Walk, trek and two dozen poops

For the more sagacious readers of this post, I suggest this is a good place to stop reading, as the quality of language/thoughts is only going to go down-hill from here. Now that you've decided to read-on, here it goes the filth.

One of the few destinations that truly warrant a re-visit at an opportune time is the Himachal Pradesh mountainous terrain. And I wasn't the one to let-go such a chance, and that too with the company I had! With a slightly growing tummy, and heavily under-exercised physique, what can go wrong on a trek in sub-zero temperatures through the Himalayas!? With such positive attitude started off my travel, with the first pit-stop in Delhi. How could one miss out of the parathas of the Chandni Chowk! For the more discerning readers, ghee fried parathas right before a travel mightn't be the greatest idea ever.

The road-way to Mandi (Manali too) is far worse from my recollections of that place. After what might one describe as a churning, not emotional, mind you, car ride there, we were a few hours too late to take a full uphill trek to Parashar lake. With the temperatures dropping to near zero, and an unruly gang of start-uppers joining us, we decided that a slightly shorter version was much more appropriate and thus started off. With truly beautiful views on either sides of the trail, we trod leisurely as conversations grew into rants, and into general silence.

One truly breath-taking view taken by a potato. Yes, I'm referring to the photographer. 

Parashar lake is sandwiched between astounding views of the Pirpanjal, Dhauladhar on one side, and a tent with a hole in the floor that one had to excrete into. While the make-shift arrangement feels lacking in every sense possible, it didn't dampen our moods and we started off an unnecessarily aggressive game of monopoly (yes, we are very hardcore). 

The next morning, post a despicable breakfast of aloo parathas (again!), we started off on the downhill trek that was truly enjoyable. Reaching Mandi sometime in the afternoon, we started off to Manali for the second leg of our sauntering. I had several deep conversations with myself, with half of them ending with my guts screaming back at me, "Stop feeding me every piece of food you think looks good".  I've, at times, a feeling that Louis CK is reading my inner monologue (sans the general misconduct). Good times.

I recollect my previous trip to the Solang valley which was in ~5C, being bogged with sudden rains, for which I was thoroughly underprepared. This time was better in that aspect, as we were unprepared for a 2 hour traffic jam for a 13K distance. That evening was when the fun started and the third part of the title actually came true, as we celebrated the birthday of my friend there. Luckily, no mishaps. 

Post a quick visit to the emergency ward of a very quaint hospital in Manali, I was ready and kicking to go to Delhi again, thus concluding a very eventful trip. 

Happy New Year, folks!

Hipsters and horror movies

The last telegram by Indian Posts was sent about a month ago. There were massive articles filled with nostalgia by octogenarians and septuagenarians who had worked their entire lives in the telegraph office and the event of receiving one at their homes was of some significance, either positive or negative. Then I saw something really idio(syncra)tic. This was an actual article in some newspaper featuring the photographs of 20 somethings queued up to send a telegram on the last day of its operation. I was absolutely flabbergasted to see generations that have never used that service feeling nostalgic about it. Is it even plausible to understand the significance of something that has never played any role in their lives? Is it the era of intellectual hipsters? Do bloggers who do nothing but non-linearly rant also fall under the same umbrella? Jeez..

Every now and then I listen to some music on youtube, usually Indian classical. Often I commit the mistake of reading the comments. For the naive of the readers, there is a vast change in the paradigm of song and music rendition between the previous generation and the current. Here I'm using the term generation rather loosely with it meaning something on the lines of decades of their prime than anything else. So there is always this comment(s) that extols the virtues of the previous generation's musicians and calling the current generation artists hogwash. Unfortunately, feeding to my rage, these commenters also fall into the bracket of younger generation who have never heard the artists of the yesteryear in their prime. They could have only heard of them performances well into their 70s-80s, due to the lack of technological advancements before that. The only accounts of the artists in their young prime were probably passed down as fairy tales by their grandmothers. Some blogger writes about those artists from a modern day view point. I'm quoting from that blog. 

KVN showed me how you can create boring monotony by rendering almost all the rendition in the same vilambita kaalapramaanam, which lacked grip, tempo & excitement.

SSI showed me what having a good voice meant to the listener with his rather rough and unconditioned voice and also how raaga aalapana akaarams make or break the soothing effect it is supposed to provide (ex: instead of the usual na, tha dha ri na... he had a rather annoying "nghya nghya...")

MDR showed me, much like KVN, singing slow is not always the way to go as almost all his renditions were like a tortoise race. He had biological reasons why he had a 1/2 kattai shruthi but then will you accept it in a sports form if the athlete had a disability which makes him less capable than some one else?

MSS showed me that music without vyavahaaram is like coffee without sugar. It was like sitting in a plane that will never take off. And also how much on stage creativity adds value to a concert by demonstrating the lack of it!

GNB  showed me that it can be terribly annoying to race through all compositions at 100mph! Also when you sing brighas at machine tempo, your shruthi could go for a six.

Horror movies are one such kind whose success depends on doing the exact opposite of something that the other kinds of movies aspire to do. I recently watched a movie called 'The Conjuring' that is supposedly based on some real incidents investigated by the Warrens. Personally I thought it was a good subtle mix of two eras of horror movies. Coming back, as I walk into the theater I could hear a bunch of people saying that they weren't scared of horror flicks. Sure, if your last horror flick was the great art-pukedom of Phoonk. And then there are the girls in the theater, who kept providing me with the much needed background score for the movie. No, literally, background. They were sitting behind me and were producing sounds that I last heard in some Japanese tentacle art flick. And then there are the Ebert reincarnates whose reviews came out as the movie came out. There was almost a small betting racket on how the protagonist was going to be haunted. Then there was group that was planning to leave and decided to have one of those screaming contests to have their opinion passed onto the next person on when they had to leave. I guess, I should clarify at this instant, you know, for 'political correctness' that my issue is not how people perceive the movie but how their reaction to the perception dominates my movie watching experience more than the movie itself.

Let the hatred flow.

My plight at concerts

I'm no learned musician but I do have some affinity to Carnatic music. I do listen to it every now and then and enjoy it enough to attend concerts on a regular basis. I'll rant about a lot of things that I've noticed about the concerts, my escapades prior to and post the concert and during it too!

I've been to two major kinds of concerts:

a. concerts organized by some corporate event management company or something that goes on the lines of 'keeping India's great traditions alive'. These events cost a lot to attend, sometimes more than what I can afford. These usually aren't centered around one central performer and in the recent past have started the absurd fusion ideas with the pretense of cultures coming together. No, a jazz clarinetist cannot team up with carnatic violinist and make some meaningful music together, impromptu. I've seen instances when one of them keeps feeling left out because he has no clue of what the other guy is doing. There is nothing cool about two very different forms coming together with the artists never jamming together. They don't even know what the other guy's sound is! Now to the people who attend these events. I've been to 3 of these and they have always been sold out. And they have been pretty big venues. I've seen people there who think BSB is still awesome or think Pritam's Punjabi rip-offs are the greatest music after Green Day. Is it feigning the social acceptance or is it the so-called 'high society' where people eat one piece of chicken kabab topped with 4 onion shoots in a perpendicular fashion? The amount of arrogance in this crowd is absolutely astounding. This arrogance, sometimes, permeates into racism/regionalism. It is music; people should come there to listen to it, not to socialize and act prude.

b. concerts organized by some cultural association. These, in my opinion, are the real Carnatic concerts. This form of music is mostly improvisational. So, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that they have to be long enough for the essence of the form to seep into the audience. (Yup! That is a real thing!) That is usually about 2.5-3 hours. Unfortunately, these are really sparse populated. They charge nothing to very little for the entry and I think they can barely recover the operating costs. Hence there is no superfluous advertising in the local editions of the news papers. These are the ones that I truly enjoy going to. 

I used to tell a few people about the concerts I intend to attend with a hope that I can, in my small way, support the art-form I believe in. And sometimes I do enjoy their company. Sometimes it has turned out to be a fucking mistake. Well, this is the part which pisses me off. Why the hell do people think people can change my bloody plans to go to an event that I told them about? No, they've never driven in this city before. No, they haven't taken the sodded public transport at that time of the day. Ergo they have no clue how long it takes to get there. No, if they have not heard this before, these people don't have anything so damn important thing that will prop up 5 minutes before the scheduled start. No, I don't care about the paranoid girlfriend/boyfriend who misses them then. I can share their concerns but not paranoia. Goddamn, how the hell do these people manage to piss me off 2 minutes before something important? That is not a rhetorical question, albeit a real one for which I'm expecting a real answer to.

Now to the rant about the conditions in the auditorium. It is a very serene setting; all pervading calmness with some genius spinning out his web of music around. And then there is one damned snotty, constipated devil's incarnate kid who starts crying, causing the much needed distraction for the hundred other people in the gathering. A one year old baby who has to be fed god-knows-how-many-times a day, shouldn't be tagged along to the concert. Oh! People with kids have the right to enjoy the music too?! Too bad, I want to slap them right across the face. But I'm not going to. So why can't a consensus be reached that people don't bring their kids and I DON'T FUCKING LOSE IT. Then there are people whose phones don't have the much needed functionality of the silent mode. Garnishing that, is the awesome cringe-causing ringtone that everyone at the gathering noticed before it even started ringing. But the caller has to be ascertained before pressing the silent button. Nope, the call has to be attended to right then, right there to definitely discuss the dinner plans or the rate of steel in the market. Because, they must be so volatile compared to the music going here, right? And then there are the spontaneous music critics who decide that the best time to critique the concert and the music is while it is going on. Our comments on the music are not as insightful as the music itself. I'm not going to talk about the kinds of rasikas, as they are called, but going to post a video with the great BMK explaining the various kinds with a very funny undertone.

Please, there are some of us who value certain things. I'm not judging your priorities and expect you to not judge mine. Some of us don't have the awesome lives that others have. In some cases it is even a massive suck-fest and the only respite is events like these. Don't spoil it for the rest of us there. And sometimes some nice things happen too!

Only the lonely

The great Stephen Fry wrote an eponymous (to the title of this post) post on his blog a few days ago and I found some parts of it really intriguing. I've linked the blog post but I thought I could reproduce some parts of it.

Lonely? I get invitation cards through the post almost every day. I shall be in the Royal Box at Wimbledon and I have serious and generous offers from friends asking me to join them in the South of France, Italy, Sicily, South Africa, British Columbia and America this summer. I have two months to start a book before I go off to Broadway for a run of Twelfth Night there.

I can read back that last sentence and see that, bipolar or not, if I’m under treatment and not actually depressed, what the fuck right do I have to be lonely, unhappy or forlorn? I don’t have the right. But there again I don’t have the right not to have those feelings. Feelings are not something to which one does or does not have rights.

In the end loneliness is the most terrible and contradictory of my problems. I hate having only myself to come home to. If I have a book to write, it’s fine. I’m up so early in the morning that even I pop out for an early supper I am happy to go straight to bed, eager to be up and writing at dawn the next day. But otherwise…

It’s not that I want a sexual partner, a long-term partner, someone to share a bed and a snuggle on the sofa with – although perhaps I do and in the past I have had and it has been joyful. But the fact is I value my privacy too. It’s a lose-lose matter. I don’t want to be alone, but I want to be left alone. Perhaps this is just a form of narcissism, vanity, over-demanding entitlement – give it whatever derogatory term you think it deserves. I don’t know the answer.

I suppose I just don’t like my own company very much. Which is odd, given how many times people very kindly tell me that they’d put me on their ideal dinner party guest-list. I do think I can usually be relied upon to be good company when I’m out and about and sitting round a table chatting, being silly, sharing jokes and stories and bringing shy people out of their shells.

But then I get home and I’m all alone again.

 Talking about his bi-polar disorder, he made two-part television documentary that features several celebrities with that disorder. It is uploaded on youtube. I'll provide those links here.

Ciao!!

Why I think music is the only art form I enjoy

I agree that the title might be infuriating or even offending because of the mildly bold statement. I should clarify, right at the outset, that I'm only talking about the famous three art-forms i.e., music, dance and painting, disregarding the rest of the 60-odd art forms. I know nothing about them, nor do I claim mastery in any of these. I'm simply a silent spectator of the musings of various artists and fartists alike. I'm just de-abstracting my impressions of these. That, I hope, qualifies me to rant. That and having a blog of my own.

Music, to me, is as simple as a succession of pleasing sounds. I might have to add that each individual sound needn't be pleasing at all. The notes on the higher octave of a violin are nearly as grating to the  auditory system as an old printer trying to burn some ink onto a paper.  It is in this sequence that the beauty lies. This idea is shared in the form of a raaga, which is a set of rules on the sequences of the notes and not the notes themselves. This, to me, seems to be the only art form which requires no prior knowledge of it, though a basic understanding can only enhance the euphoria it might create, in a sense that there is a better cognizance of what is to be paid more attention to.

I've been forced to attend the dance programs of various famous artists by parents and friends. Dance, to me, is a representation or portrayal of a scene. It is not an abstract set of attractive limb convulsions. The scene being described should be subjective to the perspective of the dancer. Thus a perfectly reasonable assumption that the same song or setting can be danced to in several ways. An inverse mapping on this leads to the condition that, the movements have to be understood to understand what the happenings are. This does sound like domain knowledge to me. This seems to be main reason for me to losing interest in that field.

Painting! Oh god! Someone please explicate (ELI5) what the hell happened to painting after the 19^th century. No, seriously. That is not a rant, albeit a genuine question. I don't seem to understand what the mopping of colors onto canvas that usually results in a pukish looking montage of various shades of semi-random colors is supposed to mean or show.

Again, let the hatred flow!

Photos?!

Photos, to me, always tell a story. I cannot fathom a abstraction on that. I cannot bottom the idea of photograph causing a paroxysm unless it is personal or it is picture of a scantily clad Emma Watson. So it is not too tough to construe the vexation when I see photographs of an old geezer sitting in a hut in monochrome or of power cables with raindrops on them. I actually doubt if the old man was stalked till he came into that pose. The hue and saturation on them can be molested with a fancy software and a watermark of the photographers name can be put on it, but it is still shit. 

The number of amateur (read noob) "photographers" with their fancy DSLRs, the settings of which they have no damned clue of, has risen exponentially in the recent past. Right! That directly entitles you to a Facebook page called Noob-ass' tryst with Photography with pictures of scenes that would make you cringe the Nickelback fandom out of you. I know one of you is thinking "Don't like those pages on Facebook and save us this non-linear chaotic rant". My blog, my rant. 

Every visit to a mall of mine results in me being the photographer of some gang of friends whose occasion to get that snap taken is the once-a-aeon occasion of it being a boring Sunday evening. The worst are the self-portraits in bathrooms. Some meme with Neil Armstrong's photo captioned "went to the moon, took 5 pictures", juxtaposed with a pouting girl with the caption "went to bathroom, took 37 pictures", puts it very succinctly. 
The final shot after the get-together is the only one I can tolerate and probably like, not the million preceding and succeeding it. With the advent of the digital camera and the smart-phone has destroyed our sense of occasion and importance. What is the point of these photos if even the photographer doesn't bother to glance at these a day after these photos are copied onto his computer? 

Unfortunately, a similar rant can be made about the exponential rise of useless blogs on the net too! Geez! Let the hatred flow!

The Braver, Newer world of ours

In a recent thread on reddit about how the perceived changes in the world after serving a long sentence in a penitentiary, a person wrote

14 years here. It's not so much the changes as it is your view of and insight into human behavior. You can see human behavior with such clarity, having learned to read people for survival.

Having said that, the most shocking thing I experienced was people's unwillingness to look at themselves and refusal to look at reality. People out here have the luxury of building constructs that permit themselves to evade critical analysis of their own lives and failures. They refuse to accept government oppression for what it is, finding solace in television and other alternate forms of reality. It is very matrix-like out here.

The direction of that discourse was obvious in taking a Orwellian vs Huxleyan debate, to which someone else posted a comic that very succinctly compared the both and ended with a prevision that Huxley is probably right.