Travelling Without Moving

Gratitude:


It’s earlier than I’d care to share and I’ve woken up shamefully responsibly for some one who is self-employed. To top that, I’m qualifying that self-employment with the idea of trying to play jazz – and this , is no hour any (insert creative field here) should have to see. Unless ofcourse, you walk into it, by not sleeping at all. It’s 8.30am (ah ha you office goers and corporatei, you) - the dogs are barking and the construction on the other side of my window, which my mind has blocked out like a childhood nightmare, is picking up.

While the rest of the world out there, beyond my four walls, is busy crashing and burning their way through showers, breakfasts and traffic, I’m sitting on the floor of the house’s spare room, leaning against the wall with my ears cushioned with headphones. It’s like being held by sound. It’s a feeling I’ll never take for granted. [Boston sunset].

I converted the spare room (Nico!) into a mini-studio/practice room. The bass is lying infront of me on a rug that I bought just for it, there are microphone stands, microphones, cables and sheets of music strewn across from yesterday’s rehearsal.

More than music-related paraphernalia, there are pieces from a million miles away, everywhere.

I look straight ahead and I see some of the sheets I printed out for the Calcutta tour a little over a month ago. I met this fab guitar player who setup a series of shows for us and found me a bass. We played a whole bunch over a week and had a crazy good time doing it. It was the first time I travelled as an independent musician, without a band and without a bass. I saw every inch of that city, drenched in rain and soaked in humidity, trying to find a bass that I could play. I went through five before I found one that worked. It was beautiful.

Within a month of getting back to Delhi, I got restless again - and after a gig with Syncopation, I decided to fly out to the States. I booked my ticket and three days later, I was out. I spent about 5 days each, in a bunch of different places – living with different people.

I look to my right and I see my unpacked suitcase. Still relatively unpacked. Still refusing to allow the introduction of some distance between the present and the past three weeks.

I look to my left, the desk is littered: with boarding passes, bus passes and train passes. With coins from here, there and everywhere – with a chain of keys that I found at a park in New York at 2am, in the rain - under the light of the empire state building, sitting there left behind. I couldn’t resist picking them up. Some poor bastard probably had a bad night. He/She can’t begin to imagine where their keys are.

There are folded up bits of paper, with phone numbers, addresses – of places I stayed and places I wanted to pop into. Bills from things I ate – and predominantly, drank.

My restless fingers even nicked two hair-bands from a friends’ car, in the States. One electric blue and one neon yellow – and now they’re intertwined and tagged to the keys of my, earlier, very black backpack. The same backpack that more than half gave in when I was walking upto my gig with Red last Friday. I flew in at 5.30 in the morning from SFO and ended up having a gig the same night. It was one for the keeping. The backback however, needs to go.

Even on the corner of this computer screen, I have open the event page for a gig Syncopation has this coming Friday - on the 26th of August. It’s at the same venue our last gig was. It’s called Circa 1193 and it’s right next to the Qutub Minar. My first gig there, was with Drift on a fucking’ cold, windy and foggy December night. I still remember watching the planes fly right over us as we played – and the Qutub looking like you could reach across and touch it. It might be a bit much, but I think it was a full moon out that night too.

All these parallel existences – past and present, here and everywhere else. All I have to do is take one second to think – of people, gigs, musicians, places – that have come and gone. There is so much love, so much life and So much light.

The only thing I’ve ever wanted from life – and the only thing I still want, is some semblance of an extraordinary existence. I don’t know what that means and what that might feel like, but as I sit here, with my eyes half closed, with a stupid smile on my face from the ridiculously gorgeous music I’m listening to, I can’t help but stop for a second and think, that I am so, so grateful, for every single moment.
..


As a parting note: I rented a bass while I was in San Francisco. My lovely aunt had the pleasure of returning it to the store after I left, this is the email that she sent me. It’s made my day twice over:

“Well, I have to admit I have more respect for you and your less-than-obvious strength after having (wo)man-handled that ho of a bass into the car today and returned her to the brothel. How the hell do you manage in your car?! You did explain that she sits next to you but, really... Intense. And then the first thing she does around the first turn is slide around like some drunk. Luckily her pimps were perfectly happy with her condition so all is well. I'll suggest flute next time.”




... What more could I ever ask for.

That Philosophy Degree's Gotta Be Lying Around Somewhere

You Know What,


I’ve had a pretty twisted equation with academics, especially over the past two years. What’s been more skewed has been my interaction with Delhi University. On the whole, I’m pretty sure that I enjoy(ed) studying and when I did start studying Philosophy, which was now almost five years ago, I knew I’d made a pretty good move. For whatever reason – maybe it’s just typical of the age/stage routine – I haven’t ever really thought of getting a job, or having a ‘career’, or really just committing myself to doing one thing for the rest of my life. Maybe there are a lot of people who feel the same way I do – or maybe there aren’t.

A large aspect of this is definitely associated with the fact that I’ve been fortunate enough to play the double bass and to play jazz in Delhi with some of the best musicians Delhi has to offer. Often the most resourceful, even. Owing to the fact that it’s such a niche’ – there’s always some kind of work going around. And since there aren’t ten thousand double bassists around, I’ve managed to be financially independent for the past two to three years, living alone, being very comfortable – to the point of faking occasional bursts of affluence.

Removing that career oriented pressure and that desire for independent financial resource - I always saw Philosophy and my own study of it, as something being very, very pragmatic and very therapeutic. A lot of it, was just really good for me. If you take it seriously, just to the right extent, it really helps you re-arrange your priorities. If nothing else, it really gives you a good idea of how a lot of the constructs around you are conventional – and they’re reinforced out of repetition. I find it’s important to remember that. It really is a toolbox to fix reality with it – or atleast confront it.

Having said that, there’s no lack of pure garbage in the larger gambit of what falls under Philosophical studies. From a Historical point of view, a large chunk of it – is really just argument for the existence of God; from a contemporary point of view – it is predominantly highly (and unnecessarily) specialized technical bickering. The modern formulations of Philosophy have dissolved any real accessibility – making it impossible for people who don’t have an extensive vocabulary of philosophical ideas – to even think about approaching the subject. Basically, there’s a lot of crap out there. Just like with any art or any exercise, every so often, there’s a really good idea, or a really good work of art that cuts through and makes you rearrange yourself.

I signed up for the MA programme at Delhi University shortly after I had gotten back from Japan. I thought I had a lot of time on my hands – which I did, for about four to five months, that was, right before I started playing with Drift.

Playing with Drift, daily rehearsals and bi/tri weekly gigs became a lifestyle and norm. Attendance at the Univ. was not compulsory – and in my eyes, anything but desirable. The quality of the few lectures I did attend reminded me of classes from the sixth grade. You couldn’t believe some of the junk that was taking the form of pedagogy. In any case, I had gotten too far in to really want to drop out - and aside from the occasional inconvenience of studying for an exam, or writing an assignment during a gig break and forking up a night or two of sleep, playing jazz was coexisting with the MA with relatively little tension. Academically speaking, I enjoyed the readings and as far as pure numbers and grades go, I was doing pretty great.

A week from now, my programme will be over – insofar as I would have given my last exam. I am relieved because I can stop multitasking – but what happens beyond that, in terms of results, is pretty shaky. I have never seen a system so arbitrary. So much so, that arbitrariness is the medium and mode of operation. It just depends on what side of scale you fall. Either it favours you or it screws you.
In my third semester examinations, I wrote four papers. Three of them were rock solid and water tight – one of them, was a little shaky, but only insofar as being not well articulated. My teachers failed me in two of four papers – not marginally but devastatingly.

Students who have no idea of what they’re studying, leave alone quality and content of writing, cleared the papers – and I have no shame in admitting that they had no business of doing so.

An Indian Philosophy teacher, who I got into a bit of a verbal altercation with a few months ago – over the question of attendance (and my subsequent lack of it) lost the plot and called me the symbol of a lost generation – one whose sole concern is with money. I was, according to her, the embodiment of all yuppie Eurocentric culture. In her first internal assessment examination, before this argument, I scored 12/15. In the second one, after this little argument, I scored 5/15. I’m curious to see what she does with my exam. (Apparently she gave another girl a really hard time for leaving her hair open).

There’s a part of me that should be furious – with this teacher and with those IIIrd semester results, but I can’t really say there is. It’s not that I don’t care about the subject – I’ve really enjoyed everything that I’ve gotten to study – but it’s hard for me, to get really worked up – and to take something that is so inherently a sham – so seriously.

In the past two years, I barely attended 12 lectures – and a majority of those were taught by my own Head of Dept. from Stephens. They had nothing to do with the University.

The only real sad thing here, is that there are kids (unlike me) who really want to be in this programme, who really want to go that extra mile and do that research and be good teachers or good philosophers – but they inevitably get held back. Either because the system fails to recognize their potential – or more often than not, because they refuse to give their third rate professors’ egos the blow job needed to do well in a course.

It really just is a perpetration of mediocrity. The same notes get recycled for the same damn three hour paper, for the same teachers who will assess you on the same basis of your ability to vomit the same rubbish in same resemblance of order.

The fact that I’m doing better or atleast as well, as those kids in class who’ve been attending lectures regularly, isn’t any testament to my intellect – it’s just a blazing exposure of deficiency on part of the University and it’s faculty.

In any case, I learnt a lot – and I met some interesting people, who I’m grateful for having met. One of them is going to do a month long internship under spic macay, towards being flautist; another one is headed off to Paris to do a second MA in social/economic development – and I know they’re going to do well, because they’re great people.

I’ve already gotten more from this programme than any system can take away.

One thing is for sure though, I’m no goddamn yuppie, bitch.

I Want To Ride My...

About two weeks ago I was killing time on the internet after a gig. Textbook stuff. A series of mouse clicks later - which couldn’t be summarized better than the sound of my mind falling down a flight of stairs, I some how ended up (bless the open market) at the website of a bicycle shop here in Delhi that sold bmx bikes. You know, those trick bikes? I always wanted one earlier on, but there was no way that I could ever find one in Delhi – and the hassle of importing one, was enough of a deterrent.

I had a small and lighter Bmx-like bike when I was in Tokyo and I could do some fun stuff on it, but at the end of the day, it was really an object of necessity with a purely functional role. Not to mention that it was old as hell, beaten to the ground and always one step away from turning to dust. The reason for this, was simply that
I had bought it within a week of reaching Japan, without having any pulse on the Yen. So – I bought the cheapest ass thing I could find. God, it was mustard and I miss it so much. It got stolen a day before I flew back to Delhi. Apparently some Japanese thieves have low less esteem.

I digress. Back to the webpage: the interesting thing about the bike was that it wasn’t all that expensive – mostly because I’m use upright basses as my normal reference of heavy expenditure (ha!) – and more than anything, it really looked Good. This might not seem like a big deal, Good with a capital G and all, but my usual interaction with material things in Delhi, that catch my eye at all, can be summed up in the phrase: “one step too far”. It was going great, but then someone threw some Panja-bling-golden-pink-happy-dragon-rainbow-sparkle on it and Blew it. Whatever unfortunate thing, ‘it’ was. The total icing on the cake was that the outlet was right behind where I lived. Divinity had spoken.

.. Now, Divinity is very shady about what it says and has shown a history of being deliberately ambiguous – so by the next day, the idea of buying it had begun to vaguely rationalize itself. The usual questions of where I could ride it and so on presented themselves - and the outlook didn’t look so good. The evening took a twist thought, when I was hanging out with a really close friend of mine. I happened to tell her about it – and to cut a long story short, for whatever reason, she decided to force (barely) me to buy it. So we went to the store, I saw the bike, it looked great – and she decided to buy me ten years worth of pending birthday presents in one go, so she got me the stunt pegs and a cushion and a bell. Tring – life was good.

Since I brought the bike home, I hadn’t gotten a chance to take it out much. It’d only been out a few times (again, just about barely). Mostly, this was because I was tied up with rehearsals and gigs – and really the only time one could really ride a bike out in Delhi (as a recreational activity), I would be fast asleep. Though I didn’t regret buying it, walking in and out of the house and looking at it made me wonder if it’s purpose was going to remain largely ornamental.

Today morning however, credit to my light sleeping habits, my eyes popped open at about quarter to five. I spent a little bit of time stalling and trying to get back to sleep – until I totally just gave up. I went upto the roof and man, it was beautiful out there. It was really breezy and the darkness had that light purple to it. I figured today was the morning to get that bicycle out.

It’s really light, so I carried it down and after being chased around by a few dogs – which woke me up just fine – I was out by 5.45am.
For those of you familiar with Delhi and with me, I live near a place called Gulmohar Park. I rode down upto Khan Market, which is pretty much just a long and straight – but very, very eventful road. Just in terms of urban activity. I tricked around a bit at the empty market and eventually turned around because it was starting to get trafficky. I was back home by 7am.

It’s strange, but no surprise. I went to school for two years, on the same road – and when I go swimming, I cross it every time. I’ve probably been up and down that road and through that area thousands of times, over the past five years – but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it like I did today.

I’m going to try make an occasional habit of this.


I wouldn’t mind company either.

Won't you sit for a bit?

One of the strangest things that I remember – and usually not so fondly – about when I used to live with mum and dad, was our family’s unique take on going out. Now by going out, I mean everything and anything that falls between the vast expanse of casual caffeinate-ing/dining on one hand and all out social brawls on the other. These ‘Outings’ with a capital O, used to happen about once a week and maybe (if I was lucky) twice (at most). Anything more would be considered akin to chaos.

The curious thing about these Outings, with a italic O, was that they were meant to sustain one’s desire to be in a social setting – or more simply – outside the home setting, for atleast a few days. So if you stepped out for coffee on a Tuesday, your desire to be out-and-about on a Thursday was pretty illegitimate. Now, naturally, because I grew up in these settings for about eighteen years, I began to think that these frequencies suggested and reflected a larger reality – and because I wasn’t in a coed school till the time I was 16 (who wants to hang out with other guys anyway) – it took me a while to cultivate my own social life and really rekindle the need to be Out - not to mention, really getting something solid to compare my own lifestyle to.

Every kid has their unique deafening realization when they talk to other kids and go through the “Wait, Shit, not everybody does that?” moment. On a side note: I long to capture this on film.

Digressing only momentarily: I realize the tone of this post is turning a little sour – and this is not my intention. My mum works as a senior paediatrician at a hospital here in Delhi and her schedule is no where near permitting frequent movement – both professionally and physically limit. Babies apparently fall sick all the time and it seems taking care of them, can leave you pretty drained.

My dad seems to work too – I would be more expressive - but in 23 years, I haven’t understood the finer intricacies of his job. I’m sure they’re as consuming as anybody else’s.

The thing is, the approach to movement here, is just a curious oddity of the Warsi/Salim household – as there are oddities for every household. Yeah, I’m talking to you, man. The only person who I think was a little restless when I was growing up, was my Grandfather. There was a point where I’m pretty sure he found it hard to sit still. God bless that attitude, it was like a breath of fresh air. You can’t start a fire without a spark. That’s what the boss said!

Looking Forward:

It’s been just about seven years since the time that I was awkward at 16 dating my first real girlfriend, who I naturally wanted to see not only on Tuesday and Thursday – but on whatever other days fell in the middle of all that too. As things turned out, once I got to college, things were nowhere closer to getting better. It wasn’t just about girls any more, but about bands and rehearsals that were as unpredictable as traffic. Cliché as it is, the older I got, the more belligerent I became. Apparently, school was only the beginning.

So began the seasons of our discontent: A series of fights followed by a series of resignations, melodrama, and ofcourse, how can we forget the teenage Pièce de résistance – Lying (though I will say, I haven’t ‘skipped’ school yet). Oh did I get good at lying. Man oh man.

Anyway, since those fun fun fun days I have adopted a policy of uncensored honesty. It’s harsher and at times more uncomfortable – but almost always - more efficient. In terms of experience: I’ve lived alone in Japan for a year – and have been living on my own ever since I got back to Delhi. Half way through this February it’s going to be 2 years. All of this, quite unsurprisingly, finds me in diametric opposition to the original oddity of the Warsi household. I find myself stepping out of the house anywhere upto 4 times a day (if not more) and driven by a restlessness that my grandfather might somewhere be secretly proud of. It’s a strange sort of restlessness that doesn’t settle with the coffee shop, but instead involves looming on travel websites with a debit card on the side.

Spontaneity is key.

The thing with exhaustion and subsequently, that feeling of ‘fullness’, is that the threshold always evolves. It’s like a drug. You need to do more, to feel like you’re, self-evidently, doing more. Between rehearsals and gigs – I’m always wanting to pack in more into a day - and I’m never quite sure where to find my fillers (or what they even are).

About two weeks ago I started playing squash – that’s given me a new toy for a bit, but the sensation is only momentary. Yesterday, I tied up a Snowboarding trip to Gulmarg, Kashmir – and over the past two weeks, I’ve played a bunch of gigs that should leave me feeling pretty good: we did one for absolut-art last sunday (there's a nice picture of it in today's HT city) and I also, Finally, got to play at Lodi's Garden Restaurant (big check of my to do list) but still, I

can barely stop twiddling my toes.


Not to sound ungrateful or anything.


It's the year of the Bunny and I am (as I imagine bunnies are) in search of : the Perfect Full Day.


.. to be contd (probably).

In Repair; In Transit.

It’s quarter to the three in the morning. I keep sitting down to update this blog and to post something on it, but each time that I do, I usually make it through three lines and I’m overwhelmed at the thought of all the things I want to write out. 

The sensation of being overwhelmed, however, is quickly submerged in the much larger ocean of unmotivated writing and I decide to abandon the whole thing. So, there you go. I minimize the window, disappoint my word processor and leave it alone for another night. 

Here’s what’s going on in my mind: I haven’t sat down to write anything since mid-November. Since then, a lot of things that might be fun to mention (at best) have happened. In a big way, they’re all made of the same thing: People – who have come and gone; Gigs – some good and a lot bad; and naturally, the experiences and consequent realizations afforded by both – some fleeting and others pretty significant.

From the outside, especially when speaking in lazy general terms, it doesn’t look like much has really changed or happened – but when I really get into it, there seems like there’s a lot to say. Things with Drift are great – but they’re in transit. We’ve been getting a lot of good gigs and sometimes, it feels like the phone doesn’t stop ringing. We also seem to be doing pretty well on the recognition account – by which I basically mean, people buy us drinks all the time. Reuben, my drummer, went to a club with some friends, rang up a nasty ass bill and at the end of the night, walked out hammered without having to part with any cash, because the owner was a frequent visitor at a lounge we play at. It’s a decent feeling.

It’s really interesting how with any given band, there are always a few parallel streams that run side by side. In the case with Drift, I can clearly see two – and the reason why things are in transit, is because there is a clash between those two streams.

The first one – arguably more important - being that of personal musicianship. By which I mean: skill and general satisfaction with your own sound. Really just being able to like yourself and what you do on your instrument. The second stream, in my eyes, is how the band is perceived from outside and maybe right now, the latter is just mismatched with the former. There’s a craving from the former, for a fresher sound – but the need for that is happening at a point where I feel like the image of the group is just beginning to be consolidated – on a strictly P.R. level. I guess there’s always the question of how much that really matters in the first place – but anyway, I hope things will balance out soon.

I haven’t been taking the band or the lifestyle that’s come with it for granted and I knew it wasn’t going to last forever, but these three guys have become like family to me. Infact, I've met them for rehearsal on a daily basis for something like half a year - and at our peak, we were playing right upto 4 nights a week. That’s more than I’ve seen my real relatives over the past two years - no two ways about it.

I played a really fun gig on the 1^st of January. There’s a school in Delhi called the Bridge Music Academy. They organized a Winter jazz concert at the India Habitat Center’s Stein Auditorium. I’d say maybe two hundred showed up? Maybe more? I can never gauge with people.

I got to play with Nippun Cheema’s project – which played something called Cinematic Jazz – which was basically film score but customized to make some room for improvisation. Some of the music was really gorgeous and it’s still very much stuck in my head. What made the whole thing a much bigger deal, was that Drift was also slotted to play this concert. So Nicolas and I got on stage with Nippun’s project first – spent an hour up there – after which, Drift came on and it was just a really great way to the start the year. I couldn’t be more grateful. There are recordings and a dvd of the same, which I will sit down with, scrub and put up at some point.

I think this is a pretty good way to start clearing a blog-back-log and there’s definitely no better way to wrap up, than to shamelessly publicize myself. 

So:

Catch Drift at the Living Room in Hauz Khas Village on the 4^th of February – which is a Friday. Come on out, come on out. I didn’t know we were playing there till yesterday when I saw the poster with our pretty little faces on it – so, it’s news to me too.

Also, if you can’t make Friday, come on down to Baci on Thursday. It’s been a treat to play there this year. I hope to see some of you there.

Turbulence en route to Nowhere.

It’s a fucking genuinely enlightening experience. Waking up in the morning and for that one split second, you have no idea where you are. Okay, the menu on the right side table tells me we’re not in Delhi, it’s a guest house in Chandigarh: we’re off to a fabulous start. There’s somebody singing in the shower. Also brilliant, i’m not alone in this memorable experience. My mouth’s minty, which not only means that I was neurotic enough in my habit to brush my teeth last night, but points more to the fact that it wasn’t so long ago that I did brush them. I did change too – I’m wearing pyjamas. So far we’re doing great. There’s a white shirt and a black v-neck sweater hanging off the chair next to me. Doesn’t look like something I’d wear, but then I forgot my suit in Delhi – so I ended up spending half of what I earned at the gig last night buying those two things. I did look good though. “New York Pretty Chique-Boy”, that’s what my drummer was kind enough to suggest – where I’m flattering myself is, with the ‘-que’. I believe he was going for chick. It works for me, I guess.

The gig was fun enough, but not for it’s playing. The perfect sound, with the perfect venue and just a lot of a communication breakdown. The cues were all over the place and every one was pretty confused. Well, I was making a mess. In any case, right now I just couldn’t be fucked. On the other hand, the bass tone was beyond divine. It was the kind of tone that reminded me why I play the instrument I do. It was an outdoor gig, so on appearance: It was cold and all the trees were lit up with small white lights. It was foggy and it was beautiful. The crowd was pretty receptive and if not receptive, really attractive. The pianist we were playing with was kind enough to clarify that this was a very classy gig. Man, Punjabi women. I’m from Delhi – and I may harbour some false notions about seeking intellect, but fuck it, this is beyond a soft spot. I talked to a few women last night – but at these weddings and parties it’s like being in the middle of a jungle. It’s all out Darwin.

I digress.

Back to the room. I’m obviously more than hungover. Mostly because I’m still a little high. There’s more than two bottles of white wine in my system and more than a couple of shooters. I never take shots. I guess I was on vacation last night. The edges of my eyes are still vibrating. Lets see, my wallet’s still around. What comes next? It’s funny, it’s always the cellular phone. I’m convinced that I’ve lost it. I roll out of bed and I can barely stand. I check the bass, my backpack and the table. No sign of it – anywhere. I try calling it – no luck. I check my skinnies’ pockets, nope. It’s funny how the only thing that’s bothering me is the idea of invasion of privacy. I finally move the blankets and there it is, in all it’s black cold metal. I suddenly feel sick – and it’s not the alcohol. I walked in at round about 5 in the morning, swayed in is more accurate – packed away my bass with the love it deserves, changed my clothes, brushed my teeth and picked up my phone and fell asleep with it on the other side of my pillow. Something about this doesn’t click for me. I’m not this person.       

My body and mind feels like they’re broken. Maybe it’s from drinking and dancing last night – but it’s probably from the past week. Drift usually rehearses about 4 days a week – and the schedule’s been pretty consistent for a few months now – since August to be accurate. This particular week, we got ourselves a perfect score card. Morning rehearsals Monday through Friday followed by four days and four performances. Friday and Saturday at the aman, Sunday at the Polo grounds with Nicolas and finally Monday at Chandigarh. 

Sunday is worth mentioning because I got to do and see a lot of things I hadn’t seen and done before. For starters, I’d never been near a polo ground – leave alone watched a match. I now know the rules of polo – it’s like very-up market football. The funny thing is the teams switch goal sides every time some one scores – I don’t know why though. I imagine it can be disorienting if you’re having a spaced out day – but then I imagine people don’t day dream much on charging horses. Speaking of which, I got to see a lot of horses really up close – that’s something. They have really big eyes and I like that. The crowds that turn up for these things are well, pretty self-explanatorily, the crowds that turn up for these things. I did see a guy who looked like a very colour blind and pimped out Chick Corea. The actual playing time was somewhere around ten minutes. You could call the sound system awful – but that would presuppose the existence of a sound system. I basically got handed a 50-foot cable and was told to go stand on the field with Nicolas.

When we finally had to play – it became all about latency. I played one note and then I heard a flanger-overdriven-distorted sort of sound blare out of the speaker just about one or two seconds later. It was more than  a disaster. I played through the track we were doing but it really didn’t make any sense, after a while there was just no sound, so Nicolas played moreorless accompanied. It was a bit sad because there were quite few people who did huddle up around us to watch. I don’t think I’ve ever sounded worse in my life. Faulty cables. 

It’s strange because slowly all of my instincts are telling me to pack up and fuck off. I need to wash this all off. The bad-tones, the shaky playing, the masters with it’s uncanny ability to sneak up on me. It’s probably just cumulative ‘something’, but I feel like there’s a layer of dirt on my general perception and I’m begging for clarity. In any case, I’m grounded for the next two months or more, on account of playing and more so, because of the masters semester final exams which are coming up in a little under two and a half weeks.

Detergent anybody?

 

Up, Down (And if I'm in the mood) Maybe Round and Round.

I think the deal with studying Philosophy and pretty much any other non-technical subject, is that you ought to take it seriously, but never too seriously. Retrospectively speaking, when I was doing my bachelors, my premature understanding of the same idea, was something I was pretty kicked about. On one hand, I was genuinely interested and open to being affected by it. On the other hand though: I really tried my best, to keep from using it to fill a vacuum in my life – or the spaces that were the deficiencies of my personality. Think of it as the contrast between, “I study philosophy” and “I: study philosophy”. There was enough of the latter going around me.  Still is, actually. The only thing that’s probably changed now, is that I take most of the philosophy I’m exposed to as either for granted or as being uninteresting. I would place jazz at the centre of myself at times, but that too wearily as I don’t have that enlightened and intimate a connection with the art form (yet?) and the moments of it I may or may not experience are fleeting at best.

I figure if there are perceived spaces in your life, there’s really no point trying to fill them with things. People, places, arts whatever – its about coming to peace with the gap, or re-arranging yourself, till it’s not there.

I digress though. What I meant to bring up was something that’s been on my mind lately – and was further consolidated yesterday morning, when Nicolas used the same phrase and arrangement of words. He was talking about how he feels he needs to return to a healthier, more focused and concentrated lifestyle – and how circumstances at present are seemingly unconducive to the same.

More relevant: being the accompanying sensation that life is cyclical – and the best that one can really do (to a certain degree) is ride the wave with some amount of style and hopefully have it, if it’s a good one, last as long as it can or, hold it together – if it’s a not-so hot wave.

I don’t mean to sound fatalistic about the whole thing – it’s not that there’s no control. You can alleviate the symptoms and consolidate yourself – and when you get good at It – you can almost ignore the cycle, but there’s not much you can do to the cycle itself. There’s no forcing it in either direction. The reason why I brought up Philosophy at all, was because a lot of the Buddhism we studied talked about the cyclical nature of life – both in terms of practical every day material and in a larger overbearing metaphysical sense (though I am pulling this out of context just a little).

I think this was a big reason why Indian Philosophy got so popular and managed to find its way into the self-help and spirituality sections of Barnes and Noble & Borders and co. It’s very coping oriented. There’s just enough metaphysical abstract content to satiate the average western spiritually-starved mind; but yet enough practical how-to-deal content that just sounds like good advice.

How to navigate around every day muck: Negative thoughts, sensations of isolation, anger, temptation and so on. 

Returning to the idea of cyclical phases of life – what could one be talking about? Well generally the understanding that on the broadest level: there are positive phases and negative ones. More specifically, the breakdown can go on. Phases of exhaustion; of freshness; of optimism; of creativity; of self deprecation; of motivation; of demotivation and so on.

What’s on my mind, is just a little stranger though. For me, the question seems to present itself at the stage where you’re firm with your understanding and perception of life as being in cycles but you become too familiar and you just don’t feel like directly engaging with them any more (by virtue of the fact that they are cycles).

I understand living in the moment – and the family of accompanying one line gems like, “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey” – but sometimes, you just want to say, “Hey man, I’ve seen this movie before. I know how it goes”.

Not to rob life of it’s element of surprise – we all know chance can go out of it’s way to sideline you, when you’re just sitting around on that Tuesday afternoon, but in a more retracted sense – the motions can get pretty mundane (?). No matter how exciting the content of your experience is.

The only bailout here, really is just that though: experience. The idea that as an active and passive agent engaging in perception and undergoing change, in the cycles of life, you will experience – see, touch, taste, feel – things that give you the sensation of a fuller existence.

That’s the gamble I guess.

On lighter notes: I had something happen to me last night that probably best provides insight into the failing connection between the movies and real life. I was driving back home from the gig last night and it must’ve been round about 1am and as I took the turn for the house, there was this gorgeous but slightly scruffy and old retriever just standing on the corner of the road – looking very lost. It was a really cold and some what foggy night. You couldn’t see great – but as far as I could tell, it was on it’s own.

I thought about it for a second and stopped the car moreorless in the middle of the road and walked upto it. The dog was a real sweetheart and I played with it for atleast a minute - and then out of nowhere, this girl on her phone (with her mum about 10 yards behind her) pops up looking very worried – not for her dog, but more so by the creepy dog-napper/possible rapist who’d abandoned his car open in the middle of the road. I didn’t really bother saying much, since her mum was freaking out from behind those 10 yards (not that she herself was particularly keen on 1.15am conversation). So much for my serendipitous engagement. I was even dressed well. What do you know.

Hm. I’m playing jazz-duo with Nicolas during the break of a polo match in a couple of hours today. This is up at the Jaipur polo-ground, which happen to be in Delhi, but I’m still clueless as to it’s whereabouts. So I should spend sometime on Google earth figuring it out. Should be interesting.

Lets hope experience compensates.

On a smaller and more self-promotional note: Drift will start playing live jazz at Baci (in Sunder Nagar Market) as of the 18th of this month - which is a Thursday. As far as I know - we will be playing every thursday for the course of this month. The venue is a very warm cafe and the gig's will be fully acoustic and intimate. I hope and expect to see a lot of you there.