Bunch of pussies

The Indian cricket team, for the most part, has never failed to embarrass me. But the latest whining about on-field sledging by the Aussies, is now driving me to new depths of being shamefaced. Are our Indians a bunch of pussies? Needless to say, the game of cricket itself is in danger of being reduced to a farce with no space for sportsmanship on the field. And sportsmanship as I understand it is abusing each other on the field and having a beer afterwards. The key of course is to be on the winning side. Then little else matters.

Rambling on

Sometimes the hardest thing for me is to write 99 words. The world weighs on my shoulders, my intestines seem cramped, my heart feels weary, my head is in the sand, my job seems pointless, my family seems fed-up, my finances seem forlorn, my friends seem distant… enough with the alliteration already; but you get the point.
I’m always wary when I reach the point where going out and getting wasted seems pointless. Then one knows one is in serious trouble.
Alas, this too shall pass and another day shall dawn, time’s eternal clock ticking on my sorry ass.

Santana and his amazing band

If you were there for Smooth, then the Shaman served it up tight and loud, singers Andy Vargas and Tony Lindsay, leaving no one wishing Rob Thomas was needed.
If you were there to relive the soundtrack to your youth, then Oye Como Va and Black Magic Woman were performed, percussions and bass driving these classics into a fresh frenzy. Keyboardist Chester Thompson, along with trombone and saxophone left nothing wanting on the Latin funk front.
If you were there for Santana the guitarist, then no matter what the song, scorching guitar-playing or subtlety of form, you were satiated.

Santana - II

For Dubai, where hype and hoopla are sometimes the main event, Santana’s performance was a lesson in ‘the real thing.’
No gimmicks, no costume changes, no gyrating dancers, and just when you thought it was as good as it got, the drummer Dennis Chambers unleased his amazing prowess on the crowd. Chambers put on the best solo drum exhibitions I have ever seen.
Santana looked old and at times frail on stage. He spoke little and when he did, it was with an aura of mysticism. He truly makes it really hard not to like him or his music.

Santana - I

Carlos Santana is one of those 'legends' who it is politically correct to like. So, everytime the man (who took hard rock, tinged with jazz, sprinkled it with blues and threw it into the Latino pot of beats), took off on one of his scorching licks at a concert last Friday, I turned around to scan faces from among the 10,000-odd fans who had turned up to see the man in the flesh. More often than not I saw political correctness rather than true appreciation of a guitarist who could make anybody's top 10 list of all-time guitar greats.

Card sharp

At a recent card game, of which if you follow me you would know I’m an aficionado, I heard the words I’ve been dying to hear for some time. They were words that, after years of playing finally gave me my own identity as a player. In card circles, it goes like this: your just a dumb ass losing money, until you show a certain method to your madness that deserves a definition of its own. After that, it is all word of mouth. Mine is now: whether he has crap or great cards he plays the same way.

Svengali's first law

I’m coming up with my own list of life laws to match Murphy’s Laws. Mostly they have to do with my life in a metro, like Dubai. In my delightful hometown of Pune, there was no need for laws. Not Murphy’s or any other kind. But now its life in a metro and the first of Svengali’s laws for the Gulf has to do with traffic, the veracity of which I’ve been following for some time now.
And the law is: In a traffic jam, no matter which lane you switch too, that lane will be the slowest moving.

Unforgiveable

How one’s sanity, peace of mind and joy come to rest at the mercy of eleven players on a field has always mystified me. Especially, because the man in question, is me. It’s always been the closest I’ve come to depression, when my team loses. Strangely enough my teams generally manage to depress me. So selectively, I’ve started becoming emotionally detached. Beginning with the Indian cricket team, then the England national football team, and now I fear Manchester United is going to need some separation from my heart. Losing to a team coached by Sven Goran Eriksson is unforgiveable.

No way!

Star World yesterday recapped the 20 best Grammy moments over the last 50 years. It was a mesmerising show for me, because I love music so much. That apart, there were some performances that left me breathless – Aretha Franklin stepping in for Luciano Pavarotti and singing an opera piece; Neil Diamond and Barbara Streisand doing an impromptu duet and of course Michael Jackson. However, talk about an anti-climax, if ever there was one. Obviously this was an online poll, and obviously only in America. No 1 Grammy moment voted was Green Day’s performance of American Idiot. No way!

Zikhar ke jiye, koi masla nahin…

I can speak Marathi well enough to escape an attack from Raj Thackeray’s boys if they ever decided to throw out suave, handsome, witty, intelligent good-for-nothings from Pune; where I believe, for some surreal reason, I still reside. But my Hindi, was often more Bambiya then the pure North Indian version. That’s changing now, because I actually live in the UAE and there are a fair number of Pakistanis, Afghanis and Bangladeshis here, who all speak Urdu.
So by default, my Hindi is purer. Words like zain, zikhar, murtaba, takaluf, masla are all creeping into my vocabulary. Fancy that!

Brand India

One of the quirks of life in the UAE is that everything is branded, and aggressively. One of the stranger aspects of branding here, especially in the healthcare industry, is that it is country based. From small clinics to major hospitals, qualifications, dressed in a nation, scream very loudly. Always Western. So you have the Canadian Hospital, American Hospital, the British Hospital and even the Alabama Dentist Clinic. What you will not find is the Indian Hospital. The Indian hospitals are here, and they are damn good, it’s just that in a racist society India does not brand well.

Scary wind

Somebody needs to tell the wind that the UAE is no more a desert. It’s a conglomerate of high-rises. The wind blows like a true desert gale here. I’ve experienced winds that blow rain in sheets, carpet bombing anyone in its way. I’ve not experienced the winds that turn snow into a sleet attack. But, now I’ve experienced the desert wind. And it’s scary as hell. Primarily because there is no accompaniment – rain or snow, or sand even. Just wind that can blow you into oblivion. The wind has been howling for three days now. And it’s scary.

A Pity

You can’t make a wise crack about Zakir Hussain and leave it at that. The ustad, as he is fittingly titled, has left an indelible impression on the world of music in general and World Music in particular. I’m not sure about the Indian classical tradition, though. I don’t know much about that. However, I’ve stalked Zak over the past five years, and have watched him metamorphose from a performer into a facilitator. Frankly, I haven’t actually seen a show that has been purely about him. Which means I missed the years of Zak the tabla player. A pity.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

If multiple orgasms is your thing, then Zakir Hussain is your pimp. He no more just plays tabla. Instead, he conducts this orgy of sound that leaves the listener exhausted, as musicians from across the world join him on stage for a series of mini-climaxes, before it all comes together for the big one.
Consider the performers at a concert I attended last Friday and you will see why my metaphor is not a tease.
Zakir (tabla), Selva Ganesh (kanjira), Niladhari Kumar (sitar), Taufiq Qureshi (percussions), Vinnie Colaiuta (drummer… for Zappa), Bela Fleck (banjo) and Edgar Meyer (double bass).