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The king is dead, long live the king!!

I’m still trying to come to terms with Michael’s sudden demise. I’ve been reading all the obituaries and tributes published in his memory; but I’m not able to digest the fact that he is gone.

Thriller was the first English album I ever heard. When I was growing up he was the best dancer showman ever. I remember I once bought a pair of North Star shoes because it made my moonwalk look better (didn’t help much though :)). All of us wanted his shiny jackets, ankle length shoes and tried standing on our toes, knees bent clutching our imaginary hats. None of us could, at least not with His grace and panache. Even mum loved “Beat it” on that album; and that was big considering mum never really liked English stuff. It would play incessantly in our run down car stereo.

We would rent the Thriller videotape and watch his videos over and over again. His Smooth Criminal is my all time favourite. Then followed all his concert videos we could lay our hands on. How many afternoons were spent watching these!!

Then, came Dangerous. I remember a bunch of us kids sitting in our retired landlord’s house waiting for the premiere for His “Remember the time” (the poor old grandpa was forced to watch an hour of MTV because he was the only one with cable at that time). It was the first video that absolutely blew my mind away. The grandeur and the effects! I remember all of us watched with our mouths open and left the landlord’s house quietly once the video was done.

I remember when he came to Mumbai, we obviously couldn’t go for it (we were kids in Bangalore). But we would tune in to the news just to catch those 15 seconds of his moonwalk.

MJ then just faded away from my music collection, only for occasional revisits to a few of his songs (Beat it, smooth criminal, who is it, jam, bad, in the closet, dirty Diana to name a few). With all the scandals that surrounded him, he became the stand-up comics favourite and eventually MJ became a cuss word. But I still secretly loved him, his music, presence, his aura were such a huge influence on me, and was impossible not to.

For me, there will no bigger performer that MJ. In my book, he is untouchable.

I hope he rests in peace; he couldn’t when he was alive!

Whats up!

Disclaimer: Posting after a long, long time. The post is very rusty. Anyhoo, read on.

Phew! Long time huh!

So whats changed in the last one year:

The biggest thing is that I got married. Thank you very much! How is married life you ask? Not bad, I say. Actually, my uncle says that the first one year of marriage is always a breeze. He says after that is when the fun starts; he wants to know how “married life” is after a year and 10 days. I’ll keep you posted. Honest!

The wedding was a blast. All my buddies from all over the world came down. It was mad; lots and lots of parties, booze and fun. Good shite I say! I had a bachelor’s party too; thanks too Nirav and Madhur. I am supposed to be tight lipped about it; so no details there. Sorry!

Biggest revelation during the wedding: To all going to be weds, the wedding is not about you. If you think it is, you are going to be really disheartened. The other one, are the aunts. Aunts are like the necessary evil of the wedding – some of them are necessary, the rest are all evil!

The next big thing has been moving to Pune. Pune has not been as happening as Bangalore is; I’m giving it some more time; lets see how that goes. Not many friends here, so getting a little bored. Mim tries to entertain herself though. For example, she wanted to put me in the food processor to see if it could mince bones. I talked myself out of it, may not be that lucky the next time.

That’s about it from my side. Apart from these 2 things, 2008 has been rather dull. I hope 2009 picks up for me. Could do with a good year!

Peace out. See you guys soon. I promise!

Fall of man - Redux

At the beginning of time, there was Adam and Eve.

The Lord God took them and put them in the Garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.’

But the evil serpent seduced Eve into eating an apple from the garden of knowledge. And thus man was banished from the garden forever.

This evil serpent later evolved - got limbs, a neck, a pair of arms, hair and an opposable thumb.

The descendants of this evil serpent became the auto drivers of Bangalore.

Vicious Bastards!!

Fair - Unfair

The Baliga men are born liars and become compulsive liars as they hit adolescence. Not really harmful, their lies are little, just for the heck of it I guess. They are also grand exaggerators. When they narrate a story to you, you should know what to filter out and what not to. I've learnt that the hard way. One more thing about the Baliga men is that they are fair-skinned. One of the family traditions, I could not carry forward. "The black sheep of the family" as the cliche stands.

The Baligas' pride themselves on how fair they are (actually it is a very South Canara Konkani thing). Well, the pride stops with one glance at me. My darkness has been an area of concern for my grandparents almost since the second I was born. Large amounts of "Fair & Lovely" were applied on my countenance by my grandmom. Getting permission from her to play cricket against the neighbouring building team in the afternoons used to be a major ordeal. Some of my relatives also slyly mention the new "Fair & handsome" in their conversations, not leaving much to be deciphered.

She was not the only one on "Mission Whitewash Adi". My babysitting ayaah found it quite unbelievable that my dad and mum were so fair and I wasn't. She had ideas of bathing me in milk. Thankfully, I left the creche before her fantasies materialised.

I have also been a victim of constant racial abuse. "Nigga", "Charcoal", "Kaliga". One of my cousin wouldn't talk to me because I was dark! Well, I obviously wasn't a favourite with my grandparents. Few of the girls have also mentioned how disappointing it was that I am dark, considering my gene pool is rather rich in this aspect.

Well, this is funny because I'm a guy. Prospective brides of some of my uncles and cousins have been straight away rejected because they were a shade or two darker. With the fairness cream one of the major drivers of the cosmetics industry, it doesn't seem soon that people are going to get rid of their prejudices.

Restaurant Tag

I was tagged by Meghna to post about 5 restaurants I like in Bombay... well, since I've explored more of Bangalore than Bombay, I'll be talking about restaurants in Bangalore.

I must start of by telling you that for me a restaurant is more about the feel rather than the cuisine. Oh yeah .. and they have to be easy on the pocket. :)

Pecos: A rather non- descript building off Brigade road, Pecos is more of a music paradiso if you love the blues. Its been a hangout for "The Gang" since college. Pecos serves only beer (and mostly flat at that). The food is brilliant there, do try the chilli beef or the chicken curry and dosa. The place is mostly attached with memories of college days when we used to get drunk in the middle of the day and pull out every coin we could from our pockets to pay up. (Actually, Pecos deserves a longer post .. some other day).

Pecos has a younger sibling called Mojos, off Residency road. Its not quite good enough for the faithful but its plush (only comparatively).

Fanoo's: Mim is going to hate me for this mostly because they were accused of stuffing their beef rolls with dog meat, but they just serve the best rolls. Simply brilliant. They have their rolls in jumbo, mumbo and rambo sizes in that order. The rolls are filling and bloody cheap.

CTR: I'm not quite sure what it stands for (some Tiffin Room). They serve the most amzing and butterilicious butter dosas. The dosas will leave you licking your fingers. The rest of their menu is damn good as well. You just can't leave Bangalore without having your evening kaapi here.

Oh yeah.. and the coffee here .. make that a double coffee .. It is the best SOUTH INDIAN FILTER COFFEE ever. Period! Countless hours were spent here fattening ourselves and dousing caffeine discussing the vagarities of life.

Infinitea: This place is a tea lover's delight. Teas from Darjeeling, Sri Lanka, Assam all at your service though I still prefer my pot of Masala Chai. The desserts here are yumm, do try the Italian truffle when you are here .. it just melts in your mouth. Oh yeah .. very friendly waiters and according to the girls .. cute too!!

Casa del Sol: I went to this place last time I was in Bangalore. Amazing ambience, lovely food. Its a roof top restaurant so the breeze of Bangalore makes this a rather romantic experience. This place is not as inexpensive as the rest ... but then Mim paid when we went there .. so what the heck!! :)

Lot more little hangouts in Bangalore ... may be another post beckons .. some other time ...

Ok ... so this is the fun part ... my turn to tag ...

I tag Nitish (Hyderabad), Siddhu (Delhi/Chennai/Bangalore), Lokesh (Mumbai).

There is no sicker feeling
than
being alone.

Holier than thou ... yeah right!!!

Check out the home page of ibnlive.

Do I need to say anymore ... bloody eediots I say!!! What do these guys take us for??!!

Of not much acclaim

Motion

I look back and see what was there,
Probably what was not.
What has become and what is becoming
Into what is being ventured and what is being left behind
Moving ahead sometimes seems like moving behind
Sideways seems the way to go
A vague horizontal and not much of a vertical
Oblique, skewed
Distances become immaterial
Direction seems indifferent
No vectors for me
Scaled may be, scarred and bruised too
Fuck it, my life has a come a full circle
What was ahead is what is behind
What is ahead has passed me by