Engayging Life

The IPL has started. Their advertisements say that it will be Bharath Bandh for the whole 6 weeks of cricketainment. Although that seems a little far-fetched, IPL has definitely affected my life tremendously.

My evening life has come to a virtual standstill. The only thing that I want to do every evening is to come home and watch the game on the telly. I don’t want to go for rehearsals or even perform at gigs. As you can see, I’m updating my blog after a long gap of two weeks.

My online friends and family also have faced the consequences. Nowadays, I don’t want to chat with my Mom or my friends in the night when the game is on. Apart from the fact that I’ll be missing the action, I’ll be distracted by the match, and I consider it impolite to be distracted while having a one-on-one conversation.

And when it ends, it will leave a big vacuum in my life. I don’t know what to plug the vacuum with.

I might be a 31-year-old qualified surgeon in India. But I don’t practice surgery. Neither am I in a lucrative job – I work as an academic editor in Medicine and Biosciences, and the salary is about one fourth of what my cousins earn. And I live all by myself in Mumbai. This doesn’t augur well for my finances. I’m yet to await the final word regarding my appraisal this year and I fear that my hopes of moving into a better apartment are going to be stalled yet again.

My second profession – music – not only doesn’t bring me enough money but ends up making me spend money with regard to jams in rented jam rooms and dinner/drinking sessions after rehearsals. This has been especially true in the last two months or so. I need to probably opt out of these dinner/drinking sessions to save up some money or else I won’t be saving up any money!

Because of the various rehearsals and also because of the relatively hectic schedule at work, I have not been able to go to the gym regularly. My membership is due for renewal in April, which is around the time my apartment lease is going to expire. I guess I will have to stick to the same apartment for at least another year. The big burning question is – should I renew my gym membership? I guess I should as that’s the only investment on health that I’m making. I think I should cut out on partying and eating/drinking out as a compensation.

Music makes me happy. Very happy. That is the main reason why I’m on a sabbatical from surgery, pursuing a career in music which seems rather optimistic and utopian. There are occasions during which I get pleasantly reminded of the reason behind this sudden diversion in the career path. Live performances to a packed audience, a studio/recording session where everything seems to ‘click,’ a brilliant songwriting moment etc.

Rather more uncommon, however, is the goosebumps experience during a jam session with a band when you get everything right – when you can’t quite believe that the music that you are hearing is being performed by a bunch of people that includes yourself. When that happens, it’s like an orgasm with a loved one (I’m not talking about sex with a random person, mind you).

Yesterday, one such moment happened. It was with my new band Bad Influence. We were auditioning my friend Mik for the drummer’s slot. Mik and I are friends through our freelancing work with the band Pralay. On our menu was the song ‘Sober’ by Tool. It is a relatively difficult song for a drummer, which our previous drummer wasn’t quite able to ‘play.’ Mik arrived, played, and conquered! It sounded simply amazing!

When I left the jam room, I had a big fat smile on my face. Dear world, this is why I’m doing what I’m doing. :-)

I'm waiting once more at the jam room. But this time it is different is a different jam room. And it is a different band. In fact, it is the first jam of a newly formed band - a band that could very well prove to be what I have been looking forward to be in all my life.

I reached here much earlier than the time slot that we had booked, and I have some butterflies in my belly. I am trying to spend time listening to the songs that we are supposed to rehearse. But the expectancy is overwhelming. Could this prove to be a memorable day in my life? Let's sit and wait and watch!

(PS: Even though the drummer didn't turn up, we had a good jam session. We went out for drinks afterward and are calling ourselves Bad Influence!)

Today, at a college in the city, was my first gig with the new band ‘Flood’. I don’t know what happened but everything seemed to go wrong. From the moment we took the stage, to the moment we were almost ‘booed’ out by the crowd, it was a disaster. The only two people who were having fun in the entire arena seemed to be myself and our drummer. That was primarily because we were good at laughing at ourselves.

Technical issues like bad sound were one of the reasons, but we have to blame ourselves for the performance. We, as a band, aren’t good enough. Each of us might have had a lot of experience playing live music but we sucked tonight. I wasn’t surprised the result of it all considering how the rehearsals had gone. The only consolation to me was that I didn’t feel bad about playing with a pathetic sounding band. That’s a professional step forward.

The audience included my bass guitar student and the members of his band who had opened for us. When I asked them about their opinion, they were very polite in saying that it was ‘okay’ and stuff. The truth came out clear after our curtailed performance when the band which had won the ‘band competition’ came back and played a few tight numbers. The crowd was back – well, what was left of it after our performance - and were dancing!

For those who are musicians or aspiring musicians – here’s the bottom line. Never go to a gig without rehearsing. Even if you rehearse to perfection, things can go wrong in a gig. But if you don’t rehearse at all, there is a 100% chance that they WILL go wrong.