.com/blog/2007/11/dorky-guffaws-local-training/feed/ 3 http://harishenoy.com/blog/2007/10/midweek-trip-to-chennai/ http://harishenoy.com/blog/2007/10/midweek-trip-to-chennai/#comments Fri, 26 Oct 2007 15:32:00 +0000 Hari http://harishenoy.com/blog/?p=363 A mid-week trip to Chennai, on 24th October 2007, wednesday was warranted in order to attend surprise birthday party for a friend, Kodhi. More on the surprise birthday party in due time, for it needs a proper build up along with some heavy duty background details, in order to do justice to the efforts put in by Kodhi’s Mum in organizing the whole thing.

The trip was planned and I managed to go with Skimpy (), who booked tickets for both the onward and the return journey and hence deserves many thanks. What follows next here is like highly personalized one-day travelogue, and is hence behind the LJ cut.

Suffering from a mild bout of insomnia, I managed to wake up early at 3-45 and get ready. Waking up that early was actually a good thing because I ended up being clean shaven for the first time in nearly three months, prior to which I would only trim my beard and have a dirty stubble.

After reaching Majestic via an early morning bus from near my house, I rendezvoused with Skimpy at the railway station and we boarded the Lalbagh Express. Having known him only through chance meetings and having followed his journal regularly, it was good fun hanging out with him and putting general conversation, though the insomnia took its toll on me and I managed to crash while listening to some Arch Enemy on my ipod (no disrespect intended to Angela Gossow).

Skimpy and I had discussed the possibility of meeting some hot womans along the journey and hanging out with them, a dream that every single male traveller has, but it seemed like the wednesday morning train journey was filled with old people who were on their way to visit their children / grandchildren / great-grandchildren or were on their way to becoming permanent exhibits in some natural history museum, for they were so ancient.

After an uneventful but fun journey, we got off the train, with seven hours to kill until the surprise party. I had previously suggested having lunch at some standard South Indian joint which Skimpy had readily agreed to, but subsequently, I changed my mind and asked him if he was particular about any place he wanted to eat food at.

He’d had recommendations to this Thai restaurant named Benjarong on TTK Road in Chennai, and after boarding a pre-paid autorickshaw there, we proceeded to have a brilliant lunch.

The restaurant was very classy, and took good care of its clients, and we went there bang in the middle of the week as a result of which getting seats was easy. After I washed up in the ladies loo (by pure accident, for it looked neat and was behind the same big door as the gents loo), food was ordered.

This Thai restaurant had the standard menu, and with recommendations put in appropriately by the waiters, we managed to have a fulfilling hearty meal comprising of soup, some cutlet starter, some Thai Red Curry derivative with white rice and some on the house starter snacks. The snack comprised of Spinach leaves into which we had to roll in ginger, peanuts, some red chillies, some jaggery paste, grated dry coconut pieces and top it by squeezing a piece of lemon. Putting the whole thing into one’s mouth and chomping on it was absolute delight.

Had there been more leaves on the plate, we’d have had a full meal out of it. The food was well made, served nicely and the music was just at the right volume, so that it was noticeable when needed, and relegated to the background if chosen to be ignored.

Skimpy made the observation that the place seemed like one where they would have one table filled by one party for lunch and two for dinner, and it was only during weekends or holidays that they’d hurry their guests up to ensure that those in waiting were serviced as well, for the number of parties per table would go up.

A neat, evenly paced meal, satisfying in all aspects, resulted in a bill of INR 540 with tips – decent enough and good value for money, if you ask me.

Once the meal was dispensed with, we still had approximately four an a half hours to kill, and being self-confessed bibliophiles, we figured the best place to do that was at a bookstore. Kodhi’s Mum, whom we had called earlier to ask if we could help out in anything before the party had told us about a book-sale at Odyssey and we proceeded there, after chomping on some quality ice creams.

An over-rated Odyssey booksale and some more arbit time killing exercises later, which included staying within air conditioned spaces to beat the unforgiving Chennai heat, and generally waiting for the designated hour, we made it to Harrison Hotel, which we were hoping was called Harrison Motel so we could spooner it to Morrison Hotel, armed with our backpacks, two open umbrellas and a birthday cake.

Chennai seems to suffer from a lack of cute women, and both of us were glad that we were in Bangalore, where even if the cute ones were taken, we could still look at them and admire them, but from afar and be happy at having seen someone so pretty.

A well received surprise party later, Skimpy and I returned on the last Volvo bus from Chennai to Bangalore, but not before doing some reconnaissance mission around the bus-stand and generally abusing the TN state transport buses, which we agreed we wouldn’t climb into, even if our life depended on it.

This was the first time ever I attended a surprise party, and now that is one more things I can strike out on the list of life-experiences that I have had. Like I said before, the actual details about the surprise shall be put forth soon. Do visit Benjarong on TTK road if you can, for some mind-blowing Thai food.

Dorky has had a new means of transport, a bike, that his Ameyzing friend couldn’t fit into the cargo baggage on his study-cum-recreation-by-watching-every-possible-artist-perform-live two year stint in some place named Buffalo (where, the most abundant type of four-legged creature, incidentally, are people who are bent over, doggy-style), and hence had to leave it at the airport for Dorky to take back home, after it almost made the conveyor belt break under its weight.

Last heard, he was upgraded from economy, and flew business class for some inexplicable reason. Dorky likes to believe it was good Karma.

Anyway, the bike needed a little servicing, and once it was taken care of at the service center, Dorky set about traveling all across the city on it, although never for arbit reasons as he might once have. After a thorough wash, and some cleaning, and a few new things to spruce it up, the bike was back in the condition that it was supposed to have been in.

The people that inhabit the city that Dorky lives in know for a fact that most of the time spent on the road is invariably spent at traffic signals. Traffic signals and the inevitable delays associated with waiting at them have now become a way of life, such that most highly ingenious people have resorted to utilizing this time for more fruitful purposes.

Portable potties on the side of the road help people take a dump, while washbasins are kept in place for people to brush their teeths (sic). If the wait time at traffic signals goes up further, portable showerheads and shower curtains will also not be too far off for the bustling signal-sidewalk trade.

Some people end up buying their vegetables in the evening while on their ride back home, while students, specially those majoring in electronics and communication at VTU, have, according to unconfirmed and somewhat authentic reports, managed to study the entire syllabus for some subjects while on their way to the exam in college.

Love stories now happen at traffic signals, as lovers of opposite sexes and sometimes, non-opposite sexes (21st Century India is coming out of the closet) , faces hidden in their helmets or behind tinted glasses of neighbouring cars engage in an intimate and intricate courtship ritual that is the stuff that the next Bollywood fop film will derive inspiration from.

Dorky himself was witness to a plethora of such phenomena, and was slowly inured to it, with the passage of time. However, something happened the other day, that brought about an interesting twist to the whole commuting phenomenon.

Dorky was traveling on the bike towards a secret unspecified destination, that he himself had no idea about, while listening to some Arch Enemy (a band he’d recently started listening to) on his ipod. The helmet that his friend had purchased was one size too big, which was perfect for Dorky, as he could listen to music while on the move, albeit at a low volume so as not to prevent him from hearing the traffic. The intense decibel level didn’t really warrant a volume reduction, just for the record.

Dorky was trying to headbang with a big helmet on his head, and looked strikingly like a spaceman with epileptic seizure trying to ride a bike, but since he was unaware of how he looked, ignorance being bliss, he continued his appreciation for the music, unabated. He spotted a traffic signal ahead, well, he actually spotted a whole bunch of vehicles ahead of him on the road, and guessed correctly that a traffic signal lay about 200 metres further ahead, which toughly translated to ten minutes of wait time for him.

He slipped the bike into neutral, switched off the engine and folding his arms, kept listening to music, while intently staring ahead, his mind blank for everything except the music playing in his ears.

His musical appreciation reverie was suddenly disturbed by a loud screech of the kind that you can see right below.

Yup, that kind. Noisy and irritating.

He turned around and saw a dude, in a black leather jacket, on his super bike, matching Dorky’s (hopefully)menacing stare, eyeballs to eyeballs, through the visors of their respective helmets.

Dorky noticed that the dude, who we shall call Mike (simply because it rhymes with bike), had skidded and come to a halt dangerously close to his bike, and gave him a look, that motorists all over the world know and acknowledge as the “don’t fuck with the silencer of my Gaadi by coming too close” look, to which Mike took extreme umbrage.

The high noise levels of the vehicles surrounding them on a busy road then prompted the two of them to engage in conversation through a mode that transcended beyond the usage of mere words for communication. They just needed the language of glares, stares and hand gestures to put their respective points across.

However, since words need to be employed in this blog post to put forth the actual gist of the exchange, it nevertheless warrants a translation of the various messages traded across amongst Dorky and Mike, which are as follows:

Dorky – Don’t stand, don’t stand so close to me.
(which sounds so much like a Police song)
Mike – I’ll stand wherever I want to, balls to you, you skinny runt!
Dorky – Oh yeah? Wait and see, I will beat you to pulp.
Mike – Watch me beat YOU to pulp.
(It is then that Dorky proceeds to take out his Rubik’s cube and solves it within 15 seconds. What Mike is unaware of is that Dorky had solved it earlier and had just rearranged it into another pattern by twisting each surface by two turns, to make it into an alternating criss-cross-cube-colour-combo.)
Dorky – Let’s see YOU do that, spazzo!
(Mike then proceeds to call up his girlfriend, and gives her a telephonic orgasm in 10 seconds. Dorky has no way of knowing whether it was faked or stage-managed)
This whole battle continued as the people about them went around taking showers, taking a dump, solving Sudoku puzzles and cryptic crosswords, engaging in courtship rituals and the like, and ‘both these two’ guys hadn’t bothered with their morning ablutions still, because of this particular clash.

They finally decided to settle it like grown men usually do, by having a bike race, with the one who won being the champion (of what exactly, nobody knows till date, and nobody cares either. It is plain human tendency to try and prove you’re better than others, even in inane contests like being stupid, for instance).

The traffic signal countdown showed 60 seconds till the green light. Dorky put the side stand of his bike, got down, went on the side walk and did ten sit-ups (all with his helmet on, the ipod still playing away songs in his ears). After stretching his arms, when there were 25 seconds more, he mounted the bike. (He mounted the bike – heheheheheheheh – don’t think of what you’re thinking of!)

Mike, on the other hand, lifted his bike, and did a couple of bench presses on the road, with the bike above him. Onlookers, Dorky included, were astounded by his display of strength, but Dorky knew, because he had read the Panchatantra when he was a kid, a few months ago, that ‘mighty brawn is no match for nimble brain‘, but Dorky failed to notice that he had neither quality in abundant quantities while Mike had atleast one of the afore-mentioned ones.

With 25 seconds to go, both men were on their bikes – the signal counting down the last few remaining seconds of the life of at least one of the two people involved in the race, for it was going to be a fight to the death, gladiator-style, so help them God.

The sweat on Dorky’s brow began to cloud his vision, as it formed huge droplets that fell on the lenses of his spectacles, and he had to remove his hanky and wipe it clean, so he could see ahead clearly. Mike, on the other hand, was surprisingly cool about the whole thing, as he started his bike and revved his engine loudly, in an unnecessary show of strength, increasing the carbon emission content in the atmosphere when it wasn’t absolutely necessary.

Dorky started the engine of his bike too, and with a high idling time for the engine, did not resort to making the kind of revving noises that Mike did, as the countdown entered single digits.

6…5…4…3…2…1

Dorky didn’t know about Mike, but his heart was traveling up his oesophagus, all the way till his vocal chords, and was thumping away like a bongo drum in the hands of a drunk chimp with drum-sticks.

Both the bikes were into first gear, as the riders were valiantly trying to look ahead and see if the traffic train, which was thirty metres to the signal, was clearing fast. Dodging their way through the other motorists’ path, receiving not-unjustified curses from the other people waiting to cross the signal, the twosome zig-zagged through, and surged ahead.

Dorky, in a cool and calculated move, just went past Mike onto his right, forcing Mike to the left, and then moved left again, so that Mike didn’t have space and was forced to move further to the left yet again – resulting in him coming dangerously close to the footpath.

It was then that Mike realized that Dorky had tricked and out-manoeuvred him, and that defeat was imminent, for just ten metres ahead, lay a traffic cop checking post, and Mike was stopped by the cops. Dorky had read Mike’s license plate and knew that he was an outstation donkey who’d probably not paid his road-tax, and thus, he chose to make this move to force him onto the left side.

Dorky stopped the bike, parked it on the side stand and watched as Mike was forced to pay up a hefty fine for his offence. Without any further ado, he flashed a thumbs-up at Mike, gave him a big trademark grin, and got on the bike. This time, he almost stumbled and fell as he was about to start if again, but he managed to retain his balance and rode off to his unspecified-destination, with the melodious strains of We Are The Champions by Queen ringing away in his ears.

It should’ve been an evening adventure, he could have ridden away into the sunset.

Ah well. ]]> http://harishenoy.com/blog/2007/09/dorky-guffaw-and-the-traffic-signal-misadventure/feed/ 6 http://harishenoy.com/blog/2007/09/have-you-ever-seen-the-rain/ http://harishenoy.com/blog/2007/09/have-you-ever-seen-the-rain/#comments Mon, 17 Sep 2007 10:24:00 +0000 Hari http://harishenoy.com/blog/?p=353 I was just listening to this brilliant song by Creedence Clearwater Revival, titled “Have You Ever Seen The Rain“, and I’ve always had a big smile on my face whenever it has played on my ipod, just it like it did now.

I suddenly remembered this fond mental picture that would be embedded in my mind forever that I would always associate with this song. It was the 29th of July 2007 at Pecos, and in the mayhem that was the Pub Rock 2007, Bangalore (sponsored by RSJ, if not for which I probably either wouldn’t know about or even care), with the final show being held at Le Rock on Rest House Road, I managed to catch a breather and slack off work with a friend of mine.

This guy, Sudhanva and I went to Pecos, where he had to meet his friends, two women and another guy. I sat down there, not feeling the inclination to do anything for that instant in time, and we proceeded to make small talk that was centered primarily around racist and dead baby jokes and such.

In the midst of all this, while sipping on beer after having promised to quit drinking forever for the third time in as many days (all in jest), while the others were puffing away, the Peco’s macha began playing a song – which one else but “Have You Ever Seen The Rain” by CCR.

All of us knew it, we all sang along happily and in that fleeting moment, I actually felt good that I was there and not anywhere else in particular. With the exception of Sudhanva, there is nobody else there that I am friends with, but the half hour of good times, for some strange reason, would be stuck in my mind because of that song.

Quite arbit and out of the blue, really.

Tony Fadell was the guy who originally came up with the concept of the iPod and was hired by Apple later on, and Jonathan Ive was the person responsible for its subsequent designs.
This is not a blog posting extolling their virtues or their contributions to society and to music lovers (and of late, music video and photo lovers too). I have not reached the level yet, where my blog is going to revolve around anyone but me. Tis true, empty vassals make more noise, sort of like empty vessels themselves.

Anyway, for more on these guys and the iPod, go here.

In the last posting I spoke about how the music died, ever since I started work. I thankfully have the good fortune of being able to have 24/7 access to the internet, which I shamelessly exploit by downloading mp3s, among other things.

My comp at work has a sound card, and I am given the liberty of being able to use headphones while at work, whenever it is not required that I listen to someone. This is rarely the case, with a million interruptions about this bug, or that doc update or a whole host of other things that inadvertently ensure that your listening experience is as smooth as travelling on an unserviced pre World War I era bicycle with flattened tyres on the roughest stretches of Bannerghatta road.

In addition, my material assets, allegdly portable, did not warrant being carried around because my built is not conducive to me wearing pants whose pockets are big enough to accommodate a five inch diameter discman, without it appearing as if I have a bulge in my pants. The bulge in the pants would not be such a bad thing if only God made me look more like Adam Garcia, so that it would invite pick-up lines from nubile pretty young things, and not so young nubile pretty things, and not so nubile pretty young things and so on (3 parameters, how many combinations….go figure!). But for the one single time I took it, all that the flattened lunchbox lookalike of a discman that could only play audio CDs and not mp3s invited, was looks from jackasses with mp3 players and compact ear plugs with long battery backups, who made me feel as if I was Leopold, (from Kate and Leopold) minus the charm, the good looks, the charisma, the money and the sex appeal. In short, apart from the fact that my headphones looked like I had robbed a 3 year old of her hairband, and the flattened lunchbox thing which was half out of my pockets when I sat in the office bus, I thought the music had come back to my life.

Note: travel advisory- please travel in office buses without speakers, which keep blaring songs from radiocity 91FM in the morning, for they will induce a feeling that makes motion sickness seem orgasmic!

I don’t get paid much. Come to think of it, I think the salary that I draw is about 0.0002 percent of what my CEO’s fixed deposit for his pet dog gets as interest, and that divided by 12 is what I get monthly, and minus tax cuts and so many other deductions that leave me as confounded as I did when I tried to understand women from as early as class 2, I am left with this paltry sum of money with which I can barely make ends meet (whatever the definition of that is).

The prospect of listening to music on my antiquated discman was so inviting that I totally overlooked the fact that I couldn’t carry the bulky 9V adapter with me in the bus. Hence I had to rely on batteries, and alkaline batteries are about 40 bucks a pair. I didn’t for the life of me imagine that I would have to make daily investments of that amount, to be able to listen to 13 songs on a CD burnt when I was a little less musically enlightened than I currently am. In short, it was not exactly a pleasant experience. I decided to switch to standard batteries for some time, but they ran dry so fast, (half a song listened to at volume to drown out radiocity playing on the bus) that I felt that the company that made discmen had some sort of connection with these battery manufacturers to make the lives of the ordinary consumer miserable by draining them out faster than a swimming pool would be drained if Obelix jumped in it. So much for asinine consipracy theories.

After the debacle that was CAT 2005, I figured that I had to do something to get a fresh start to the new year 2006, and made up my mind to get the music back into my life, and do a proper job of it this time.
To cut a really long story to pieces and examine the most relevant part with an electron microscope and present it to you, I zeroed in on an iPod.
A work of art, a wonderful companion, black, stored 30GB of whatever you wanted it to, played videos and stored photos, and was sleek and thin.
A good friend of mine named Vinayak Kamath came down from the US for his engagement, and at the same time, managed to buy me an iPod that meets the above specs.
It was love at first sight, and it felt like a new relationship altogether, me and my iPod.

Life has now become an endless movie soundtrack, and right from the time I take the long walk to the bus stop till the time I get back home, everything feels so good.
The other day, I had to catch a bus, and had to chase it for quite a distance. PF’s “in the flesh” was playing in the background, and I could actually visualise myself running towards the bus in slow motion, with other hapless motorists swerving to avoid running me over, to make it to the bus stop and lunging towards the door just in time before the driver could get the bus into second gear. The whole mundane exercise of chasing the bus seemed so romantic that now, I really look forward to even being chased by a ferocious canine at the dead of night, with some appropriate song playing on the pod.

I need to add something to my definition of an ideal life, something I guess I had taken for granted for quite some time.
Good food, good sleep, good shit and good music.

This blog posting is dedicated to an amazingly talented guitarist, someone named Prashant Linus Patrick (fondly called Prashant Anus Fat-dick), who was the lead guitarist of the band I used to play for onceuponatime ago, who lost half a finger on his left hand in an unfortunate accident. Hope he gets to play again.
]]> http://harishenoy.com/blog/2006/01/the-day-the-music-came-back-to-life/feed/ 1 http://harishenoy.com/blog/2006/01/the-day-the-music-died/ http://harishenoy.com/blog/2006/01/the-day-the-music-died/#comments Fri, 13 Jan 2006 04:21:00 +0000 Hari http://harishenoy.com/blog/?p=128 Music has been an integral part of my identity, for various reasons, which I choose not to elucidate, for being labelled a megalomaniac. Not a single instance has passed by when I have not been thankful for the music in my life, whenever I have had the opportunities to indulge myself in exquisite aural pleasure.