All along...

... the watchtower, Princes kept their view...

This is the only Bob Dylan song that I really trip to. Somehow along with the Beatles, the Who, Rolling Stones, Dylan is also around in the list of music that I haven't heard and more importantly don't listen to. With Bob, if he'd pardon the familiarity, it's his voice that drives me up the wall. He is a brilliant poet and a musician, granted. I've even liked Axl's screeching on Knocking on Heaven's door, surprised folks by knowing the lyrics of Times they are a'changing (Simon and Garfunkel version) and of course sworn by the Dave Matthews Band cover of All along the Watchtower (which with the violin and sax solos beats even Hendrix's, then again my take).

That version is what we successfully assasinated. Note to self: check new guitar strings for tuning after every song. And some men can growl, some can't. I lean to the right of that sentence. Don't feel like going on about how I'll miss bangalore (as opposed to how I want to do miss bangalore) and how I hate Delhi (though I'm guessing I'll want to do miss delhi too) so I'll leave you with this video. Be patient and wait till it gets to the chorus.

The bell...

... tolls for me. It turns out that whatever administrative issue AIIMS was having with it's Senior Resident posts has been sorted out and Dispatch has finally gotten around to matching the numbers with the faces and addresses. And if I take what certain well placed sources have had to say seriously, I came close to being a victim of Arjun Singh's vote bank politics. But since most stories have to be taken with appropriate condiments we'll leave it at that.
The downside of it all is that I have about 10 days left in Bangalore. Bengalooru. Whatever. That's not half as bad as I have 10 days before I reach Delhi. Which is scary. The goodbyes, the I'll miss you, this place and the beer and the music are again bad but what is wrenching the gut is the thought of dealing with a swarms of humanity that I've dissed as long as I remember. The good part however is that Neurosurgical Trauma involves people who to a large extent are incapable of speaking coherently. Either due to alcohol or due to the head injury due to the alcohol. Now if I were a less conscientious doctor I'd have figured it would be a good thing to leave them in a state where they can't talk and ruin my life. Instead I'm going to have to scan their brains and set them right. But this is something I've always wanted to do so I'll just not crib about the where.
Polyglyph had their first show, well attended by friends and family as most first shows are. We were as Mr. D has said thus. Here is a short preview. So if you like us and we have another show and you either get a mail or read about it here feel free to drop by. Of course considering I'm heading to higher latitudes that may not happen. Unless you like this so much that you want to sponsor another gig. Or get us to cut an album. I could give up cutting people for that. Or at least think about it. Anyway, enjoy.

Poly..who?

...glyph but that comes later.

So this morning when I finally woke from some nightmarish sleep largely due to the fact that I'd left my lights on and dozed off while in the pursuit of academic excellence, I found a huge milkberg floating in the milk that was to contribute significantly to my coffee. It's still trying to melt and boil so large parts of this post are pre-caffeinated. And thus may be excused.
So a few weeks of constant practice has finally resulted in Polyglyph. For those less inclined to use dictionaries or the Internet it means 'many symbols', I'm sure Sapru would have a lot to say about that but that again is what comments are for. Polyglyph is not a feeling, an emotion or a movement. It's a band. Plain and simple. Four of us got together reaffirming that the world and Bangalore are small places and decided to make music. And since my remaining in this wonderful city has recently come under the shadow of the future we're moving hell and high water to get a gig. And so we have and more about that later.
Currently the Four of us are
Srijayanth - The only one who really knows music. Like KNOWS. Like he'll listen to a chord and pronounce judgment on it's minority and ninth-ness, map a killer solo to the frets and strings or the keys without having touched them. And get bored if we stay on a 4/4 beat for too long. Listens to Jazz (not even mainstream), Blues (black, not white) and the Beatles. Plays lead guitar on a LesPaul custom and keys on a Yamaha PSR. And knows truckloads of carnatic and bollywood.
Anant - Techie, mensan, drummer and occasional rhythm guitar. Shouldn't sing to save any lives but will hit the wrong note unerringly if allowed. Listens to Progressive anything from early Genesis (I know that sounds weird but it's true) and Tull to some many bands that gave me nightmares when I left them playing and dozed off. And also the Beatles. He's the man with the rhythm as long as it's complex. The 'riddim' on the other hand is what he seeks.
Umesh - Quiet as all bassists usually are, Umesh has had years of association with TAAQ so he's going to play well. He was supposed to sing a song before he swallowed a frog so as of now he's playing away on the strings of a low frequency. He listens to the Beatles too.
Yours truly - Rhythm and vocals. Which is good sometimes, bad sometimes and has banshee times. I don't listen to the beatles... or pink floyd. I've been caught listening to hiphop and glam rock and nu-metal and almost every genre of music that most 'rockers' consider to low on an evolutionary scale.
So this is it. Polyglyph.
And we have a show of mostly covers and a couple of originals tomorrow (14th). Evening (around 7pm). At YACS. You can find directions here.
So come along, we're planning to have fun and we hope you will too or at least enjoy the coffee.
Hope to see you there.
Cheers.

Eventuality.

Ok here's a warning. This isn't a funny post. And today I'm not amused. Just Quiet.
Lost a grandparent this morning.
And it's been a grandparent losing week from what I hear.
Well to be fair, she wasn't someone I was close to, considering I used to meet her about once a year and in the recent past with even rarer frequency so I'm not devastated or anything. At the same time the morning was spent getting my dad a ticket to head to Vizag (as I'll always call it, along with Bombay, Madras, Calcutta and Bangalore) and then driving him through mind-numbing traffic trying to make the GoAir departure. And apparently that airline does exist and fly since he's reached.
Mind numbing traffic does do wonders. Completely blocks any semblance of thought and strangely can also be a time for quiet introspection and rationalization if looked at another way. Like sandpaper... can smoothen a rough surface and roughen a smooth. No, I just wanted to use that somewhere. But that isn't the point. The point is though I've learnt to deal with death in a clinically detached way at some point of time what it has taught me is to treat life with a reasonable amount of respect. The fact that life is ephemeral. That no amount of medical knowledge and surgical technique and bio-medical engineering can change that. That life will slip from one's grasp at a moment's notice.
And no one can do a thing about that.
All we can do is try with what we learn over the 12 odd years of structured medical education and that random classroom called medical practice.
But medicine and dealing with life and death is just one aspect of what's been running through my head. As I said this was a part of my family (reasonably close genetically at least) that I've lost and though this doesn't affect me as much as it would perhaps the people closer to her, what it does do is sharply pull the rug of comfort from under my feet.
The immortality complex that we develop along the course of our rather long education is something that cocoons all that are near and dear. We ostrich when we hear of their problems and refuse to acknowledge the fact that they grow old and a step closer to the end. Events like today's are sharp reminders of the inevitable and also augmenters of a helplessness that should be fought. For one's own sanity if not anything else.
So how does one wish that nothing goes wrong with the people one cares for knowing fully well that something will...
I need a stiff drink and some sleep. Night all.

2007

Now before I launch into some drama about my resolutions and how they've never made too much sense to anybody outside of my conscience here's an interesting story.
The Airbus A320 has enough fuel loaded onto it to do close to 3500km. And maybe more. So when my materfamilias got onto the plane that was to fly her from Bangalore to Delhi in these turbulent times, little did she realise what she was in for. It turns out that the plane took off more or less on time, flew the perquisite distance and then hit a solid wall of fog that had successfully blanketed the entire NCR and made even CAT III systems ineffective. So the A320 with all the luggage and passengers did a 180 and flew, not to Jaipur, Ahmedabad or Lucknow or even Bombay but all the way back to Bangalore. It is therefore a well laden flight that the Wright Brothers would be proud of. No wonder the damn thing gets hijacked and flown to Azerbaijan every once in a while.
Saddam was assassinated by the US. The TOI for the first time in many years had a really nice write up on that. Tragic the world is becoming.
To matters on a lighter vein, it's a new year. Like the many that happened in the past and like all those years it's a time for joyous revelry and looking back and looking forward and looking back again and crossing the road sideways.
And once the hangover abates it's time to take stock of all the goof ups and decide which ones were simply too embarrassing to repeat and which are funny enough to do maybe once more before they get boring. Hence the resolutions. Had a couple of people call me up and swear to go off alcohol, but that's a recurrent theme in their lives and more so at this time of the year. Partysmart apparently doesn't work as well as it claims. Then again the makers of that 'erb didn't think of times when the 1st of January would be a holiday.
So I resolve not to grin in an evil fashion every time an ambulance howls past. The truth is, sorry as I feel for whoever is in the van, I'm laughing at the plight of the poor sod who's going to be woken up at 2 AM. I've been there. It's not a good time. And in the event that I get where I want to I'm going to have to do a lot of that and considering what goes around comes around I'm guessing this would be a good time to stop that practice.
I also resolve to build up the courage to eat teetar tandoori that I found at a shop near home. It doesn't look like much meat but it's a scary meat. Which brings me to how any meat is ok as long as it's advertised as an acceptable animal. Meat of Obscure/Unknown Origin that masquerades as beef/mince under the flyover on KR Market is a classical example and incredibly tasty.
I'm going to try and be nice to people in order to buy myself a ticket to heaven considering my job saving lives isn't enough.
Will try to be tolerant towards the north.
Will also try to keep this blog going.
The other resolutions either don't deserve mention, can't be followed or are simply too bizarre to be broadcast on a public forum.
Yawl have a good year ahead.