Holy Shark Repellent Batspray Batman!

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

Bean me up!

-Within the first five minutes of my auto voyage into Bangalore, as a settler, I was stalled at an endless traffic jam. The driver of the car beside me took out a tiffin box and shoveled spoonfuls of upma into his mouth. An over-full drain relentlessly spilled out its contents on the other side of the road
-Ten hours later,I went out into the market to get myself the essential settler’s kit of mattress-bucket-mug-pillow. I thought I would be the only one looking for stuff like that…I spotted at least five more. Every day I spot at least one person on the street with a tub/bucket/mattress

-My home is right next to a mall. It takes me five minutes to cross the 10 m wide road
over to the mall (any given day, any given time)

-You can find Harry Potter, The World is Flat and The Google Story with every road side vendor selling pirated literature

-You pay 10 months advance on your house-rent, no matter what the degree of resemblance the apartment might share with a rat-hole

-The probability of you spotting a ‘pirated DVD” platform vendor is one ( anywhere you go)

-In Bangalore you have 15 options for Italian food, 5 for Greek, 10 for “Mediterranean”…Plus some 20 for “Boutique”, 10 for “Fusion”…

-Many auto drivers are of the prototype “the Lone Ranger”- they would rather explore this wide world on their own. Some are enlightened-many self-actualized

-Everyone knows what a Sangria is and also where the next party (serving free flavored vodka shots to the women) is happening

-The first time I visited Bangalore alone I was in love. That was almost ten years ago

Death of a Salesman

Revisiting works I read as an adolescent seems to be taking up most of my 'book time' these days, but the returns are always rewarding.
When I first read the play I must have been 18...I found it very sad and I couldn't stop wondering why someone would be so full of angst that he hasn't made much money (those were the days of lost ideals you see...)

I am not sure how many of my friends at college (where I was at 18) understood it either, where it was even staged as a semester-play ( in Hindi as "Ek Sapney ki Maut"?)... Somebody must have I guess, if they were moved enough to stage an almost professional version of the play... but the chap who played Biff Loman went on to become a MBA in real life...

Now I read it as a Salesman myself...

The portrait of the Salesman as a man who has believed his own advertisement is a little off-target (having been written by an intellectual with a third-person view) but his struggle with failure seems so true.

Locked in with a society which would never admit its failures, the Salesman struggles to keep himself afloat in a sea of lies that he hopes to sell to the world and to himself. His only ambition is acceptance into a mythical realm of winners,which he hopes he could grasp by the successful sale of lies...

But the very act of sale is a lie...to sell the lie you have to believe the lie yourself-the lie that a sale of a lie is a shot at immortality.It doesn't take much to see that there is no glory in the sale-two large pegs can tell the Salesman that...but once he is into it there is no turning back. Nor are there second chances...

The tale of the Salesman's family is worse. They inherit the lies and take the baton even as they see the lies fall apart. Their doubts will soon be blown away by the society they live in. The wife weaps cries of freedom at the grave of the Salesman on the payment of the mortgage...a sign that the race with no end is on again.

My Penguin book's introduction says that someone called the play, on it's opening night, "a time bomb under American capitalism"

This was Arthur Miller's reponse- "...or at least under the bullshit of capitalism; this pseudo life that thought to touch the clouds by standing on top of a refrigerator... waving a paid up mortgage at the Moon, victorious at last..."

Got to go now! Client on the phone!

42

Somewhere in the vicinity of 2: 30 pm of the Sunday afternoon of June 3,2007 a familiar voice called me up to announce - "I hold in my hands as I speak to you,number 21 in the series of 42 ..Arjuna in Indraloka"

It seems ages ago...

The beginning of every month, in those long ago times, entailed an evening visit to Mylapore with my grandmother. The idea was to buy a pair of bananas and a coconut and offer it up to a god -the first expenditure of the month...the month's second expenditure invariably turned out to be a book for me (through sheer pester power) These book buying expeditions took my grandmother and I to the seemingly endless numbers of magazine/devotional books/college school textbook shops of Mylapore.

I must have been around six years old when I kicked off this Amar Chitra Katha Maharbharata obsession of mine, almost by accident. I bought a book called "Enter Karna' at the magazine shop just across the Luz Terminus Bus Stand, for Rs 4.50- the entire book budget for the month (I could have borrowed some 2 Enid Blytons with a bunch of Tinkles to boot, for that much money at my 'lending library')

I kept it back but my grandmother, for once in her life, was actually ready to give me so much money because Karna happened to be her favorite character in the story. ( I later figured out that Karna has the largest female fan following in India when it comes to mythological characters...if any one remembers them anymore that is)

Like most things that I am obsessed with for a lifetime now, I hated the Amar Chitra Katha Mahabharata at the beginning. The illustration was very different from those of the friendly cartoonish Tinkle. The language was a bit abstruse at times and the style given to slipping into poetry now and then. Worse, there were so many characters I had no clue about...(Chitrangadha?)

I couldn't figure out what on earth was going on but one image haunted me ... Indra clouds out the Sky as he watches a young Arjuna perform amazing feats and the stadium is dark and foreboding- a little patch clears up in one corner of the frame and sunlight streams through, shining on one man alone- Karna... I was hooked! I was doomed now to an obsessive search that broke completely loose when Doordarshan, as if by wilful intent, started off with it's Mahabharat series that very year (or was it the next?)

Gita Devotional Books Stores1 and 2, Vijaya Textbooks, Baba Bookstore, assorted book exhibitions...all endured monthly Rs 5 budget visitations from the two of us (later upped to Rs 10 and Rs 15 as the obsession reached its peak and the search for every successive title became more and more difficult). Obviously the books were bought in no real order and any that wasn't part of the collection yet was grabbed at -so what if one was "Enter Drona" and the other "Drona in Command" (the one where he dies i.e.)?

The Maharbaharta, hence, unfolded for me as a jigsaw puzzle put together by the finding of numbered pieces in endless heaps of "Devotional Books" every month ( If not for the possession of some prior knowledge transferred during bed time stories by various people, I am sure my interpretation of the Mahabharata would have been very modern and Tarantinoesque)

So it continued for almost 4 years...I now had 41 of the 42 issues -there was one missing- 21 of 42- Arjuna in Indraloka...I tried very hard to find it...but none of my usual sources had it (one offered to get me the tamizh version)..all in vain!Anyways, I knew what happened to Arjuna in Indraloka ( he gets cursed) so I resigned myself to the futility of the search.

The 41 volumes were bound together as 4 volumes (in order) and I got to read the great story for the first time in the chronology it would want its reader to adhere to.

A little later, Amar Chitra Katha stopped bringing out Rs 5 titles and decided to reinvent itself as a glossy Rs 2o (plus?) series composed mainly of its 'bestsellers'. The Mahabharata definitely wasn't one of those... (I can't think of too many people hunting around for all 42 like I once did)...and so all hopes of getting the elusive 21st were given up with a sad finality...

Now I have all 42...20 years after!

PS1. This is ACK's website updated for the modern times with all ACK idiosyncracies intact -where dark skinned people are purple in colour and even rakshasas talk poetry

Ps2. The Mahabharata, Arjuna, Bheema...as you can see I think of these neither as Arjun, Bheem etc nor as Arjunan, Bheeman etc...don't know how many exist this way- belonging neither here nor there ('there' being a huge majority which claims cultural superiority for the 'article free' versions of these names). My love affair with these names however continues defying all cultural anchors!

Exercise in Poetry Appreciation (or) Whosurdaddy

The Name is an Incantation;
An exclamation on the face of ancient men,
Looking up at thundering skies
Whispering dark secrets from
The god to ear to the ear of the Priest,
Who wonders in mute amazement,
At the will of the demons...
His heart beating faster,
His legs drenched in the golden rains
That the Name evokes.

It is an ancient secret, this Name;
That travels through souls in the kiss of lovers
Entwined in amorous touches.
In wide eyed dreams of unknown lights,
Like the light of the setting sun
Embraced by darkness,
As the God Queen follows
In her large wooden boat,
Sails filled with the eastern wind
Down the western abyss
Off the river, Off the sea
Off the horizon, Off the flat
End of the world,
Off the waking edge of her eternal sleep
As She follows the Sun down and down.

The black knight knows,
The Red Queen wonders
At her ancient quest
Her sacred lust;
Among visiting heroes
And snake bitten lovers...
Among shadow ghosts that once had lied
And sinned between husbands;
Moaning out loud

In the very depths of love,
Never looking back
Aided by a clue
She searches for the Name
And whispers its power...

And says it again;
Like the sound of fire
A warning for approaching death
Fearful of what dreams may come
At the misty headed glimpse
Of the cavernous dark
Sticky black pit
Of after-life;
Like the mouth of a monster
Beneath his bed
The Name...
She says

Into ears that are far away
Hearing him breathe
Hearing the silence
Revolving around him...
Listening to the quiet stillness
Of a sleeping love
Engulfed by the illusion
And whispers...
The stillness responds
She grasps the illusion
And descends into
Comfortable sleep
Like a serpent’s tongue
In the blades of grass

“Grindhouse” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Tell your mother you were over at your friend’s house doing homework, and be sure to tell your friends at school about the severed limbs, the exploding heads and the naked you-know-whats.

More reasons to love my daily dose of NYT on the mail! Seen above is the way they end their review of the Rodriguez-Tarantino B movie tribute.

The movie might never get released here- but doesn't a movie like this beg to be seen on a pirated DVD made from a stealthy camera that is very often inflicted by dark shadows of people getting up and moving around?

That's the modern equivalent of Grindhouse movie watching isn't it?

Ironic?

Caller Tune

What happens to sentences and jokes
Word interplay and phrasings
Puns and unusual occurrences
News propagated from ear to ear
Gossip Green and Utterly Blue
Feed and static
Angst and Anxiety
What happens to Words
Unuttered
When the phone is unanswered?

Radio Gaga

Since January, I have been working as a ‘casual announcer’ for the rather quaint All India Radio, FM Rainbow, Goa.
They had advertised for RJs on their channel and I happened to hear one such announcement by chance and I applied. After auditions, written tests and the payment of a training fee I became what I had always longed to be- a government employee!

AIR, Goa is a charming old fashioned place, as laid back as the place it is in and caught in a time warp from the late 70s. Its RJs still play most of their material from LPs, the advertisements come in long twisted tapes and the top 10 artists played through the week –every week-would include such Billboard Superstars as Engelbert, Cliff Richard, Lobo, MLTR…

Program nomenclature is quite unique too-Siesta Time (I have Rjed this one!), Jazz hour, Retro Choice, A Hard Day’s Night, Mid-day Magic (and this one!)…you get the gist!

Like everything else in Goa, AIR Panaji, has precious little that is in common with the rest of the country… with the exception of an umbilical air wave connect to AIR, Delhi which they link to during cricket matches and siesta/sleep hours. They are absolutely non commercial when it comes to programming and the RJ is given complete creative freedom to play his/her material. (The reason why I get away with playing more Bowie than Blunt for the past one month)
At the same time they are stuffed with request programs and diligently hunt out every song that is requested for and play it. However Goa being Goa, the requested songs fall 99.9% of the time within a collection of around 25 albums that are kept ready in the duty room (refer to Lobo, MLTR, Engelbert …)

In this idyllic environment, some ‘demon-heads’ are slowly peeping in. There’s Ad Labs and Radio Mirchi setting up world class studios (they have more CDs than LPs!) and there are rumors of at least one more Big player coming in very soon.
These stations will be unabashedly commercial as they have always been and will in addition be ruthless, greedy and well,professional.
They have already poached on AIR’s announcers luring them in with packages these people had never dreamed of. Needless to say, some of the announcers fled straight back to AIR after a bitter experience with the new payola led economy these players were ushering into Goa. One announcer told me he found the new players ‘unethical’.
What is most ‘objectionable’ about these players is that they want full-time employees’ not casual announcers (boo!)

What does interest me though is that with so many new players what would become of the Goa radio scene. There are few locals who drive around listening to the radio and the tourists are stuck to taxis and the two-wheeled ‘pilots’ as far as travel goes and would, if in their right minds, rather party at a beach than listen to radio commercials. Maybe, a company like Adlabs would fit every taxi with a radio and tune them onto Adlabs 24*7…

The reason for the advent of these players lies in the history of FM station licensing to private players. The license obliges them to open FM stations in every A, B, C,D city in sequence. (A class includes the metros etc, while Goa is a D class city, with population less than 2 million). Now that these channels operate in all the A to C cities they Have to start off in Goa and it's euqivalents. 

Maybe, the much maligned 2011 plan for Goa,is what the likes of Adlabs are betting on- the real estate boom to get them the right consumers from nearby Mumbais, Punes and Bangalores. Everyone's yet to find out…

As far as ad revenues on radio go, FM Rainbow, Goa, struggles to make more than 20 lacs a year while even a nearby Kolhapur makes close to a crore.

Whatever their plan is AIR, Panaji is not too bothered yet. They still have the old LIC ad to play followed by the new Twist tonic water ad.

Coming up next is Cliff Richard with “Summer Holiday” requested by Maria, John and their friends and you are listening to the FM Rainbow Service of All India Radio Panaji…Stay tuned!!!

Have I got the Romance Novel formula right?- An experiment

As she waited out the signal, in the stifling heat of a crossroads at New Delhi, her ears filled with the incessant chatter of a radio jockey, Neha Shindey realized that this was perhaps going to be the most important day of her career. For three long years after her MBA, she had battled it out with the wiliest and the shrewdest businessmen, retailers, stockists and their ilk, growing her father's small soap firm to an adequately well-known name in the Delhi suburbs. The journey hadn't been easy but she felt like a champion nevertheless.

She pushed back her soft black hair behind her ears and scrutinized herself in the rearview mirror. Petite and pleasant looking, Neha Shindey had large brown eyes and a doe like complexion. While women her age were busy tending to their role as housewives, she had remained resolutely single, and, to the perplexion of her parents, happy.

But behind her petite looks was an iron resolve to make the world her own. She loved a challenge and the bigger it got the better she felt. Perhaps, that was why she refused offers from consulting firms and huge banks that her colleagues at B School would give up worldly existence for. Instead she chose her father’s small factory. Now, after three years, she had no regrets. Most of her B School friends earned every month what was probably quite a good part of her small firm’s quarterly profits- but she was working for no one but herself and that made her feel like an achiever.
She had just finished parking her faithful Maruti in the company lot when her mobile rang.
"Good morning, Madam. A Mr.Rohan Patel has been waiting in your office to meet you for quite some time and wanted to know if you would be coming in soon". "I'll be right up, thank you Anita", she answered. As she strode into the building, respectfully greeted by her employees, she wondered what Rohan Patel, marketing manager of the most powerful players in the industry would want with her. She nodded at her secretary, Anita, and entered her modest office.
A tall, dark gentleman dressed in an expensive Italian suit rose up to greet her. "I'm sorry for having kept you so long", she apologized. "I was held up in the traffic".

She caught Rohan looking around her little office with an amused eye. Maybe, she thought, he was wondering how an almost insignificant place like this could throw up any sort of challenge to a big league player like his company. After all, she had quietly eaten off close to 2% of their market share in just 15 months.
“Let me get to the matter right ahead Ms Neha”, he said as he sat down in the chair opposite to hers in the small cubicle. “We have been observing your company’s growth for a while now and we would be extremely interested in a strategic partnership that would help us both grow together.”Neha was intelligent enough to figure out what that meant. They wanted to buy her out.

Cleopatra’s bath

A few months back, while browsing through a rather quaint collection of historical essays at a library, I came across this probably incomplete but most definitely amusing piece by a famous Egyptologist. The subject of the essay being of common interest, I thought it would please you to see this essay here. Here goes…

“Cleopatra was born in 69 BC, in Alexandria, Egypt. People say today, that she was glamorous and beautiful, but she was far from it. In her early years she has, as shown on ancient forged coins, an extraordinarily long hooked nose and features that would have been noted by any great poet as close to masculine. She was also overweight, quite short and she never trimmed her finger nails.

(Now you ask me a very pertinent question –“If she was NOT as beautiful as everyone else wants us to believe she was, then, how on earth did she manage to do all that she so ably did?” “She was clearly a very seductive woman”, you tell me, “Caesar and Antony would vouch for that. She had a really pretty nose–what with Bacon’s famous nose quip and...then of course... there’s Shakespeare and Elizabeth Taylor not to discount the lavish praises of a venerable Gaulish druid.”)

Now for some more facts…again this is completely historical. She had a beautiful musical voice. It is also said that she was highly intelligent. She spoke nine different languages, and she was the first Ptolemy pharaoh who could actually speak Egyptian.

(Better? Not quite I see... The fact that despite all this, I was bold enough to state that she was ugly, rankles... Well, history is faulty because no one believes in the role of magic in history. Or of Gods or of anything else that they cant be explained away using cold rational logic and shards of broken pottery and ruins of ancient toiletries. So I beseech you to remain patient and listen to my story. At the end of it, I promise you, all will be well).

She ascended the Egyptian throne after her father, Ptolemy Xll Auletes died in 51 BC. Cleo, who was seventeen at the time and her brother Ptolemy Xlll, who was twelve, were married because of the terms of her father's will. In the third year of their reign Ptolemy’s advisers told him that he should rule Egypt by himself. They felt that their King and Queen, who were both quite heavy as such, were consuming too much of the great Nile’s yearly produce all by themselves. So the little fifteen year old good- for -nothing resolved to drive away his twenty year old wife or whatever it was that he called her. Result- Cleo was exiled and being the resourceful twenty year-old that she was, she escaped to Syria.

So far so good…now come the unbelievable parts i.e. the parts that are unhistorical, unproven, and inexplicable- hence –the truth. It was in Syria that Cleo took the first of her historical baths. The Cleopatra Bath, as it is often called.

During the fourth week of her stint at Syria, an old crone visited Cleo in her dreams. On her bent shoulders she carried a sachet of camel’s leather. For a full five minutes she pillaged within the sachet muttering and cursing all the while in some barbaric language. Kanathos, she kept saying as she continued in her mysterious search. Finally, she found a flask of clay which she kept quietly on the table beside which Cleo slept. “Kanathos of the reborn virgin”, she said, “shall change history again”.

Cleo woke up at once. Like every hero of every great tale she knew at once that her dream was a holy one. She looked around her. Sure enough, there beside her bed on the ivory table was the flask of clay. On the flask were engraved some careful instructions

“Spring of Kanathos TM- User’s instructions
· Use ONE drop (10 ml) of Spring water TM with your bath water
· Soak in above mix for one hour
· For best results repeat procedure next day, every day
· Keep away from children, Romans, Gods, immortals, other women and the Sun
· Store in a cool place”

Twenty servants were immediately summoned and some assorted slaves filled a tub large enough and deep enough for the youthful queen to splash around in her enormous bulk. In she went and 10 ml of Kanathos was added…

Cleo then returned to Egypt with an army. Ptolemy sent an army to meet her. At this point, Julius Caesar of Rome arrived in pursuit of his enemy, who was seeking help from Ptolemy. So Cleo took a small boat, and one only of her confidants, Apollodorus, the Sicilian, along with her, and in the dusk of the evening, rolled up in a Persian rug,

Cleopatra was delivered to Caesar. "Greetings to Caesar from Egypt!" Cleo saluted Caesar. Cleopatra provided Caesar with ample time to observe and admire her scanty, tight, black, shiny dress revealing her full arms, abdomen, hips, back and legs, where the large slits parted...

Cleopatra's body language and clothing were obviously sexual. With her sleepy, alluring eyes she leaned back and laughed seductively. She sauntered as she walked in front of Caesar, she walked behind his seat and leaned towards him, all the while smiling slyly as if she disclosed some little secret…

(“Hold on a minute!” you shout “Just a few paragraphs back this woman was anything but full arms and abdomen…she was well rounded to say the least and there were bits about her nose being too long etc…You mean to say that silly dream with a Kanathos flask did all this to her?”

All I can say is I am narrating history as it is. Maybe somebody tore out quite a few pages in between in the chapter.

For all you know the time period between the bath and the carpet banging is almost a year or more and a well rounded woman would have after some good aerobic training come around to be exactly the kind of abdomen any man wanted.

But then, there are accounts that Cleo’s stay at Syria lasted for all of two months which would then negate my above hypothesis... So history is as usual confused here and the secret most definitely lies in the myth of the Cleopatra Bath. Anyhow, after this key incident every one seems to drool infinitely about Cleo, while of course, before it, its all about how poets were just so wrong about her infinite variety-infinite maybe yes, variety no way…etc)

Afterwards, in 47 BC , when Ptolemy Xlll drowned in the Nile while trying to escape the armies of Caesar and Caesar restored Cleo to her throne, Cleo and Caesar went on a two-month cruise on the Nile. (She later gave birth to a son. His name was officially Ptolemy XV Caesar, but he was popularly called Caesarian.). Now it is during this cruise that the myth of the Cleopatra Bath spread to the Roman world and gained its legendary status. Accounts by slaves that have survived the ravages of time, much like the legends of Cleo’s beauty, give us a glimpse, though perhaps apocryphal, of the modus operandi of the Cleopatra Bath.

“And soaked in the light of mirrors with that mystic drop from Kanathos
She waddled and splashed, gaily she thrashed
Pearls and oysters, clay mud and sud
Sacred baubles and bubbles as in the bath she gurgles”

(This is just a little bit of what is legible in the books of the ancient Slave rhymes, found later in the most appropriately titled compendium “Favorite bath time ditties of the ancient world” by philanthropist, slave trader, banana baron, dreadful gambler, the Lord Kashnen of Eckleburry woods, Surry, England, 1835-1899.)

So much for the Cleopatra Bath- after this point in history the details are murky and mixed up and the Bath never features again prominently anywhere-except once. The role of the Bath this time is just as pivotal, life affirming, mysterious and ridiculous as the previous times –only now it’s also extremely tragic.

On March 15, 44 BC a crowd of conspirators surrounded Caesar at a Senate meeting and stabbed him to death. Cleo, who had been living in Rome for a year then, knew that she was also in danger. So she quickly left Rome with her protectors. Before or immediately after their return to Egypt, Ptolemy XIV died and she then made Cesarean, her son, co-regent.

Caesar's assassination caused lacking in a ruler and civil war in Rome. Eventually the empire was divided among three men -Caesar's great-nephew Octavian, who later became the emperor Augustus, Marcus Lepidus and Marcus Antonius, or better known as Mark Antony.

In 42 B.C. Mark Antony called for Cleo to Tarsus, to question her about whether she had assisted Caesar’s enemies. The Lady arrived in style on a barge with a gilded stern, purple sails, and silver oars. The boat was sailed by her maids, who were dressed as sea nymphs. Cleo herself was dressed as Venus, the goddess of love. She reclined under a gold canopy, fanned by boys in Cupid costumes. Antony was hooked.

The story that ensued is quite famous-how Antony became a useless wimp who did nothing but lie around with Cleo, how Cleo thought that they were both Divine, how the people of Rome got disgusted with the entire concept of their best general tottering around with some black chick…and of course how the clever Octavian schemed it out to be his best bet to make it to the top of the roman hierarchy.

So, in 31 B.C. Antony's forces fought the Romans in a sea battle off the coast of Actium, Greece. Cleo was there with sixty ships of her own. When she saw that Antony's cumbersome, badly-manned galleys were losing to the Romans' lighter, swifter boats, she left the scene. Antony abandoned his men to follow her. Here, the Cleopatra Bath makes its tragic final appearance- disappearing forever in the mysteries which shrouded it forever.

Antony ran after Cleo, stormed into her palace, into the private chambers, in to her bath…

Through red death, and smoke,

And cries, and then by quieter ways he strode,

Till the still innermost chamber fronted him.

He swung his sword, and crashed into the dim

Luxurious bower, flaming like a god.

So the slave accounts read. And what do you think he saw there?

In the bath sat dark Cleo, lonely and serene.

He had not remembered that she was so square,

And that her neck stumped down in such a way;

And he felt tired.
He flung the sword away,And kissed her limbs, and knelt before her there,

The round Knight before the rounded Queen

Well there you go…Cleo’s bath in fantastic verse and a description of Cleo to spare. Oh yes, as usual the written words are quite unkind to the beautiful lady’s physical appearance…

Anyways by 30 BC, everyone involved in the story was dead, Octavian swore never to talk about this mess and Cleopatra and everything associated with her faded from reality to the realm of legends, myths and fanciful poetry. There hence lies no means of finding out anything ‘real’ about the queen or her bath-time after the era of Antony.”

This is where the essay ends (rather abruptly, I felt).

Good night!

Exile on main street -a trip to memory motel

As I type this, the Rolling Stones are playing in my room- their latest- A Bigger Bang ...Jagger launches into a blues song…”I can read it like the back of my haaand…” Patent Stones blues…and sometimes one listens to the Stones for the sheer joy of hearing them play.

And I started wondering…if there ever was one band -just one band that is me....it is the Stones

I discovered them quite late…but they have stayed on

Surprisingly, The Stones, I guess, were never a big thing in India.

I never met a Rolling Stones fan while in college or even later (and my college was brimming with rock fans who knowingly discussed why RUSH just did not sound like a three piece band and how Deep Purple Mach 1 was the father of prog rock... these were highly knowledgeable people who awed little college uncools with their rock and roll snobbery).

Rock and roll was during my times at engineering college the ultimate expression of intellectual rebelliousness (I Am sure it still is somewhere or the other).

Still...no one was a Stones fan... The Stones were considered wierd rebellious good for nothings who roamed around in leather jackets, had sex all the time and were the corrupting influence on ‘good music’.

I was one of them for a long time. I avoided the Stones for most of my early rock years trying so hard to belong to this and that-my tastes and opinions swaying with every album I heard and every review I read

Then one day after some three years of this rock and roll apprenticeship- I picked up this cassette with an odd cover- scrawling on an yellow dirt wall -scrawling I really couldn’t read cause the picture was too small on the cassette cover- Beggar's Banquet said the graffiti on the wall.

Let’s give this band that no one listens to a chance...So enter cassette into my music system. The room door closes for a ‘listening session’. Volume turned high enough to get the “nuances”.

“Pleaaaased to meet you hope you get myyyyyyy name” threatens this quaint voice with a really weird accent as the band goes ‘woooowooooo” endlessly in the background and a guitar that sounds as weird as the singer churns out some ominous sounding sounds…

Haunting harmonica at the end of one dirty number asking a parachute woman to land on the weird voiced gent…bursting into a mix of sitar, twanging guitars and vague percussion aimed at a street fighting man…and people don’t like this band???

I start hunting for Stones albums. An 'American 'cousin gets me Exile on Main Street. An 18-song album with a collage of strange black and white photographs on its cover -The album sounds like some one very drunk had recorded it. You couldn’t hear anything right. The whole thing's a confused mess of the weird sounding voice and guitars and trumpets and saxophones. Everyone around me hated it. I LOVED it.

“Stop breaking down, mama, please, stop breaking down!!!” ... those guitars and the 'feel' of two very drunk guys screaming old blues lyrics …

Well after that it was a journey...my musical tastes expanded and changed and changed back ...The Stones remained while many bands fell off as adolescent indulgences.

The Stones just stayed on.

They can be world-weary and lecherous, misogynist and drunk, wise and raucous, incoherent and brilliant-all at the same time and could rock you like nobody else could or can...this was a band that played MY music-that appealed to ME . And what with so many people around me still remaining Stones-averse they soon became My Band.

That tired voice that sings the blues and filth with equal ease, that guitar that shimmers and moans , that golden age when Taylor was around, that trumpets and the saxophones that blare every time a brown girl gets whipped,that Jazz obsessed drummer, that dead band member whose genius no one refutes and whose departure no one mourns, that one band that makes you believe in them- that they don't play to make a hit but because they are what they are...and you listen to them for the sheer joy of hearing them play...

The CD has come to an end-time to press repeat...