Lapses of lingy…

A Male Groupie…

Besides the actual singers there’s this one chap who hangs around (reminds one of a groupie). He likes music and strums well (the guitar). Besides these qualities, his stature, attitude and airs remind one of the swashbuckling heroes in the Hollywood musicals of yore.

He allows us to practice in his house, which isn’t really a home. It’s an estate, overlooking the sea, with luscious lawns on the outside and baroque-like walls and ceilings on the inside. There’s a grand piano, ornate furniture and lots of family photographs everywhere, the type one gets when a photographer comes home to capture the various moods of the family.

I said, “ No. I mentioned the house as an afterthought”.

He is left wondering and I am wondering too…

Share

Love is a many-splendoured thing…

Or is it road trip from hell?
 

Love triggers off butterflies in the tummy. It’s supposed to make one feel poetic, nurturing and romantic. It’s supposed to inspire, elevate, uplift.

But is this a fleeting feeling, a temporary phase experienced in the first flushes of love, a complete illusion, the stuff of romantic novels, a figment of some lovesick fool’s blurred imagination?  

When I fell in love (or rather what I mistook for love), the outcome was disastrous. 
 

By the end of it, I wanted to pull his hair out. 

I was disappointed. The hard reality came down with a thud. The butterflies in the stomach vanished, making way for restless bile.  Understanding gave way to rage. Poetic verses  metamorphosed into belligerent diatribes.

So was this what love was meant to be? A shallow chemistry, a fatal attraction, a silly infatuation. Maybe I only saw the glitter, without investigating beyond the façade. 

Did I really have anything in common with this person? Did we have something to talk about once the passion fizzled out? Could he really capture my imagination or I his? Were we both  blinded by illusion?  

Yes, we both were. And fine day the realization dawned. The cobwebs cleared. We parted. I felt free to explore and anticipate a new love that would be honest, ethereal and free.  

Share

She Hits You Like A Tornado…

Last week I attended a music concert at St. Andrews Auditorium. A fleet of American naval ships had docked at Mumbai and the Navy band was due to perform. I expected a brass band to turn up, uniforms and all or a sprinkling of an orchestra with a repertoire of classical music. On the contrary, we got to listen to a full-blown rock concert!

It was an unexpected treat after being subjected to a lacklustre performance of The Graduate and a caricature of sorts by the Stopgaps ( an ‘award winning’ chorale group), despite of crystal clear accoustics and a host of generous sponsors. We entered the auditorium and flanked ourselves in the aisles. It was a full house.

On the stage, stood a 2 tier synthesizer, 6 mike stands and a drum set. An American woman in a flaming red costume announced the band, after which 7 people clad in white naval uniforms trooped on stage and jumpstarted the show with a bang.

The lead singer was a woman, an American naval officer, 6 feet tall with the aura of a diva and the energy of a towering inferno. She belted out like Alanis and crooned like Ella. Her voice was a potent mix of black and white, sweet and husky, coarse and classy. And what a range! She could plummet down to a bass and then soar up high into a soprano. What was she doing in the navy when she could be America’s next singing diva?

But then again, singing is obviously her hobby and the navy, her true calling. Besides, competing with Beyonce’s erotic grooves and Britney’s penchant for publicity can be fatiguing. From her body langauge one could make out that she found singing to be a liberating experience and her innate wild streak was unleashed.  

Within a span of 60 minutes, I had a new hero.  

Share

Another Glorious Long Weekend…

The weekend is going to be very hectic with 2 b’day celebrations to partake of, a gym to visit, a resume ( of a friend) to work on to make it meaty and mostly legible and a book to finish. I have not yet completed the chronicles of the world’s most evil men but I am less bilious now than I was on completing chapter one. I think it has something to do with the human tendency to get used to information that is continually thrust in our midst.

On a different note, I got a call from an ex-boss. She’s quite an interesting specimen of the female species, with a knack for blazing a trail of  a disaster at any destination she chooses to visit. She landed in Latur and there was an earthquake. She landed in Gujarat, another earthquake. I enquired with amusement if she had made a trip to Russia in the recent past( a hostage situation and a disastrous one with many casualties). She smirked in amusment.  Anyway, more on her later as I gotta dash…

Share

Plunder, Murder And Rape…

Last night I read till 2am, in spite of an early morning meet with a prospective client. The book titled ‘The World’s Most Evil Men’ was engrossing, but the contents completely grossed me out. The first chapter was a graphic description of Idi Amin’s reign of terror in central Africa. The atrocities unleashed by this ruthless dictator on millions of unsuspecting subjects, left me bilious with disgust and I wanted to throw up every morsel I had eaten during the course of the day.  

Other despots like Stalin, Pol Pot, Attila the Hun, Ivan The Terrible and Hitler are also chronicled with much precision. The next time I address another by any of these euphemisms I will cringe and refrain from such careless use of words. Men, women and children were tortured in inhumane ways, ways which are too shocking to write about at the hands of these despots. 

There was no rhyme or reason for these gruesome murders. They were mere sport for ruthless dictotors with sadistic appetites. These eras of human existence were fraught with only 2 types of people, the oppressors and the oppressed. There was no in-between. People were either born into the  lap of luxury or the depths of poverty and their death was most likely to be a murder and at best a suicide. 

Dictators originated from every corner of the earth…except India. There was no Indian tyrant with such an exhaustive penchant for mass murder, worthy of mention in this journal ( though our country is not devoid of incidents). But there has never been an era where homicide became the right of another and was condoned by the law of the land.

My friends ask me why I am reading this book, if the aftermath of my new-found knowldge is so unpleasant. Because one needs to know about the ‘real’ issues which make one’s own ‘emotional’ upheavals pale in significance. They seem irrelevant as compared to the horrific lives and even more horrific deaths experienced by innocent people of yore.

Share

Which Sex And The City Character Are You?…   

According to a survey on ivillage, I scored 50% Carrie (curious and perceptive, perennially seeking answers and never satisfied with the superficial), 30% Miranda (cynical but pragmatic yet sensual), 10% Samantha (bold and liberated, sometimes thoughtless and selfish, as I seek immediate gratification and excitement while overlooking another’s feelings) and 10% Charlotte ( a romantic at heart,  I hide secret yearnings for ideal love.)

 Sarah…

That was a revelation!

When I mull over the results, I think that I am all these things and more. I am at my cynical best, when confronted by a new low in life. But within the minute I can launch with heightened vigour into a new flight of fancy, until a brickbat of reality comes flying out of nowhere and brings me back to ground zero. Small talk feels ardous and mundane rituals are well, mundane. Thus I am suspicious of all that is superficial (an invisible force of evil definitely exits behind that facade of goodness). 

I don’t hesitate even for 1/100th of a nano-second, before calling a spade a spade…primarily because I am pretty useless at calling it anything else, even if I try my darndest best.

I can be bold and liberated, sometimes even to the point of getting obnoxious with more conventional beings in the vicinity. My verbal outbursts usually boomerang back, but I know that unless I have my say, the restless forces lurking within me will make me ill with discontent!

Whew…that was one long monologue about myself (though not boring I hope?). Before your mind starts wandering and I come across as one big ego maniac, I shall sign off with the promise of a new and engaging blog entry as soon as possible!

Share

A Woman Of Extremes…

To make up for 7 days of voracious binging and a spell of absenteeism from the gym, I rigorously worked out  on sat and sunday for 2 hours, 20 minutes and 38 seconds each day!

Saturday saw me huff and puff during a muscle-rupturing session of aerobics and sunday, a  round of shin-wrenching kickboxing ( while imagining that I was bashing the crap out of certain destestable individuals) and cardio. Now if given a choice, I would skip both gym and cardio and indulge in the steam and massage instead!

Yup, I am a woman of extremes and maintaining the equilibrium is proving to be the biggest challenge. Will be back with more grist for this mill on this one…

Share

…The New Significance Of A ‘To Do’ List!

The second and fourth saturday of every month henceforth have mysteriously been declared as holidays. Hence I am bubbling over with hysteria and effervescent with excitement!

My colleagues are sporting secret smiles in anticipation of the first sat which falls tomorrow. There are books to be read, a gym to visit ( after dodging workouts for a week), manicures and pedicures to fit in and socilaizing to be done. O my! O my! How will I manage to pack so much activity into my meagre holiday schedule?!

Merril relax, do some deep breathing, think logically, prioritize…goodness, the symptoms of my ‘bright lights, big city’ affliction are surfacing once again.

Anyways, one activity definitely on the agenda is a music recital by a Mumbai-based Chorale group. This group is among the more prominent chorale groups in Mumbai. They have a very talented and predictably  eccentric individual for a conductor. A member of the group could not pronounce his ‘v’s and ‘w’s to perfection. To his own chagrin, he was asked by his conductor to kneel down and repeat the quote 100 times ” I Wish I Were A Virgin”, while emphatically pronouncing his vs and ws., that too in frnt of all and sundry! Imagine the horror of a prudent middle-aged woman who had dropped in to audition. She took flight soo after!

A riddle…

How does a male friend of mine remember the names of women whom he plans to seduce?

Ans: He maintains a ’To DO’ list!

Have a super weekend!

Share

§ Open Spaces & A Sea Of Green §

The manic drone of Mumbai city is quickly drowning out the voice of logic in my head and I am nearing a near-schizophrenic state of existence. The time has come to spread my wings and fly far away from the madding crowd to listen to more soothing sounds, like the gentle rustle of the breeze and the slither of little streams.

I am currently doing research on the best possible getaway, one that will not entail much travel time or effort. No trekking, river rafting or bungee jumping for me. All this body wants to do is lounge around and get lethargic as hell!

Share

A Black Sunday For Black Humour

The storyline of ‘The Graduate’ goes like this…

When Benjamin Braddock graduates from a small Eastern college and moves home to his parents’ house, everyone wants to know what he’s going to do with his life. Embittered by the emptiness of his college education and indifferent to his grim prospects — grad school? a career in plastics? — Benjamin falls haplessly into an affair with Mrs. Robinson, the relentlessly seductive wife of his father’s business partner. It’s only when beautiful coed Elaine Robinson comes home to visit her parents that Benjamin, now smitten, thinks he might have found some kind of direction in his life. Unfortunately for Benjamin, Mrs. Robinson plays the role of protective mother as well as she does the one of mistress. A wondrously fierce and absurd battle of wills ensues, with love and idealism triumphing over the forces of corruption and conformity.
(Courtesy: Amazon.com)

Last Sunday I witnessed a macabre massacre. It proved to be a dark day in the history of black humour, and many thespians of theatre will agree with me. An amateur director took Charles Webb’s ‘The Graduate’ and reduced a classic piece of black humour to a caricature of its original self! The result was frivolous slapstick and a housefull of audience who laughed like banshees and missed the finer nuances of the script. Not their fault, since the subtle nuances were already lost in the process of direction. 

I could have been watching a Goan ‘tiatr’ which is slapstick personified. A slap on the face of the theatre film fraternity…I’m sure Mr. Webb would wince with shock to see such liberties being taken with insightful literature had been present in the auditorium.
 
The biggest draw of the play, turned out to be a damp squib. A yesteryears Bollywood siren was cast in the role of the alluring and stylish Mrs. Robinson. No doubt, this was an opportunity to resurrect herself from the clutches of Bollywood oblivion. But instead of the siren, one sees a frumpy, pot-bellied woman who in no way epitomizes the role of Mrs. Robinson. And it isn’t her fault if she couldn’t carry off the role of relentless seductress because every actress is a director’s heroine and if she makes a mess of it, it is either because she is miscast or misdirected. In this case it was the former.

All actors maybe accused of overacting, save the gentleman who played the role of Mr. Robinson. He could mildly hold his own and portray the role of the vexed husband who has been wronged owing to his wife’s extra-marital dalliances with a man half her age and who happens to be her friend’s son!

I surfed the net for a genuine critique of the play, but all I found were feature stories glorifying the elements. A yesteryears actress returns to the stage, a Stanford University returned model turns courageous director…the entire business has a commercial stench attached to it. A much hyped play turns out to be an absolute disappointment….sigh!

Share