Ho Ho Ho Ho

How's everyone doing? Me I'm not very fine thank you :-) Have been battling chronic cold and fever for almost a month now. Well, its actually like this: I contracted flu when I was in Delhi, then I had to go home without getting a proper rest so after about a week of over exertion at home I developed the same symptoms again. Then I had to rush back to Delhi without getting proper rest in order to make the concert on the 30th of oct. The final stage is when my allergic rhinitis was compounded by the smoke from the firecrackers on Diwali leading to an extremely hoarse voiced and congested chest one day before the concert!LOL. Quite a list of misfortunes really. But mind you the most important thing of all, to be specific my spirit, is quite intact and in fact brimming over with joy :-)

The trip home was both exhausting and refreshing! I dearly loved being with my family and I particularly enjoyed engaging in Tom Foolery with my two younger brothers! I am basically a boy who never grew up you see. Anyway being with my parents and family has given me a recharge of affection and dearness. My parents were in good health and my brothers were also up to the usual devilry. My family was in a nutshell well.

Well, now to the marriage, the main reason for my trip home. My dear friends Noel and Atokali were getting married and I was asked to sing at their wedding. The wedding itself was quite lovely and I enjoyed it thoroughly though I was disappointed on one account- No one caught my eye! LOL. However, there were certain observations I made that have rather put me off the idea of marriage. Firstly the typical Sumi marriage is long drawn and exhaustive to say the least. All the preparations and weeks of organizing seems rather unnecessary to me. Secondly I realized that I love my private space too much and while it may not be impossible I have not met a woman who is able to balance intimacy with individuality. Maybe I have simply not gotten around much. Finally I am unable to comprehend being able to love someone, a human being with imperfections I may add, unflinchingly for an entire lifetime. Last night I was watching a documentary on Jonathan Swift, the writer of the cult favorite " Gulliver's Travels'. What the critics agreed on without exception was that while he was an idealist he was rather disillusioned with human beings as a race. I saw traces of myself in him. So unless my circumstances change or my personality morphs I'm quite happy being single and free to silently observe.

Finally the concert. It rocked! But my performance sucked big time! LOL. I was actually not about to sing at all but being the host band I had to force two songs outta my poor throat and that as you might expect was quite the spectacle :-) Anyway I am not one of those singres who believe in a spotless performance every time; on the contrary I enjoy the music too much to be pre occupied with perfection.

That was quite along post no? But I had to compensate for the long gap :-) Here's wishing you all a great weekend. BTW I can already feel christmas in the air and my Ipod is crammed with Christmas songs already! Ciao!

Thought for the day

"If you are not working to either enhance your experience here on earth or making headway for your afterlife everything else really does seem futile"

      Huthuka Chishi

HENRI CARTIER BRESSON

  Hey folks! Hope everyone's doing just fine. Its been pretty hectic lately for a lot of reasons but it involves music and that's one subject that I can virtually never overdose on :-) Anyway I want to share something very interesting with you peeps.

                  Having always been fascinated with the creative arts, and also having dabbled in this particular medium in the past, it was a natural progression of things through which I retrenched myself in it again. I am referring to photography of course. It was always the awe of being able to transfix time onto a sheet of paper, but over time many other aspects of photography came to fascinate me.

               The similies between painting and photography is one area that particularly interests me; I'm constantly trying to either relate or disengage them. The most important similie between them is my conviction that the viewfinder of the camera translates into the canvas of a painter, while the image in the viewfinder translates into the colors of the painter's pallette. How the medium and the means translate into the final product is ultimately left to the weilder's art and skill.

                   If photography is then really akin to painting, in my opinion the Caravaggio of photography is Henri cartier Bresson, one of the pioneers of MAGNUM the premiere photgraphy agency. I have my reasons for thinking so. I  am also a huge fan of Ansel Adams, Jeanloup Sieff, Araki and Leibovitz but for some arcane reason I am more drawn to HCB. Maybe its because I share his same penchant, or rather the belief, that the real without any pre-planning is the most honest. For instance he believes in something he calls the 'definitive moment' that every object or person possesses; the photographer's role being to be observant enough to notice that moment and capture it for posterity and art's sake. 

                  What also fascinates me about him is that he is not only a photographer but a true romantic. I am convinced that every romantic is also a philosopher in certain ways and Henri Cartier Bresson is truly a philosopher. His images speak more than any amount of words.  If you'd like to get a steady foothold in the world of photography look this giant of a person up. Youtube has some very interesting videos on him. I can assure you that you'll not be disappointed. 

               Here's wishing you a beautiful weekend. Be blessed Y'all.

Note: The picture above was shot by Henri cartier Bresson in Srinagar. And also as a side note HCB died in 2007.

MY MIDNIGHT SNACK

Today I just have this desire to write about something silly and just because I can I will! LOL. I am nocturnal in a very literal sense of the word. Having no classes to attend or office to report to ( hopefully not for very long...) I have the luxury of deciding when I wake up and when I go to sleep. And so I find myself gradually turning into a creature of the night, not that I am complaining- I love the night. Whatever, I want to tell you about the one thing that punctuates my nights unfailingly: My midnight snack.

I usually watch a movie or am on Youtube watching everything from the hilariously horny puppy( humping furiously at its owners legs I may add) to the beautiful pictures taken by Henri Cartier Bresson. And the perfect accompaniment to my escapades is a yummy bowl of noodles with a whole swamp of tomato sauce splattered on it. And to top it off the cursory glass of milk follows; did I mention that I love milk too?

So here is how I prepare the noodles. My noodle of choice is 'Top Ramen'. I like it because it is instantaneous but not pukeish smelling like some other varieties. This is how I usually prepare it;
First goes some carrots into the dish, then a small piece of ginger, a clove of garlic, one green chilly, half a tomato, half an onion, a stalk of spring onion, diced french beans and coriander whenever its lying around. The way to prepare it is super simple. Put all the ingredients into a dish; next pour in 1 and a half cups of water; bring it to boil now; add the noodles and let it boil for a minute; finally put in the seasoning and bring it down after two minutes. And there you have it- yummy noodles that will do any Michelin starred restaurant proud... well, at least in my book! And then after I have had an almost mystical experience the glass of skimmed milk follows like the proverbial icing on the cake.

Thats how my nights go but occasionally the odd toast with cheese replaces the noodles. If and when I start working( which I will eventually have to do despite my strongest aversion to it) I will miss these nightly crimes more than anything else. Its simply a matter of habit like they say... I'll post a picture of this delectable concoction ASAP for your unabashed admiration. Till I do that let these words drive you to a state of salivation!

CASABLANCA AND OTHER CLASSICS

Just a few months ago I considered myself an avant garde connoisseur of movies. I liked to think that I distinguished myself through my taste in movies( read Kurosawa, Ray...etc) but my pretensions were quickly dissipated by a chance encounter with an entirely new genre of movies- the early classics.

What happened is this in a nutshell. A very bored chap, nothing to do but surf the internet, an idea strikes him, why not look for a list of some great movies, and Voila! what else but 'Casablanca' appears like the proverbial mother lode!

At first I was a little disinterested; I did not give enough credit to the movie making abilities of those old chaps. But I watched it anyway and boy! did I dig it! Those people knew how to entertain for sure, but what was more fascinating was the entire stylistic and thematic treatment of the movie.

The legendary Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman played the lead with a very convincing supporting role being eschewed by Paul Henreid. And how can one forget the delightful Tom Foolery of Dooley Wilson as Sam, the confidant and accomplice of the lead hero Rick. One gets the feeling that a lot of thinking went into the assemblage of the entire cast, and testifying to it's success is the incredible way in which everything comes together! At the end I was as equally enamored with the characters as with the plot and the era itself. I always hate to be the spoil sport so beyond this I'll not give anything away.

My encounter with the classics hardly stops there. I went on to watch classic westerns like 'The red river', 'High plains drifter' starring the inimitable and Macho Clint Eastwood, 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre' and others. But the one I enjoyed the most definitely was 'High Noon' starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly: the mastery of the director Fred Zinnemann is something to be savored rather than described. I'll just second what one critic says about the movie- not a single frame is wasted!

After watching all these great movies I now realize that the movies are one field where people with pretensions of refinement and snootiness, like I was and still am but to a lesser degree, do not belong. They just cannot enjoy movies at all because they are constantly measuring one against the other. The truth is that it is an entire panaroma of sights, sounds and ideas that has to be viewed from different vantage points to be properly grasped. The primary intent of movies after all was, is, and will always be to entertain.

WHEN YOU BELIEVE (MULTI LINGUAL)

One of the most touching things happened to me as I watched and listened to the song 'When you believe' from the movie 'The prince of Egypt'. Sure, I had heard it many times before but this time I heard the song in a multi lingual format. And for some strange reason my heart filled up with something that can only be called compassionate pity and tears began streaming down my face. Hearing the beautiful song rendered in diverse languages made me feel that we are all one and the same, just trying to make sense of a life that is more pain than joy. The truth is really so simple, so simple indeed that children of every tribe and tongue in the world know it- We are all one. I cannot express in words and letters what is so very elemental and instinctive. I can only recommend the song to you: listen to it and feel the whole of humanity unite in one desperate and seeking body.

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=OIHkI3lU8cI

FOOD AND LETTERS

Been a long time since my last post but I was busy with my undisputed first love- music. Which again is very subjective because it comes only after family and God, but then again aren't we all complicated sons of bi***es?!LOL. OK, anyway like I was saying it's been too long and I thought that I better get scribbling or I be outta practice and all rusty. So here I am to give you my two cents worth.

There is something called ritual, and no matter how primitive that sounds on closer examination we all have our own rituals. One weekly ritual of mine involves Sundays and the newspaper supplement that comes with the Hindustan Times- BRUNCH. There is a particular column in it by a certain gentleman named Vir Sanghvi that has become my 'quantum of solace'! It concerns one of my most favorite subjects, food. Oh yeah! and what foods this chap writes about- truffles, caviar, Kobe, smoked salmon, free range eggs... the whole friggin hundred yards if I may say so.

He has his own style of putting across his views,it being decidedly high brow and more than a little snob. For instance he loves to poke fun at the very fake pretensions of the new rich who make huge blunders with their food choices; some of them think that caviar is actually shark eggs! According to Mr. Vir Sanghvi the source of the food and the process that goes into making it is as important as the final version that lands on expensive china plates in the Ritzs and Carltons. And I heartily agree on that, me fancying myself as a son of the soil and what not.

However just as one starts to think that he is incorrigibly snobbish, he turns around and kicks the same high society snobbery square on the nose. And how he does it! He will mercilessly taunt the most expensive places about their 'shitty fare' and then in the next paragraph wax eloquent on the heavenly flavors that one can find at the roadside stalls in Cambodia! Simply masterful the way he transcends classes and flouts norms. The man is also very opinionated and, I suspect,more than a little narcissistic. But that makes reading his columns all the more interesting!

Someone once pointed out to me that all the major decisions of the world most probably involved food in one way or the other. And after careful consideration I have to agree, and also say that the person who said 'The way to a man's heart is through his stomach' knew what he was talking about. With one slight reservation, why leave the women out? Ciao!